Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin Famitsu Interview Offers Additional Details

Following the game’s announcement at E3, Weekly Famitsu held an interview with Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin Creative Producer Tetsuya Nomura, Producer Jin Fujiwara, and Director Daisuke Inoue. Square Enix shared an official translation of the interview, which provided plenty of details about the game.

As the announcement alluded to, Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin is based on the setting of Final Fantasy I. The game is intended as a new story without any direct connections. Jack, Ash, and Jed are deliberately designed to evoke a different appearance than “traditional” Warriors of Light and hint that they are from a different world.

The Chaos Shrine visited in the game’s trial version is one of its earlier areas. The game will feature more allies, though players will be restricted to a party of three and will be able to swap party members around. The developers are aiming to keep the balance challenging but not punishing, with a lenient penalty for dying. The game will also include a Casual mode for players unfamiliar with action games.

The trial version contains three weapon types — great sword, mace, and spear — with five more to be included in the full game — one-handed sword, axe, knuckles, daggers, and katana. Certain weapons, such as the mace and one-handed sword, allow players to use magic. In the full game, players will be able to change their allies’ equipment and influence their growth, with the developers planning to investigate whether to allow players to give them commands in battle.

Naoshi Mizuta (Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIII-2) is confirmed as the main composer for Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin, with Hidenori Iwasaki (Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles) and Ryo Yamazaki (World of Final Fantasy) also contributing. The game is being developed with Koei Tecmo’s Team Ninja studio and is set to release for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC in 2022. Following an initial issue with the release of a PlayStation 5 trial version, Square Enix revealed that the trial version’s availability will be extended to 14:59 UTC on June 26, 2021.