Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin - dark fantasy reimagining of FF1 from Team Ninja

[Damned Registrations]

Several more bosses down, Behemoth being the most recent. I think I've mentioned this before about Nioh, but the game's difficulty curve is all wrong. Early game bosses have way more difficult movesets to handle than a lot of the lategame ones. Bikke had a massive and varied moveset AND summoned extra minions into the fight. The elemental core was brutal once it started spawning both elements at once and then changed completely in the second phase. Chimera was a total shitshow of abilitiy spam. Compared to those, stuff like the metal scorpion thing's slow, predictable attacks and the plethora of elemental weaknesses shown in a lot of the later bosses make them a cakewalk. This isn't me getting better at the game, it's the game throwing simpler, weaker enemies at me after I've already handled way more complex and rounded ones.

I finally got around to unlocking the ability to change effects on equipment. I can see the appeal of tinkering with that system; I can imagine making a full set that just makes say, lightning insanely good or something being a huge step up in power, and there's a ton of different ways you could build. Not sure I should go for it though. I'm actually thinking I should maybe make a luck/drop chance set of gear instead for the purpose of farming more materials. Higher level gear doesn't seem to have much better dismantling rewards, so I suppose I may as well just farm some master tonberries or whatever? Or probably just wait for DLC/Postgame stuff, which will likely make all my gear obsolete anyways.

Sage is still miles above other classes I've unlocked so far. Breaker was... kinda meh. I managed to get a decent physical build going for a mission or two though; haste + berserk + some spear skill that could be channeled for extra hits and a passive that made it even faster... that thing was a blender if I managed to set up all the buffs. Unfortunately the weapon became obsolete with levels and enemies became way more likely to just oneshot me so I went back to throwing tornadoes at everything. Juggling everything makes the combat so much safer when you're fighting 4 things at once and they can all one shot you.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I've recently come back to this game to finally play the DLC. I switched from Dragoon to playing as a Red Mage which has been very fun, but I've now unlocked the Blue Mage so I'm gonna try that. Not entirely sure what other Job I'll pair it up with but we'll see. BLU seems like a cool job from its description.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Okay, Astos is 110% pure bullshit. I hate this boss. It feels like a slot machine to get to phase 2. Things this boss can do:

Chain Blizaga, into another Blizaga, forcing you to fucking block a fast AoE attack instantly after you just did that and burnt your break gauge.
Teleport during the animation of previous spells, and follow that teleport up with one of three different moves, resulting in a 50/50 chance of you dying because you blocked instead of dodged or vice versa. Or a 100% chance of dying if your gauge was too low.
Simply spam dark thrust over, and over, and over, and over again until all your buffs have worn off. Then input read when you try to reapply haste and instagib you.
Cast dark thrust at such an angle that the first pair of hits whiff, so when you release the guard and repress to block the second, the timing is wrong because you only have time to do that with the slowdown from the block. So you eat 4 shards and die.
Teleport in such a way as to pin you against a wall while your gauge is low, forcing you to try and evade an attack with iframes. Of course, if you didn't predict this before the attack came out you're too late.

Phase 2 is much, much easier but I keep panicking after it survives an ultima and dying to stupid shit.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Astos is one of the tougher bosses, especially if you are trying to kill him with spells. Taking a bit of time to upgrade your gear via smithing goes a long way to give you the winning edge, however. You don't need to do much either. Just slap your primary attribute (STR, AGI or INT) and maybe some VIT and/or SPT and you'll notice a difference in performance. Primary attributes give you the most bang for your buck and are what you should prioritize. The other % based increases are what you should go for after you've capped your main stats.

Also..

I finally got around to unlocking the ability to change effects on equipment. I can see the appeal of tinkering with that system; I can imagine making a full set that just makes say, lightning insanely good or something being a huge step up in power, and there's a ton of different ways you could build. Not sure I should go for it though. I'm actually thinking I should maybe make a luck/drop chance set of gear instead for the purpose of farming more materials. Higher level gear doesn't seem to have much better dismantling rewards, so I suppose I may as well just farm some master tonberries or whatever? Or probably just wait for DLC/Postgame stuff, which will likely make all my gear obsolete anyways.

I wouldn't bother with luck gear although you could. Once you get to Bahamut difficulty enemies drop loot like candy and you'll be swimming in materials from all the dismantling. There will be other limiting factors that you can't get from merely dismantling stuff. Also the difference between level 300 and level 400 items isn't too big. The game doesn't go too crazy with number inflation. Just keep an eye out for artifact gear, they have two affinities instead of one. Those you can save even if they are level 300 since later on in the DLC content you unlock the ability to fuse items which gives you the ultimate flexibility for item customization.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Okay I take back what I said about phase 2 being easier. Fucker is throwing out INVISIBLE spells. Both types of antimatter are sometimes just... not displaying any effects. I just have to guess when they'll hit to block them.

Edit: I won anyways. Honestly could have won a lot earlier if I'd tweaked my gear for boss killing. I'd invested in wind break damage since that was one of my bread and butter ways of getting through levels and it was starting to kill shit before I could break them, but I should have just done non-elemental damage and int instead. Only reason I even had to do the second phase was because ultima was coming up like 10% short.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Got the credit roll. Story was... surprisingly satisfying in the end. Surprising, since the begining was so painfully bad I started skipping it around halfway through. Started reading the text summaries instead and it got interesting again at some point so I started watching again. Still way too much filler dialogue though, and the localization/translation team are a bunch of morons, but whatever, that's always been par for the course.

I dipped my toes into the postgame, tried the monster rush first, that was... fucking impossible. Multiple enemies that cast doom on you and take obscene amounts of damage to kill, top kek. I did get some nice gear from there though and it inspired me to run the boss gauntlet too, which I managed to win after a while. They were the piss easy bosses, to be fair, but they were also in a horrible, tiny ass poorly defined arena with fucking trap holes at the edges. Ultima wins the day again. Might rerun that one actually, just to farm more class xp. I suppose I can just spend the anima shards now? I was hoarding them but apparently they're useless in the postgame, they don't even drop any more in chaos mode. I got some crests but can't use them yet apparently? The mission to unlock the level cap for sage is one of the highest and I think has Astos as the boss so.... fuck. Maybe I'll give the physical classes a serious try now. Now that I can get ~600 affinity without too much trouble, I could get some decent perk combos going. It's certainly made sage a lot easier now that I can crank my max mp up by just casting shit.

I wasn't originally planning to get the DLC, but I have to say, the game has grown on me. I'll probably pick it up at some point. Should I wait for a sale or should I just get it now before I tackle chaos mode and the other post game unlocks? I don't mind a bit of extra grind but if it's just going to make like 30 hours of progression obsolete as soon as I start the DLC stuff I'd probably rather get it now.

 

[Suicidal]

Got the credit roll. Story was... surprisingly satisfying in the end. Surprising, since the begining was so painfully bad I started skipping it around halfway through. Started reading the text summaries instead and it got interesting again at some point so I started watching again. Still way too much filler dialogue though, and the localization/translation team are a bunch of morons, but whatever, that's always been par for the course.

I dipped my toes into the postgame, tried the monster rush first, that was... fucking impossible. Multiple enemies that cast doom on you and take obscene amounts of damage to kill, top kek. I did get some nice gear from there though and it inspired me to run the boss gauntlet too, which I managed to win after a while. They were the piss easy bosses, to be fair, but they were also in a horrible, tiny ass poorly defined arena with fucking trap holes at the edges. Ultima wins the day again. Might rerun that one actually, just to farm more class xp. I suppose I can just spend the anima shards now? I was hoarding them but apparently they're useless in the postgame, they don't even drop any more in chaos mode. I got some crests but can't use them yet apparently? The mission to unlock the level cap for sage is one of the highest and I think has Astos as the boss so.... fuck. Maybe I'll give the physical classes a serious try now. Now that I can get ~600 affinity without too much trouble, I could get some decent perk combos going. It's certainly made sage a lot easier now that I can crank my max mp up by just casting shit.

I wasn't originally planning to get the DLC, but I have to say, the game has grown on me. I'll probably pick it up at some point. Should I wait for a sale or should I just get it now before I tackle chaos mode and the other post game unlocks? I don't mind a bit of extra grind but if it's just going to make like 30 hours of progression obsolete as soon as I start the DLC stuff I'd probably rather get it now.

Between SoP, Nioh 1/2 and Wo Long DLCs, I'd say SoP's are the worst. Only thing they add are some bosses and progression mechanics, no new enemies or locations (except 1 shitty level in the 3rd DLC). But I did enjoy the Rift dungeon that they added in 1 of the DLCs more than Abyss in Nioh (not sure about WL's post-game grind mode since I'm still beating my head against the DLC bosses in that game so can't compare yet) - you get to play little randomly generated levels with different objectives and you accumulate Rift-specific currencies and upgrades as you go along and if you die too much all of it resets and you have to start over or from a checkpoint.

I'd say wait for a sale, but if you have cash to spare and are planning to grind chaos mode right now, get the DLCs now, because DLC 1 flat out requires you to grind chaos mode to unlock its content and the other DLCs are locked behind its content.

 

[Spike]

Got the credit roll. Story was... surprisingly satisfying in the end. Surprising, since the begining was so painfully bad I started skipping it around halfway through. Started reading the text summaries instead and it got interesting again at some point so I started watching again. Still way too much filler dialogue though, and the localization/translation team are a bunch of morons, but whatever, that's always been par for the course.

I dipped my toes into the postgame, tried the monster rush first, that was... fucking impossible. Multiple enemies that cast doom on you and take obscene amounts of damage to kill, top kek. I did get some nice gear from there though and it inspired me to run the boss gauntlet too, which I managed to win after a while. They were the piss easy bosses, to be fair, but they were also in a horrible, tiny ass poorly defined arena with fucking trap holes at the edges. Ultima wins the day again. Might rerun that one actually, just to farm more class xp. I suppose I can just spend the anima shards now? I was hoarding them but apparently they're useless in the postgame, they don't even drop any more in chaos mode. I got some crests but can't use them yet apparently? The mission to unlock the level cap for sage is one of the highest and I think has Astos as the boss so.... fuck. Maybe I'll give the physical classes a serious try now. Now that I can get ~600 affinity without too much trouble, I could get some decent perk combos going. It's certainly made sage a lot easier now that I can crank my max mp up by just casting shit.

I wasn't originally planning to get the DLC, but I have to say, the game has grown on me. I'll probably pick it up at some point. Should I wait for a sale or should I just get it now before I tackle chaos mode and the other post game unlocks? I don't mind a bit of extra grind but if it's just going to make like 30 hours of progression obsolete as soon as I start the DLC stuff I'd probably rather get it now.

Between SoP, Nioh 1/2 and Wo Long DLCs, I'd say SoP's are the worst. Only thing they add are some bosses and progression mechanics, no new enemies or locations (except 1 shitty level in the 3rd DLC). But I did enjoy the Rift dungeon that they added in 1 of the DLCs more than Abyss in Nioh (not sure about WL's post-game grind mode since I'm still beating my head against the DLC bosses in that game so can't compare yet) - you get to play little randomly generated levels with different objectives and you accumulate Rift-specific currencies and upgrades as you go along and if you die too much all of it resets and you have to start over or from a checkpoint.

I'd say wait for a sale, but if you have cash to spare and are planning to grind chaos mode right now, get the DLCs now, because DLC 1 flat out requires you to grind chaos mode to unlock its content and the other DLCs are locked behind its content.

Good advice, plus the first DLC has ONE mission in Chaos mode and the rest of it is in a difficulty higher than Chaos lol.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

Have they fixed the running issues yet? I tried to play at release but it ran so terribly. I heard they'd used insanely high poly count models and it made the game chug

 

[Spike]

Have they fixed the running issues yet? I tried to play at release but it ran so terribly. I heard they'd used insanely high poly count models and it made the game chug

Works on my machine. Team Ninja is kind of notorious at this point for at-launch running issues. Wo Long is another example of this.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Have they fixed the running issues yet? I tried to play at release but it ran so terribly. I heard they'd used insanely high poly count models and it made the game chug

Works on my machine. Team Ninja is kind of notorious at this point for at-launch running issues. Wo Long is another example of this.

Seems hit and miss for me. I'm not enough of a gfx whore to notice stutters and low fps, but even I noticed some slowdowns at some points and the invisible projectiles were total bullshit and definitely a glitch. OTOH I've been in rooms with like 10 enemies furiously chasing me and it seemed to handle it surprisingly well. I've been mostly playing without allies though, and I can imagine having lots of enemies and a full team of humans all spamming flashy shit could bring the engine to it's knees.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

Have they fixed the running issues yet? I tried to play at release but it ran so terribly. I heard they'd used insanely high poly count models and it made the game chug

Works on my machine. Team Ninja is kind of notorious at this point for at-launch running issues. Wo Long is another example of this.

Seems hit and miss for me. I'm not enough of a gfx whore to notice stutters and low fps, but even I noticed some slowdowns at some points and the invisible projectiles were total bullshit and definitely a glitch. OTOH I've been in rooms with like 10 enemies furiously chasing me and it seemed to handle it surprisingly well. I've been mostly playing without allies though, and I can imagine having lots of enemies and a full team of humans all spamming flashy shit could bring the engine to it's knees.

It depends on the enemy. Some are high poly and some aren't, or material like fur is a problem.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I play SoP on a console and it runs flawlessly. Tried playing Wo Long on a PC and a console and the PC version was unplayable for me. Seems like Team Ninja prioritizes their console versions over the PC ports. That said I have Nioh 2 for the PC and it runs buttery smooth on it. Not sure if it had issues on release that got patched out later, however.

 

[Suicidal]

Got the credit roll. Story was... surprisingly satisfying in the end. Surprising, since the begining was so painfully bad I started skipping it around halfway through. Started reading the text summaries instead and it got interesting again at some point so I started watching again. Still way too much filler dialogue though, and the localization/translation team are a bunch of morons, but whatever, that's always been par for the course.

I dipped my toes into the postgame, tried the monster rush first, that was... fucking impossible. Multiple enemies that cast doom on you and take obscene amounts of damage to kill, top kek. I did get some nice gear from there though and it inspired me to run the boss gauntlet too, which I managed to win after a while. They were the piss easy bosses, to be fair, but they were also in a horrible, tiny ass poorly defined arena with fucking trap holes at the edges. Ultima wins the day again. Might rerun that one actually, just to farm more class xp. I suppose I can just spend the anima shards now? I was hoarding them but apparently they're useless in the postgame, they don't even drop any more in chaos mode. I got some crests but can't use them yet apparently? The mission to unlock the level cap for sage is one of the highest and I think has Astos as the boss so.... fuck. Maybe I'll give the physical classes a serious try now. Now that I can get ~600 affinity without too much trouble, I could get some decent perk combos going. It's certainly made sage a lot easier now that I can crank my max mp up by just casting shit.

I wasn't originally planning to get the DLC, but I have to say, the game has grown on me. I'll probably pick it up at some point. Should I wait for a sale or should I just get it now before I tackle chaos mode and the other post game unlocks? I don't mind a bit of extra grind but if it's just going to make like 30 hours of progression obsolete as soon as I start the DLC stuff I'd probably rather get it now.

Between SoP, Nioh 1/2 and Wo Long DLCs, I'd say SoP's are the worst. Only thing they add are some bosses and progression mechanics, no new enemies or locations (except 1 shitty level in the 3rd DLC). But I did enjoy the Rift dungeon that they added in 1 of the DLCs more than Abyss in Nioh (not sure about WL's post-game grind mode since I'm still beating my head against the DLC bosses in that game so can't compare yet) - you get to play little randomly generated levels with different objectives and you accumulate Rift-specific currencies and upgrades as you go along and if you die too much all of it resets and you have to start over or from a checkpoint.

I'd say wait for a sale, but if you have cash to spare and are planning to grind chaos mode right now, get the DLCs now, because DLC 1 flat out requires you to grind chaos mode to unlock its content and the other DLCs are locked behind its content.

Good advice, plus the first DLC has ONE mission in Chaos mode and the rest of it is in a difficulty higher than Chaos lol.

Damned Registrations​

Spike is right. Seems like I've misremembered, sorry.

The DLC unlocks a new difficulty level and you have to grind missions on it if you want to unlock other content. I think I may have skipped chaos difficulty entirely then and went straight for the DLC one. Hope my misinformation has not caused you to buy the DLCs prematurely.

 

[Spike]

Got the credit roll. Story was... surprisingly satisfying in the end. Surprising, since the begining was so painfully bad I started skipping it around halfway through. Started reading the text summaries instead and it got interesting again at some point so I started watching again. Still way too much filler dialogue though, and the localization/translation team are a bunch of morons, but whatever, that's always been par for the course.

I dipped my toes into the postgame, tried the monster rush first, that was... fucking impossible. Multiple enemies that cast doom on you and take obscene amounts of damage to kill, top kek. I did get some nice gear from there though and it inspired me to run the boss gauntlet too, which I managed to win after a while. They were the piss easy bosses, to be fair, but they were also in a horrible, tiny ass poorly defined arena with fucking trap holes at the edges. Ultima wins the day again. Might rerun that one actually, just to farm more class xp. I suppose I can just spend the anima shards now? I was hoarding them but apparently they're useless in the postgame, they don't even drop any more in chaos mode. I got some crests but can't use them yet apparently? The mission to unlock the level cap for sage is one of the highest and I think has Astos as the boss so.... fuck. Maybe I'll give the physical classes a serious try now. Now that I can get ~600 affinity without too much trouble, I could get some decent perk combos going. It's certainly made sage a lot easier now that I can crank my max mp up by just casting shit.

I wasn't originally planning to get the DLC, but I have to say, the game has grown on me. I'll probably pick it up at some point. Should I wait for a sale or should I just get it now before I tackle chaos mode and the other post game unlocks? I don't mind a bit of extra grind but if it's just going to make like 30 hours of progression obsolete as soon as I start the DLC stuff I'd probably rather get it now.

Between SoP, Nioh 1/2 and Wo Long DLCs, I'd say SoP's are the worst. Only thing they add are some bosses and progression mechanics, no new enemies or locations (except 1 shitty level in the 3rd DLC). But I did enjoy the Rift dungeon that they added in 1 of the DLCs more than Abyss in Nioh (not sure about WL's post-game grind mode since I'm still beating my head against the DLC bosses in that game so can't compare yet) - you get to play little randomly generated levels with different objectives and you accumulate Rift-specific currencies and upgrades as you go along and if you die too much all of it resets and you have to start over or from a checkpoint.

I'd say wait for a sale, but if you have cash to spare and are planning to grind chaos mode right now, get the DLCs now, because DLC 1 flat out requires you to grind chaos mode to unlock its content and the other DLCs are locked behind its content.

Good advice, plus the first DLC has ONE mission in Chaos mode and the rest of it is in a difficulty higher than Chaos lol.

Damned Registrations​

Spike is right. Seems like I've misremembered, sorry.

The DLC unlocks a new difficulty level and you have to grind missions on it if you want to unlock other content. I think I may have skipped chaos difficulty entirely then and went straight for the DLC one. Hope my misinformation has not caused you to buy the DLCs prematurely.

I mean, I don't think it would be premature. Because by the time you get to that 1 Chaos mission, you're basically ready for the higher difficulty above that. Or at least I was.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Yeah after fucking around a bit in chaos mode, I realized I can clear the master tonberry farming mission pretty easily, and I went ahead and did it at level 300. Got myself a shiny stick to poke things with. Sage is still a head above the rest, but I've at least managed to get some value out of physical classes again. Higher stats/attack power really does make all the difference, as usual for team ninja games. Getting a better handle on some mechanics I kind of brute forced my way past learning initially as well. Seems like at this point if I want a physical class to really pull it's weight though, I'll need to get a weapon that is high enough level and grants the right skills. Might be a pain in the ass. Why do maces get so many awesome ones right out of the box? Maybe I should just use maces as physical class or something. All the elements at your disposal, knockup effects, great mp recovery.... spear feeling a little lackluster at this point. Though backstab does silly amounts of break damage at least. I really want daggers to be good but... they're really not. I suppose they were balanced around having a teammate draw aggro for you. Trying to get crits on an enemy in a solo fight is either trivial or impossible. It's a shame because I really liked the idea of the assassin building up marks.

Maybe I'll go for Monk... I recall focus actually being quite a major attack buff when I used it ages ago.

 

[Multidirectional]

First mission looked pretty easy on Hard until I reached the boss. Died about 15 times to it and decided to take a break just now. Fun game. Have Swordsman and Mage jobs equipped for now.

 

[Damned Registrations]

First mission looked pretty easy on Hard until I reached the boss. Died about 15 times to it and decided to take a break just now. Fun game. Have Swordsman and Mage jobs equipped for now.

I actually suggest trying disabling the party members. Made things a lot easier for me in most situations without the boss randomly maybe attacking in any direction at any time. Not to say the party can't be useful, but it's certainly a tradeoff.

 

[Multidirectional]

I actually suggest trying disabling the party members. Made things a lot easier for me in most situations without the boss randomly maybe attacking in any direction at any time. Not to say the party can't be useful, but it's certainly a tradeoff.

I didn't even know I could disable them. I might try it but I'll probably just get raped.

 

[Multidirectional]

Made few attempts at the boss without a party. I don't think I'm good enough at this yet, couldn't even get a single soulburst in. Brought back the party and then finally killed it after few more tries.

 

[Spike]

I should get some kind of retard award. Of course I was not using the game's systems completely...I flew past where I was stuck when I started doing the other dragon treasure missions on much higher levels and got more affinity breaks. Went back to Paladin from Breaker. I use Paladin and Assassin both pretty equally. Paladin is especially for bosses. Both are an absolute kino blast. Deep into Wanderer from the Rift DLC. It was so satisfying to go back to that last mission in Vigilia or whatever it's called and absolutely curb stomp everything. Now my gear is in the 400s and the rift stuff is way better than the tedious dragon king trials.

 

[Multidirectional]

I'm starting to doubt if I can be good enough for this game. Missions are going fine so far but I cannot perform these fucking combos in tutorials that require pressing a stick in some direction in combination with RB. Just gave up on katana tutorial trying to perform RB>RB>left stick back+RB combo, just cannot get it done even once. Nioh controls work way better for me. Any of these type of combos that require sudden presses of stick in the middle of them just feel awful to me. Hopefully I'll just never need to use them.

Also, is there no way to switch quick cast spells without casting them? Am I missing something here?

 

[Damned Registrations]

Also, is there no way to switch quick cast spells without casting them? Am I missing something here?

Depends on what you mean by casting. You can start casting one and then cancel it by blocking or dodging while charging it up, allowing you to avoid spending the mana. But you can't, for example, change the selected spell while blocking so it's ready to cast after.

 

[Multidirectional]

Ah well, ditched the mage for now anyway. I had White Mage unlocked and figured I was gonna use it as secondary so I have more healing options and for some occasional ranged attack. But then I tried combination of War Cry from Warrior and Blood Weapon command that I used anima shards to get from Marrauder tree, I barely need to use potions at all with this. So now I picked Lancer as a secondary job and that looks like a way more fun ranged option. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this jobs system, shit seemed confusing at first.

 

[Multidirectional]

Ok nevermind, I completely suck at this after all. Cannot beat Dark Knight. I have no patience at all for these type bosses that force me to keep dodging over and over with barely any time to put some hits in. This first phase of his is a bit like Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring, and I had no patience for bosses in those games either. Dodge dodge doge his charging attacks then play catch up once his done, by the time I get in position to hit him he often starts right back up again. And if I do get past the first phase these summoned clones of his turn the fight into utter clusterfuck and I'm dead soon after. Probably about 30-40 attempts on this fucker so far. Time to put it off until next day.
The pirate boss of earlier mission I did first try so I did not expect to encounter such a brutal boss so fast after that.