Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin (PS5 PS Plus)
Final Fantasy spinoff published by Koei Tecmo and developed by Team Ninja- the makers of Nioh, Wo long and Ninja Gaiden. So, it shares many aspects with the Nioh series- like the loot system. However, it is not a "Souls-like" game really, as the only similarity is the bonfire equivalent. You do not loose XP, you do not have to run back to your death site, there is no stamina bar, and it is party based. It's also far easier than the Nioh games, though maybe harder than regular Final Fantasy.
I really enjoyed this take on Final Fantasy. It is, in fact, a retelling of the story from the first Final Fantasy- which is why it is called Origin. The combat and job classes have a lot of depth to it. Possibly too much if you just want a casual game. It took me quite some time before I really understood what I'm doing. That's not to say that it cannot be played by someone not looking for that amount of depth- the game does have difficulty settings, so I assume casual difficulty would remove much of the need to fully learn the combat system and unlock the advanced job classes. I did end up unlocking all jobs, though by the end I had settled upon my favorite combination of Dark Knight and Sage- the Sage is especially useful as it allows the use of both white and black mage spells of increased ability. The equipment is the real level system in this game, it ties to everything, including the amount of XP you earn with the job classes via the affinity system.
The levels are mission based, just like the Nioh games- probably a bit more linear though. Story is okay, I really don't care about story in action RPG's much anyway- in my opinion a great RPG doesn't even need an overall story, the story can just be the sum of what the player does, just like your real life. The bosses were all easy, but well enough done. Except for the final boss and Tiamat, I defeated them all on the first try.
As mentioned, this is a party-based action game like FF VII Remake. It is far superior in every way. You only control the main character, but you can periodically issue orders to the other team members to be more aggressive and unleash their abilities. This causes the party to draw enemy aggro and allows simple tactics- especially spell casting. This is a far cry from the farcical FF VII Remake where the enemies just chase you around the arena and to get the team to do anything you have to take direct control- then the enemy immediately switches to chasing your newly controlled character. If FF VII Remake used this system, it could actually have been a really decent game.
Now for the bad part. They really dropped their shit in the final mission. I don't mean the story, I already said I don't care about that if the game is fun to play. What I did not like about the final mission is that pretty much everything you learnt along the way means nothing. The game changes from party based to solo which means I had to relearn to play. Mechanics that didn't matter with a party, suddenly became critical. This is what made the final boss so much more difficult, I had to relearn the game. Once I did, the final boss then became easy. I just hate how they rewrote a games worth of rules for the final mission.
Overall, though, it's the best FF game I've played- especially those with action-based combat. FF X is still the best turn-based example.
