ars_arcantum's review of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin.

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is an odd experiment that I appreciate in its audacity but am disappointed in its execution. Effectively, it's a reimagining of the world introduced way back in the original Final Fantasy but told as a kind of prequel that explains how the world came to be. It's kind of neat but at every turn the game fails to attach any meaning or stakes to its lofty concepts. The characters are extremely one-note and even in the cheesiness of it all, its ironic confidence still comes off unearned because no effort is made to give anything any weight or meaning. Jack would work better as a one-note protagonist hell bent on his singular goal of destroying Chaos at any cost if he were contrasted against a group of characters that had ANY personality at all. Ash, Jed, Neon, and Sophia completely blend together and have no personality distinction between one another. Even the mysterious Astos is only slightly interesting. Gameplay wise, it's a very solid action game with a robust jobs system and plenty of cool enemies to hack away at. Some of the outfit designs are really cool but its really easy to get bogged down in inventory-overload with all the different outfit combinations you can create (90% of all drops from enemies are clothing or weapons). Boss fights are probably the highlight of the whole entire game. While each level serves as a nod to other Final Fantasy games and thats really cool, the actual level design is extremely uninspired. Everything looks the same, you're bound to get lost more than a few times. SoP is a neat idea but kinda falls on its face for having not much else going on. I know a lot of people are leaning into the "so bad it's good" factor and I can see that to an extent, but it's not even SO bad that I feel like it even succeeds at being that. It's just kinda half-baked. There's good stuff here but man it really could've used a few more revisions. Can't say I really recommend it.