Final Fantasy Origin Trailer: Possible Reason for Garland’s Turn in Strangers of Paradise

In anticipation for the upcoming game, Square Enix released the final trailer for Strangers of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. The lengthy trailer focuses on Jack, hinting at what causes him to eventually become the Garland we know from Final Fantasy I. When releasing the trailer, they also made a post to go with it that helps explain some of what we see in the video.

Jack’s Conflicting History

And there is definitely a lot to explain — a lot of details which can be missed in the quick transitions, especially if you are not familiar with the original. The first thing we do see is Garland of the future kidnapping princess Sarah — it’s not clear. When the shot briefly returns to Jack and his party — approaching, and then keeping a stand as a barrier: Jack looks like he is ready to protect Sarah and her sister, Mia, from… something.

Likewise, when we are introduced to Astos, we see that he knows something important about the crystals in warriors’ possession. However, what that is exactly is not revealed. It’s clear that there will be a lot of backstory to uncover with these characters.

Party’s Swordsman?

The game cuts to gameplay after this, showing Jack landing flashy finishing moves on a few classic Final Fantasy enemies, such as a Malboro and Tonberry, then ending with him finishing the Archfiend Tiamat. This impresses Sophia — we are introduced to her in the same area. This could suggest that either Tiamat had her trapped in the room, or that she was actually inside Tiamat. We only get a brief shot of her fighting, but it looks like she has a two-handed sword: so, she will likely be a Swordsman for the party.

Archfiends — New Look, New Fights

We briefly see something that looks like a challenging dragon boss, but what follows is quite intriguing: we are shown the rest of the four Archfiends. Just like with Tiamat, Kraken, Marilith, and Lich have vastly different designs from how they looked in the original game. Furthermore, we can see that they all have their own attack patterns for players to figure out.

Something interesting to note is that the Archfiends are introduced in the reverse order than how they are fought in Final Fantasy I.

Jack and Sarah’s Backstory

Interestingly, Jack seems to be wondering about where he comes from — it seems like a part of his memory has been wiped by something. We observe someone quite mysterious talk to Jack about this, as he studies the black crystal in his hand — both may have something to do with how he got here and why he is struggling to remember things.

While this part of the story remains a mystery, we do get to see a bit more about Jack. The rest of the trailer focuses on two central themes: Jack wanting to change the world, as well as his romantic relationship with Sarah. Amidst it all, there is also an emphasis on forgetting (that word is repeated a few times): forgetting about Jack, as well as him forgetting about all of this, but then his party, Sarah, and Jack himself all swearing they won’t forget each other.

In this part of the trailer there is also a shot of an injured Sarah dropping the dark crystal Jack was once holding, making it look like saving Sarah might have been the motivation for Jack to become the Garland we know, and beginning the cycle that then takes place in Final Fantasy I.

Official Blog: Story, Bosses, Job System, Upgrades

The official blog post meant to go with the trailer points out the “sinister” black mist that follows the Warriors of Light and seems to engulf people. However, the black crystals in their possession are able to absorb this mist. Without offering a lot of answers, the post discusses “the darkness” and “the truth” — important hints to what this mist really is, what it does, and why that will be important to the story.

The post also offers sections on Kraken and Lich and bits about their arenas (the Sunken Shrine and Cavern of Earth, respectively). Here, there are some details revealed about how the two will fight as bosses — Kraken will rush you aggressively and use water attacks to take advantage of his environment, while Lich will instead focus on using spells, summoning skeletons, and inflicting status effects.

Then there is a section on the Jobs: Red Mage, Berserker, and Samurai in particular. These are meant to affect Jack’s weapon and combat styles, and he will be able to swap between two freely in battle.

Finally, the equipment upgrades. There will be a Smithy you can visit, which will allow you to use materials to add, or otherwise customize special effects for your equipment. You can obtain the needed materials by completing missions or dismantling old gear.

Strangers of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin is set to release on March 18, 2022, and will be available on Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.