In these days we have had the opportunity both to find out in more detail and to get our hands on Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin , a new game by Square Enix but developed by Team Ninja , a well-known development house that has also worked on Ni-Oh ( if you are curious to know ours about it, here is the review ). This is why Stranger of Paradise made us turn on the light bulb, especially considering the subtitle “Origin”: origins of what? The question arose almost spontaneously and, in a historical period in which multiverses are almost the norm, we tried to connect the dots. What we will report to you are only theories or ideas to start from ,a chat between fans to understand if something bigger and more complex is really hiding behind this new project. Before going into detail, however, we remind you that if you are curious to know how we found the demo, here is our dedicated preview.

The origins of what?

To start we have to take a huge step back, since at first it was thought that Stranger of Paradise was a full-fledged prequel to the first Final Fantasy. However, as confirmed by the developers themselves , the title will be a sort of reinterpretation of the original story , which will be reinterpreted and handled differently. In any case, the narrative incipit is the following: the world has been invaded by Darkness, an essence that has managed to corrupt even the power of the crystals. The people of Cornelia, the kingdom to which the protagonists refer, have begun to investigate the issue, attributing this threat to Chaos, an entity still lacking in appearance that must be stopped at all costs. If in the first demo the group composed of Jack, Jed and Ash defeated Garland to prevent him from becoming Chaos, in the second part of the trial version we discover instead that behind the mask of this warrior a girl called Neon was hiding . The girl had also left with some companions to eliminate Choas, but remained trapped after the killing of her friends.

The girl declares that, according to some studies, Chaos does not actually exist and is only the result of rumors , so her plan was to become this being and then get killed and restore hope and pride to a people on the brink of collapse. However, Jack, the character you will control, does not think the same way, and more than the others is willing to complete the mission. Neon then decides to join the trio, forming a nice party of 4 and reminding everyone of the words of the prophecy: “When the world is shrouded in darkness, four warriors of Light will arrive”. However, it also emerged that the Stranger of Paradise protagonist’s full name is Jack Garlandwhich, inevitably, leads right to the main villain of the first final fantasy. It is therefore not excluded that it will be poor Jack, in the end, to become Chaos, but it will be necessary to see if it will really be so and how the circumstances will lead him to become the absolute essence of the purest evil.

Chaos is everywhere

Let’s start by saying that we exclude what we just said about Jack, so we remove the possibility that he becomes the “bad guy” from the equation. The protagonists’ clothes are modern clothes, and Jack himself is holding a mobile phone. These two details suggest that the group does not come exactly from that time , but are more akin to Final Fantasy XV style settings. The biggest impression is that the party is “forced” to carry out this mission, perhaps to return to their time and origins. Even in the first Final Fantasy, in fact, the four protagonists are catapulted into that world without knowing why and without having memories of their past., the only objects in their possession are the four crystals they hold in their hands. Once in front of the king, their appearance was then interpreted as the beginning of the prophecy already mentioned above and from that moment the game plot began to develop. The title, however, immediately distances itself from the original work: if in Final Fantasy the group of heroes, aware of being the Warriors of Light, are sent to Garland’s palace to free the princess, in Stranger of Paradise these, in addition to be aware of their status early on, they were sent specifically to destroy Chaos .

Here comes the beauty, since the differences do not end: if the map is practically the same as in Final Fantasy, the Castle of Cornelia is not in the least present and, in the place where it should have been, there is instead that wheat field that it is used as a tutorial when starting the demo. The feeling after seeing the palace of Chaos in its full form and the non-presence of the castle of Cornelia, is that the group is moving into the past to change some things that did not go the right way., perhaps canceling the time loop on which the plot of the first Final Fantasy was based. The latter, in fact, played a lot on different timelines, narrating events that occurred on different levels but which, at the same time, had repercussions on the present. I know that the speech may seem complicated but, net of what emerged, it seems that the protagonists can do the same thing.

So why multiverse?

To answer this question we must first understand the direction that Stranger of Paradise wants to take, given that it is not said that the protagonists can move only and exclusively in that universe. In fact, it cannot be ruled out that Chaos is acting on multiple planes or even on multiple universes, and it is precisely for this reason that they cannot find it. The group could therefore meet other iconic heroes of the saga and end up right inside their universes. This hypothesis is also given by a specific location in the game, namely that of the second demo. The more attentive, in fact, will surely have noticed that this area is very similar to the Sunleth Reserve present in Final Fantasy XIII. This may not say anything, but some users have begun to wonder why areas featured in other major chapters coexist in this Stranger of Paradise.

Adding to the credibility on this thesis is the fact that Producer Fujiwara himself said that the world of the first Final Fantasy was taken as the main source of inspiration, but the game may not connect with the original story . Stranger of Paradise is just a reinterpretation that in some ways modifies the imagery of the saga. By virtue of this and of what we have been able to understand the background of the protagonists, it is natural to think that the quartet can also “connect” to other worlds. Strange of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin so far makes the plot its biggest weapon to fuel the hype of the fans, given that it is not yet clear if the whole thing is something directly connected to the events of the single game, the general saga or the something totally settling, more Dissidia style . The latter, for the uninitiated, is a parallel universe created solely to be a battlefield where the whole world is ruled by two distinct and parallel deities: Cosmos , the goddess of harmony, and the aforementioned Chaos. The latter figure therefore returns often, it will be necessary to see her role in the new Team Ninja production.