Ahead of the launch of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, we had the chance to chat with the developers to discuss this new action RPG that combines elements from Team Ninja's Nioh series with classic Final Fantasy mechanics and a brand new perspective on the story of the original Final Fantasy. For our full review of the game, head over to this page.

　　Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin just got a new demo on consoles. Can you be more specific as to what will be carried in the full game? Also, since this is not the first demo you've released, what kind of user feedback did you incorporate from previous demos?

　　In terms of the demo, elements can be carried over from that. You mentioned the job level and also your progress in the story, of course these are carried over, but you'll be able to carry your whole save file over. So all the other parts that come along with that as well. For example, if you've reached a certain level needed to unlock a particular trophy, then once you carry that over, that progress should be reflected. And in terms of what we changed from the first and second trial version of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, essentially, there's just a lot that we did change.

　　We took on board a lot of feedback, so it's really difficult to sum it up quickly, but just to give a quick overview of the whole thing. First of all, we have improved it from a performance perspective, for example, the frame rate and the graphics, we've made improvements there. We've also made improvements to the combat in terms of MP management and how the battle feels, and that's the whole combat system. We also made some further adjustments and improvements to the AI for the NPC characters as well as tweaking the UI and then also improving the multiplayer mode, particularly the matching. So essentially the base game itself has stayed the same, but we have worked and improved on essentially all aspects of it. It's quite difficult to sum up, but hopefully, that gives you an idea.

　　Are there any plans to release a similar demo for PC at some point?

　　Unfortunately, there is no plan at the moment to release a PC version of the demo.

　　We mentioned the different platforms of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. Is there going to be crossplay functionality, or are there plans to enable crossplay in the future?

　　Within the same family of consoles, crossplay is possible, but it's not possible to perform crossplay between different families of consoles.

　　I guess that also means no crossplay for PC with either family of consoles, right?

　　That's right. Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin on PC will only be available to play with other PC players.

　　One of the main twists about Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is that it gives a new perspective to players, who know they are playing a character that will eventually become a villain. How did this change the developer's approach to the story and why did you pick Jack specifically as a character to focus on for this game?

　　In terms of having a villain as the protagonist and how that affected our approach to the development, obviously, if you have a protagonist who is going to turn into a villain, then it's likely that they would use a different fighting style to, say, the usual Warrior of Light or hero that you normally see depicted in Final Fantasy stories. That meant that for Jack, he had his own distinctive fighting style that we wanted to create. That led us to create the Soul Burst mechanic, which then led to the Soul shield being born from that too. Really this concept sort of underpinned everything about the gameplay systems and where we went in, the direction we took with that.

　　As for why we decided to create a game with a villain as the main character in the first place. Obviously, in the original Final Fantasy, you have Garland and he then appears as the final boss as well, but there's not really much backstory to him or explanation of his motives or who he is. Even so, he still then crops up again in the ending and he's mentioned there specifically, but you still don't know much about who he really is even after finishing the game. We thought it'd be quite interesting to have a story that sort of explored who he was. That was the original sort of spark. That was the concept for Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. And then from there, we sort of worked on building it out further and fleshing out that concept.

　　Is there going to be a transmogrification feature to allow players to show off the coolest looking armor while retaining the best stats?

　　We did look into implementing some kind of system like that, but unfortunately, we decided not to go with that in the game this time around.

　　Is there some sort of endgame mode or endgame specific content, perhaps something like the Abyss/Depths developed by Team Ninja for Nioh?

　　Once you've completed the game, you'll be able to take on the harder difficulty levels and you'll also unlock higher levels for jobs, other things that you can develop your character with, and then be able to go out and get stronger weapons, stronger equipment, which will allow you to take on those harder difficulties as levels. There are those elements for after the game has been completed.

　　The game is also going to get DLCs. Are you going to add new jobs? Can you talk about the post-launch content coming to Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin with DLCs?

　　We've announced that there'll be a season pass with three separate DLCs within it. Those titles have been announced as Trials of the Dragon King, Wanderer of the Rift, and DIFFERENT FUTURE. There'll be new story content within each of those three separate DLCs. And they will allow you to take on sort of perhaps new Dungeons and then new things to fight new things, to explore. We're looking at new jobs, which also means new weapons, new types of weapons, but also we're looking at adding new actions to existing jobs, for example, so I think there's lots to look forward to in the DLCs.

　　One of the common complaints about the demo, even the new one, is that in the performance mode, even on PlayStation 5, the visuals look very blurry. Many users are wondering if they can expect improvements in this area with the final version of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin.

　　I think from our side, we are already putting it out in the world in what we consider to be an improved good state. But if we do hear lots of feedback from players about certain areas that need improvement, then you know, we're already in conversations with the development team about wanting to be able to maybe improve those points if need be. We will be listening to what people have to say.

　　Can you disclose which engine you've used for the game? Is it an evolution of the engine last seen in Nioh 2?

　　In terms of the specific engine we're using, I'm afraid I can't go into too much detail on that. Because of the variety of platforms that we are catering for this time around, the PlayStation and Xbox to start with, for example, we've used an engine that allows us to have a slightly broader approach. So it is slightly different from the engine that we use for the Nioh series.

　　Thank you for your time.