STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN

This is one of my favorite games that nobody played. The game is a pretty loose retelling of Final Fantasy 1 with some plot shenanigans. Its one of those so-bad-its-good scripts where the developers must have truly thought they were making a cool and mature character, but in reality Jack is an edgy goofball who is a bro and will skip cutscenes for you and shout about how much he wants to kill Chaos. The gameplay is fast-paced and can feel a little punishing at first until you find your footing, but with a large selection of jobs, combos, abilities and passives you have plenty of options to beat the game and even bully the system later on with some creative build-making. Has a DLC later on that makes use of previous content/areas with increasing difficulty as you climb and random challenges/modifiers. This gives it good replay value while refining your builds. You can co-op almost the entirety of this game's story and post content. There's only a handful of missions (<5 or so) that you have to do solo. If you like silly, campy stories with fun combat systems, definitely grab two friends and experience this together.

I’m going to start by saying the initial marketing for this game did not do it any justice and makes people (myself included) write this off as a meme-y game. While it does have some meme worthy moments, the story is actually quite solid with lots of vague lore hints throughout to help string you along and keep you interested. I feel at times the storytelling was betrayed by awkward cutscenes and animation but it still produced a solid and enjoyable plot. The gameplay is a ton of fun and the job system actually goes quite deep the more you level each of them. I personally didn’t find the base game difficult as someone who’s played other Team Ninja games of this genre but the game leans more into the hack-and-slash RPG rather than “souls-like” as people are lead to believe. This changes once you reach the DLC’s though. The game has a significant difficulty spike causing you to really fine-tune your build and delve into the more “complex” parts of the games gear system such as affinity building and gear fusing, especially for the second DLC which for me, sadly was a repetitive slog to get through. It is nice to feel the results of your grind and build-making once you gather and level everything you need to make your build work though. That being said, I did enjoy the first and third DLC's. As for performance, it’s pretty good for the most part. It runs well but when performing a soul burst the game can randomly go in slow motion for a couple seconds which can prove to be a hindrance. I definitely recommend the game, especially if you enjoy Final Fantasy, even more so FF1. If you’re on the fence then perhaps waiting for a sale would be a good idea. I achieved the 100% and enjoyed most of the journey towards getting that.

Quite similar to Khazan. A pseudo-souls-like with lower difficulties if you just want a flashy action game without the fuss. You have active and passive abilities, class skill trees, randomised equipment with levels and rarities, a stun / stance bar that gives you a repose and acts as a second win condition if the enemy has too much health, and a world map that splits levels up instead of having them part of a semi open world. Main issue for me is the signature gank-fest that most souls-likes love. Stuffing 10 bats, 3 fire bomb dudes and a Gryphon mini-boss into one room isn't fun to overcome, just frustrating. Luckily it's not as bad as some other games, since you have very usable ranged options with the mage having ranged AOE attacks to clear such encounters easier. But it's still not fun.

It's a pretty good Nioh-like with a fun take on Final Fantasy's job system, maybe a little more on the casual side till you unlock the post game and sometimes a little cringe but a good game

This game completely reframes the story of the first Final Fantasy. You’ll never look at the Warriors of Light or Garland the same ever again. Phenomenal story and a cast of characters that pairs perfectly with it. The most edgy game in the series has won my heart a million times over.

This game is so much fun. As a massive FF fan it was awesome seeing dungeons and areas from the series with some amazing remixes from Naoshi Mizuta himself! Some areas are truly amazing looking and have a ton of atmosphere. The combat is extremely fun and the amount of job classes is crazy! I've been enjoying trying a bunch of the classes out. I really don't get what the hate is for this game. Jack is one of the funniest protags in the series and it makes for some really funny cutscenes with him just not wanting to deal with any BS or monologuing. The game runs wonderfully at 1440p 120fps with DLSS on with a few minor bumps due to whatever the hell they got going on when doing some of the finishers. No crashes tho! Grab this game on sale and give it a go!! I may try the Nioh games after this. I can say without a doubt, SoP has the best action combat in the whole series and the game truly opens up even more with the DLC ONE OF THE BEST FF SPIN OFF GAMES EVER!!!

DIdn't expect much. Am absolutely having a good time switching between and leveling each of the combat styles and getting in the flow of combat. The story is just present enough and doesn't overshadow the gameplay at all. On the Steam Deck this is a perfect pick up, play, stop at a checkpoint if needed, pick up and continue experience. If you want a Final Fantasy themed action game, this is it, it's fun and it does work on steam deck as long as you are using Proton GE to fix the cinematic instability. There has only been on stage so far where I've needed to reduce the texture to low for it to load properly but otherwise I've been pleasantly surprised with this one. Other than that my general recommendation would be to lock the game to 30 fps on the deck, but set the deck's cap to 60 and use lossless scaling to get smooth presentation (I have not noticed much artifacting or input delay from this title when doing this but everyone's experiences will vary). I have not tried this on my laptop but am including the specs as it should be more than enough for this title.

Очень крутая боевка и нет жопоразрывающей сложности и перегруженности механик как в Нио. Играется как смесь сосалика и дьяблы

我和四个影帝队友还有谜语人男友的冒险故事

/v/ turned this game into a meme and then memed it so hard that I eventually caved and played it just to see what the deal was. Turns out it's actually pretty good and worth a purchase if you like action RPGs and/or Nioh but don't want the Team Ninja brand nad crusher turned up quite so high. Bonus points for bookending the story with Frank Sinatra's "My Way" and having it *work*.