When Square Enix revealed Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, fans had no idea what to expect. From the trailer, it looked as though the game would be overly edgy and take itself too serious, and while some of those concerns may have held over through the PS5 demo, they were completely overshadowed by incredible gameplay and an extremely challenging boss fight. Fans of the Soulsborne games and Final Fantasy finally got what they were looking for, and they didn't let their time with the short demo go to waste. Here are four impressive feats accomplished by the small but tight-knit community of Final Fantasy Origin.
The PS5 demo of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin was available for less than two weeks, but during that time, hardcore fans learned the demo level inside and out. The Shrine of Chaos is likely just an introduction of what's to come later on in the full game, but players manifested new ways to play it in order to breathe fresh life into the enjoyable but short experience. This followed natural progression, with challenge runs starting off simple and getting progressively more involved, stacking on layers upon layers of challenges by the end.
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One of the first ideas that came to mind for how to get more fun out of the Final Fantasy Origin demo was to speedrun it. Although a first playthrough likely took players an hour or longer as they got to know the controls, explored the level, and struggled against its final boss, subsequent runs can be much quicker. For those wondering what an Any% speedrun is, it is one where players are tasked with getting to the end as quickly as possible. Beyond that, there are no rules, meaning glitches are allowed, and players are encouraged to play on whichever difficulty makes this easiest.
There is no official listing for the game on Speedrun.com, but a quick search on YouTube indicates that BillVS holds the world record at 3:53.98 in the video above. This speedrun was done on Easy mode and in New Game Plus, allowing BillVS to plow through all of the enemies and bosses, but other speedruns on Hard mode and fresh file speedruns exist as well. What makes this speedrun particularly fun to watch is that it doesn't involve any overly complex glitches, instead testing the player's skill and speed organically within the bounds of the game's rules.
Aside from speedrunning the Final Fantasy Origin demo, players also took it upon themselves to beat the demo's final boss, Garland, without getting hit. Despite how challenging the boss fight it, this was accomplished rather quickly. Once the player reaches high enough level, it's fairly easy to burn the boss' HP down before he can manage anything crazy, even on Hard mode. Still, this run takes a lot of skill, especially if players aren't max level like in the video above.
It seems as though YouTuber Swillo The PandaKing holds the right of being the first to beat Garland on hard mode without taking damage, or at least they were the first to post their achievement on YouTube. They manage to beat the Final Fantasy Origin demo with the Warrior job at only level 19, so this clearly wasn't a case of overpowering the boss with superior stats and gear, and if the description of the video is to be believed, this was also their first time fighting the boss. As incredible as this feat is, fans took things even further with another challenge run.
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While there had been plenty of attempts to take down Garland in Jack's starter clothes (reminiscent of how the trailer looked), fans quickly discovered that this armor can actually be removed entirely, causing Jack to fight the heavily armored knight in his underwear. Why stop there, though? The ultimate test of skill against Garland is to beat him without getting hit while wearing no armor, using the level one sword, and not upgrading stats or unlocking any jobs whatsoever on hard mode. Some level ups will be gained for the Swordsmen class no matter what as there are unskippable fights ahead of time, but these just add a minute amount of HP to Jack.
The video above from Master Ninja Tseit shows exactly this. Aside from the small amount of HP gained from leveling up, this fight takes place with Jack in the exact same state as he was when he removed his clothes at the start of the demo. Final Fantasy Origin's community is somewhat small at the moment, but its time with the demo proves to onlookers and Square Enix that it is ready to conquer whatever is thrown at them. What comes next in Final Fantasy Origin may be harder than Garland, but that isn't likely to deter fans.
These are just some of the more obvious and well documented runs, but players managed to do some other crazy things during the demo's runtime as well. These include things like pacifist runs (allowing Jack's AI companions to do all the work and only using Soul Shield to break enemies) and beating the demo with only Instant Abilities learned from enemies. Once the full game releases, more of these types of insane runs will surely pop up.
Players that went through the PS5 demo still have a chance to share their feedback, as the Final Fantasy Origin survey will be available until July 2nd. While many really enjoyed the demo, there are some glaring flaws that should be addressed before the game releases. In order to help Square Enix and Team Ninja identify these flaws, it is vital that fans point out what mattered most to them during their playthrough. Most importantly, be specific and go into detail in the final, open ended question of the survey.
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin releases in 2022 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
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