The Peculiarity of Paradise's Alien Final Fantasy Origins (hereinafter referred to as "FFO") is that it is both a new work in the traditional sense, but it is also a "prequel story" that tells the story before the first generation of the Final Fantasy series, full of retro feelings. And the developer of this work is the team Ninja who previously produced the "Ren Wang" series, famous for its solid action design. It can be said that from the moment of publication, this work has been full of topicality.
However, the demo that opened after the game was announced immediately splashed with cold water on the player's face: although the gameplay added the characteristic class system of early Final Fantasy to the action ideas of "Ren Wang" and made a lot of interesting designs, the game's graphics were really unacceptable. Even the inheritable demos that were offered again before the launch were still a bit blinding.
So how exactly does the game perform? If you simply summarize it in four words, it is unsatisfactory, "barely satisfactory".
The story originates, and the levels are all in full swing
To put it simply, the main line of FFO is the process of the protagonist and the four-person crusade against chaos, and the direct connection with the first generation of Final Fantasy is how the original final boss, the popular Garand, fell from a "righteous partner" to a "chaos avatar".
If we trace Garland's background, especially in Final Fantasy: Discord, which is also founded by Team Ninja, Garland's background introduction has a record of Garland being defeated by four warriors of light. Obviously, FFO is based on this story.
As a "origin" work, "Final Fantasy" and even the classic monsters of the series are returning in this game, such as winter bailey, cactus monsters such as classic monsters, every time in the corner players will feel the "fear" and "the big package is coming" feeling, the series players will definitely feel more intimate.
At the level of level design, the work is not completely built around the original generation of Final Fantasy, but instead comes to a series of "smorgasbord". Just like the PV promotion, the classic levels of the series 1 to 15 are all in the game. Like the Royal City of Final Fantasy XIV, the Cave of Final Fantasy XIV, the Magic Furnace of Final Fantasy VII, the Crystal Tower of The Third Generation, the Mechanical Relics of the Fifth Generation, the Volcano of the Eighth Generation, the Sea of the Demon Tree of the Ninth Generation, the Tomb of the King Lesvol of the Twelfth Generation, and so on... At the same time, many scenes are "three-dimensional" for the first time (volcano should be seen by many friends in "Final Fantasy XIV").
Of course, the reason for the addition of these things is that we can't think too much about it: why did the prequel to the original Final Fantasy actually appear in so many other works? At least in terms of performance effects, fans of the "Final Fantasy" series who have played the whole series, or have played several generations, will definitely be quite happy and even emotional.
But unfortunately, the plot of this work is indeed very boring. Every time there is a key point in the plot, or the NPC in the plot is about to tell the core explosive point of the story, either the protagonist suddenly comes to the luffy statement "I want to become One Piece". Well, the plot is "I'm going to bring down Kaos (Chaos)", interrupting. Or it's just that the riddle people suddenly start, and the nouns start to pile up, which makes people a bit of the illusion of "Final Fantasy XIII".
Until I cleared the level and found out that the script of the work was Nojima Kazunari. Well, that's all right, the riddler Nojima Kazunari's skills we've seen enough in Final Fantasy XIII-2. After all, if you can write a story of "losing your wife and folding soldiers" and still have no problem solved, Nojima Ichisei is a bit powerful...
▲The opening of this animation is full of emotions
At the level of plot performance, this work is also very confusing. A large number of sound and picture are not synchronized, and the real-time calculation is repeatedly jumped in the PS3 level screen and the PS5 level screen. Completely unaware of The high standards of Nomura's previous works... But when Garland officially debuts, we can feel that a well-built boss can indeed save a game.
If we put aside the gameplay and only talk about the plot and graphics of the game, I think the series players can start for the sake of feelings; if you are a player who has not played in the series and only wants to understand the "plot" as the enlightenment of the Final Fantasy series, I still recommend turning left to Final Fantasy 7 Remake...
No more flashing words, playing careers
Although the plot and picture are broken, it has to be said that the battle in this game is still very interesting.
If we think back to the reason why the "Renwang" series can stand out from many "soul-like" games and get out of their own characteristics, brushing equipment brush entry brush brush brush is definitely one of the core elements. The random drop of the game's equipment gives the "Renwang" series a full incentive to repeat the game and challenge, which is also an important reason why many players spend hundreds of hours in these two games.
Since its announcement, "FFO" has been affectionately called "FF Renwang" by domestic players, and its main reason is definitely that the development team is Team Ninja. But when you actually play the game, you will find that although the game still has the design of randomly dropping equipment, it is full of "restraint" in the design of the entry. Players get up to 3 randomly dropped pieces of equipment, each of which does not have as many attributes as the Renwang series, and the five equipment levels are only the difference in strength level.
On top of this, depending on the player's class, each piece of equipment has a corresponding buff attribute, and if the player is wearing the equipment of the corresponding class, then there will be a superposition effect. From this place, we can also see that the core of FFO's gameplay has changed from equipment with words to class choices.
The game has a total of 27 classes to choose from before the weekly level, which is very "Final Fantasy". After all, the exclusive skills and efficacy of job transfers and occupations are consistent features of the Final Fantasy series. The game's diverse career choices also bring players a far more intuitive impact than equipment.
These 27 occupations are divided into three classes, namely basic, upper, and highest. As the player's class level increases, more advanced skills are unlocked. Like the original mage can only use four kinds of magic, but the upper class Dark Mage can directly use more advanced magic. As we all know, the magic intensity of the Final Fantasy series is classified according to the range of "small", "medium" and "large", and the game uses a more ingenious way, that is, holding down the heavy attack key, relying on the length of time to determine the effect.
The well-known classes of the "Final Fantasy" series have also appeared, and the black and white red magic guide and dragon knight are the iconic features of the series. New classes such as Void Knight and Tyrant also make the game even more innovative. In addition, it is worth mentioning that in the process of the game, players can not only switch classes at will, but more importantly, the process of the game is enough for players to practice most of the classes at the end of the week, that is to say, in the case of the game week, if the player wants to, it is absolutely possible to experience most of the character's gameplay and career differences.
Nio Tamashi, Nomura Taste
If you are familiar with Tetsuya Nomura's past works, you should understand that the combat system built by Nomura is full of customized content. The most typical is the "Kingdom Hearts" series, Where Nomura has designed very different fighting styles and combat performances for different fairy tale worlds. Players can freely build battle modules, allowing the characters controlled by players to achieve the thrill of battle according to the mods they design.
The same goes for FFO. Although the game adheres to the "Soul-like" game mode: shoulder key light attack - trigger heavy attack, this mode does not restrict Nomura from abandoning his own definition mod. As the player gradually clicks on the skill tree of the class, the game's combat basically becomes the appearance of "Kingdom-like Heart":
Players can freely combine the effects of the attack combo: the simplest light attack - heavy attack, advanced light attack - light attack - heavy attack, and a variety of "derived attacks" that require a left stick to match the direction, all of which can be freely designed in the class box. This also allows players to have the conditions to freely combine to play the most suitable effect for themselves.
At the same time, with team Ninja's solid and rich action module design, the entire game's combat presents a very unique refreshing feeling.
There are many other variables in the course of the battle, the game has a Break slot similar to Final Fantasy XIII, players can consume the Break slot to complete the defense or steal the enemy's skills, or break the enemy to complete the execution performance, and then kill.
At the same time, players also need to pay attention to their Break slots not to be broken by enemies, otherwise they will be hard for a long time. Also because of the design of the Break slot, plus the fact that players can bring two teammates in battle, the overall state of the game is no longer the state of "soul", which encourages players to 1v1, but can complete the execution through a gorgeous skill combination plus breaking the Break slot to carry out a one-to-many challenge. Later in the game, there will also be a situation where several enemies are present on a huge battlefield at the same time, which requires the player to respond flexibly.
In addition, the game's skills require MP to complete the release, and the way to obtain MP is to use normal attacks to kill enemies. This is not much different from the previous ARPG that plays a loop, and it also requires players to do a good job of resource management. But the game's "death mechanic" is ruined here...
Because FFO does not have a character level, only a class level, after death, the player does not zero the experience points accumulated before like previous soul-like games, but instead reduces the "MP slot". Then such a "death mechanism" brings about the weakening of the character's ability, if the player dies too many times between the save points, it will become a state that can only be slashed flat, and it is weak when fighting.
Such a loop obviously doesn't quite match the "death mechanic" of soul-like games. Therefore, the traditional mechanism is that death is part of the exploration, and once FFO is killed by the miscellaneous soldiers on the map or even the boss, it completely becomes a "vicious circle", and there is no other way but to quit the map and start over or find the previous map to upgrade the outfit.
Therefore, I think that the death mechanism of FFO is underconsidered, and it is a "flaw" that cannot be ignored and even affects the experience under FFO's excellent combat system. In previous "soul-like" games, and even the "Renwang" series, death is an important element of the game between the player and the game mechanics. FFO, on the other hand, encourages players not to "die" as much as possible in the same environment, but some battles are really difficult to avoid hanging up without being familiar with boss and miscellaneous mechanics and weaknesses...
Then we can feel the core of this design point - repeated play at different difficulties, the most "good" way to experience the game may be that the game's four difficulties (including the chaos added by the two weeks) are played again, but for players who do not like to repeat the experience, it is indeed an ordeal. This also reflects from the side that the content of the game, and the sincerity experienced by the content, are confusing.
Because if the player passes the main line in a straight line and skips the animation, then the entire game flow may be 10 hours long, and the main line + side line + watched the animation (even if you can't skip the dialogue) is only about 20 hours... It can only be said that for a stacked series of emotional works, it seems a bit too sloppy.
epilogue
In short, FFO is a game, as far as combat is concerned, I personally think that in addition to the lack of consideration of the death mechanism, other elements such as multi-class design, design restrained entry content, such as one-and-so design, and action modules are blameless. The problem with the experience is that Nojima's plot is still unconvincing, the overly fluctuating graphics make the game's optimization problem particularly prominent, and the game's single weekly view is indeed quite barren relative to the feelings.
If you love the Final Fantasy series, the ARPG-level combat will really make you overjoyed; if you're a lover of Soul-like games, then the game may make you feel something different; but if you're not, then consider whether the game is your favorite one.
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