This newly revealed Final Fantasy game is so bad it's good
Final Fantasy Origin: Stranger of Paradise is so cheesy you could melt it on tortilla chips.
Final Fantasy 16 was not at Square Enix's E3 showcase, but another Final Fantasy was—and my god it's so cheesy I can't help but like it. Developed by Team Ninja, Final Fantasy Origin very much looked like a Dark Souls clone set in the world of the very first Final Fantasy from back in 1987.
The trailer didn't reveal much other than the protagonists really want to kill Chaos. I lost track of how many times that word was used throughout the trailer, but the action did look pretty fun. Unlike Dark Souls, where you're mostly alone unless you summon some friends to help, in Final Fantasy Origin you appear to have two NPCs accompanying you in combat.
The combat did look pretty cool, though. There were a variety of weapons with their own styles, and some of the monster designs felt like much grittier takes on classic Final Fantasy beasts.
That trailer, though, was definitely bad. At the same time, this is the development team behind Nioh and Ninja Gaiden, which are both excellent action series. So maybe it'll strike the right balance between camp and cool.
Final Fantasy Origin is coming next year. There's a demo of the game available starting today on PlayStation 5.
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With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.