Stranger of Paradise, if you’ve been following the marketing material, has been largely billed as a game that follows the plot of Final Fantasy 1. Four Warriors of Light appear carrying crystals, and set out to defeat the evil that permeates the land of Cornelia — sounds familiar, right? While at first glance this may seem like a high-definition remake, even a cursory glance shows that there’s more under the surface. So is Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin a remake? Read on to find out — and yes, it’s spoiler-free.
Without delving into spoilers, Stranger of Paradise exists as a sort of expansion to Final Fantasy 1. Instead of playing as nameless Warriors of Light, you are instead playing as a group of warriors that are each individually named — Jack, Jed, Ash, Neon, and Sophia. If you’ve played and beaten Final Fantasy 1, you may realize that there are five Warriors of Light in Stranger of Paradise, which doesn’t quite match up to Final Fantasy 1.
In addition, various story beats may closely resemble Final Fantasy 1, but don’t exactly match up. For example, while you do face an armored knight at the Chaos Shrine as your first real test of combat, that armored knight isn’t Garland — and they make a point of it too, where the boss emphatically states “No, I am to become Chaos!” when asked if they were Garland. Various other story beats follow a similar path — closely resembling but not quite mirroring the plot of Final Fantasy 1.
