This is my second post about Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (Team Ninja), what I like and don’t like about it. I found watching the demo campy and enjoyable, so I bought it when it was half off. I have been playeng Elden Ring almost exclusively since the Shadow of the Erdtree drop, so this was my way of branching out. Here is the first post in which I felt I barely scratched the surface.
I was rambling on about how the level design was clearly infuriated to From’s in many ways. The biggest is that, at least for me, there is not the subtle nudging in the direction they want you to go. Every time I went into a new room, I was immediately confused as to how I got there and where I was going. Again, that might just be me, but every door looks the same. Every corridor is the exact same as the one before it. I have been turned around so many times, it’s frustrating. This is how I find all their games, by the way. I mentioned that one of the reason I quit Wo Long halfway through (right as I got to the capital) was because in the area before it, I just could not find my way. It was so fucking frustrating, and I’m finding it so in this game as well.
Also, the loot. So much loot. All the loot. Way too much loot. Seriously, the game could cut it by 70%, and it would not be missed. This is an area in which I don’t think any game gets it right. I mean, none of the games I’ve played (which, admittedly, isn’t many) have gotten it right–including From. They do it better than most, but I will admit that even there I often just ignore the stuff I pick up. Why? Because 75% of it is not going to be anything I can use. I get that’s the way of these games because it would probably be too much work to make the drops specific to the class, but it can be pretty deflating to go through a dozen new items and not want a single one.
This is that weird thing about choice in that the more choice you have, the less you want to choose anything. Or the more worried you are about making the wrong choice. I am someone who can regret every choice I have ever made so I appreciate when I have less choices to make. The problem, though, is more the illusion of choice. Team Ninja throws all these items at you, but it really doesn’t matter which you pick (within a group of things, I mean). As I mentioned in the last post, I’m not a min-maxer, so I’m not going to fiddle with incremental gains and losses.
What’s a positive about the game? The combat is decent. Well, it is and it isn’t. I like that you can switch easily between two different jobs and that the weapons level up as you use them. That was true in the previous games as well. There was a deeper blacksmithing system as well, but I never got exactly how it worked. And, at some certain point, I did not care.
I remember in playing the first Nioh, I was struggling along and trying to click with it. I got to a point where I fought a boss over and over and could not kill her. I wanted to leave her, go somewhere else, and farm to grind out some levels. Well, in the Team Ninja games, you can’t leave a mission without losing all your progress. I hate that so much, I can’t express my loathing for it. That meant I could only grind in the area I was in, which I did not want to do. What was I grinding for? I don’t remember, but I wanted to go back to an easier earlier area in order to get it much less painfully.
I was using the Brute Axe I had picked up in the beginning–by the way, I thought I had made it halfway through the game, but I found out it was only a third of the way–and it was serving me well. I can’t remember what my backup weapon was, but neither were getting the job done on this boss. I reluctantly switched to the Odachi, didn’t change anything else, and destroyed the boss in less than a minute; it wasn’t even close. That was what made me quit the game, which I know sounds ridiulously. Isn’t it great that I was able to kill the boss so effortlessly? And, sure, I get that different bosses are weak to different things, but it should not have made that stark of a difference between my axe and the odachi.
I was trying to do a mage build (of course), and it just didn’t feel worth it. I Googled a bit and found out that mage didn’t really work until later–even more so with the second game. That may or may not be true, but it certainly felt that way to me.
With this game, being a mage is…fine. I don’t love that the way to change what magic you’re using is by hitting RT and then pushing the LS in one of four directions (water, fire, earth, wind). You can hold it down to charge as well. I think if stays on the last one you used, but I’m not 100% sure about that. So far, it’s fine.
What I don’t like, and again, this might be on me, is the combo shit. First of all, it was nearly impossible to pull them off in the tutorial. Secondly, my brain doesn’t remember shit like that. I tried to do one of the Devils May Cry (Capcom) games and did not get along with it at all. Does it look cool? Sure. Am I good at it? Nope! There are combos in Monster Hunter World (also Capcom), but you can play both/either game without learning the combos. At least you can the latter. I really did not get along with the former (I’m pretty sure it was V).
My brain shuts down when faced with a zillion things I can do. I laugh indulgently at Rory not being able to have more than four (or however many) spells because it’s too much for him, but I feel the same about combos. I still don’t get how to link actions. I think it’s just if you do a certain set of buttons in a certain order, you get the action that is ‘linked’ to it. I would prefer if you could link/bind it to a certain button instead, but apparently that’s not possible.
This is the end of part two, and there will probably be a part three.