Stranger of Paradise reviews – our roundup of the scores

pcgamesn.com:

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is arriving at a packed time of year for fantasy games. FromSoftware’s Elden Ring released last month to much acclaim from critics, with Square Enix’s own Babylon’s Fall also out just last week – to a much less friendly reception. Which side will the Final Fantasy prequel fall on?

At the moment, reviews are falling square in the centre. Currently, OpenCritic rates Stranger of Paradise at 76% or “Strong” from 33 reviews at the time of writing. Metacritic comes down much the same, giving the PlayStation 5 version a Metascore of 73%. Right now, there don’t appear to be any reviews of the PC version of Stranger of Paradise specifically, so all the impressions are from the console release – likely the PS5 version.

Destructoid’s review is one of the most positive voices so far, although even that states the Final Fantasy prequel “won’t astound everyone”. Even the most positive reviews criticise the game’s writing and storytelling, which Press Start calls “cringeworthy” and “nonsensical” – but in terms of gameplay is still “great fun from beginning to end”.

GamesBeat calls it “a fast-paced and enjoyable playthrough”, and Eurogamer’s unscored review describes Stranger of Paradise as “the breeziest Soulslike ever”, in a nice way. However, on the lower end of the scale, GamesRadar’s review says it features “routine level design, rough edges and [a] messy narrative”.

Here’s a snapshot of the scores and reviews available right now:

In creating Stranger of Paradise, developer Team Ninja says it wanted to explore the “shadowy side” of Final Fantasy lore. The team is also fine with all those Chaos memes, fortunately. If you want to give Stranger of Paradise a go when it releases on March 18,