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On July 20, 2022, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin released its first expansion called Trials of the Dragon King. This first major DLC update to Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin introduces several new classes, a pair of exciting new bosses and much more.
In a recent interaction with Sportskeeda’s Jason Parker, Daisuke Inoue (Director) and Jin Fujiwara (Producer) spoke about the latest update, what led to the creation of this particular DLC, and the challenges they faced in putting it all together. By completing the game on the hardest difficulty, players can enter this ‘Trial of the Dragon King’, and do battle with Bahamut and the Warrior of Light.
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Daisuke Inoue and Jin Fujiwara of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin discuss what led to this particular expansion
Q. First of all, thanks for taking the time to chat with me again! What led to the decision to focus on Bahamut and the Warrior of Light, from a storytelling perspective, in this DLC?
Inoue: We decided to focus on these two because they give more of a FINAL FANTASY feeling. When the main story ended, Nomura wanted players to be able to fight the Warrior of Light, so that was the main inspiration, and from there, we decided to convey what the Warrior of Light is like from Jack’s point of view to show the villain’s unique position in fighting the Warrior Light, who would normally be the protagonist.
As for Bahamut, we decided to focus on three questions in deciding his involvement in the expansion: why does it exist in FINAL FANTASY 1? Why has it not been impacted by Chaos? Why does it let us change classes? These questions were actually a mystery to us and we wanted our fans to be involved.
Fujiwara: When we started working on this expansion, we had planned to focus only on Bahamut, but as a result of a discussion with Nomura and others, it was decided that the Warrior of Light should also appear in the story. So, we had to reconstruct the storyline anew, which was a bit challenging.
However, after hearing everyone’s excitement after the release of the additional mission, I am glad that we were able to bring Warrior of Light into the game at this point in time.
Q. In our previous conversation, we talked about the potential for ranged combat, or perhaps summoners, and now a Summoner class has joined the game. Were there any particular challenges when it came to implementing it and the other classes?
Inoue: To be honest, we had a lot of trouble with the summoner class because of disk space and character size. When you think of summons, you likely imagine large figures as in the previous FINAL FANTASY games. However, since this was an action game and the characters are fighting in a small dungeon, their size can’t be made large.
Because of this, we had to reserve disk space for the summons or they would affect the progress of the game, and I recall spending quite some time communicating with the development team to resolve them. Additionally, for the evoker, the initial idea was to summon a spirit to make it work properly as a “pet job,” but there were areas of debate for its set-up, such as “Who is that spirit anyway?” The spirit is positioned as a type of elemental spirit within the world, and although it is illuminated for visibility, it’s a figure that is created and used by Jack as a spirit similar to Chaos (I’ve explained this here as we have no plans to do so in the game).
Lastly, for pilgrim, Koei Tecmo Games and Team Ninja had solid knowledge on these specialized types of weapons, and to me, it was as though the staves developed before we knew it, and the pilgrims took shape in no time.
Q. Did the team consider having the Warrior of Light battle actually fight all of the Warrior of Light's team at once, or was the goal always to just feature the 'main' Warrior of Light?
Inoue: We wanted a battle with the Warrior of Light from Jack’s perspective, so we first considered having a fight with all of the Warrior of Light’s team. While this may sound like an excuse, we decided to feature the main Warrior of Light because it is quite tough to make it work as an action battle when four bosses attack you all at once.
At first, there was a proposal to incorporate the fight as an event battle, just as there is in the main story. While I don’t want to spoil it for the readers, I can say that, after numerous discussions with the development team, we settled on the current form which we feel resulted in an exciting boss battle.
Q. One of the future DLC expansions for Stranger of Paradise is supposed to be focused on an alternate ending. Is the Trials of Bahamut story going to link to these other DLC stories to form one coherent story?
Inoue: Our goal is to make all the expansions into a single coherent storyline when viewed through the entire additional mission. The content is basically a story after the main story is cleared, so we hope to connect the expansions to the future that Jack hopes to achieve.
As for the Trials of the Dragon King expansion, as mentioned above, we wanted to focus on the question of why Bahamut exists, so that’s the main focus of the story, and it's a tale that concludes within the first additional mission.
Fujiwara: The mysterious figure that awakens Bahamut appeared in the first additional mission, but this figure is due to reappear in the subsequent additional missions. In this way, we’d perhaps like players to see the overall additional missions linked broadly.
Q. What is the future of Stranger of Paradise? Can you give us some insight on the upcoming content, or perhaps if there are other games in the series you have your eye on for a Stranger of Paradise sequel?
Fujiwara: We are planning for the remaining two additional missions at this time, which include the original plans, while also reviewing adjustments based on feedback from the first additional mission. The evolution of STRANGER OF PARADISE: FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN will continue.
We are also in the process of preparing the content and delivery date of the second additional mission, which we hope to be able to share with you all soon. With new characters and elements appearing in the second expansion and discovering how the future will unfold in the third expansion, we are working on the content to meet all our players’ expectations and betray the game in an even better direction.
Please look forward to this as you play through the first expansion.
‘Trials of the Dragon King’ is the first of three major expansions to Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, and features new classes, bosses, items, and so much more. It is a part of the game’s Season Pass, or can be purchased individually.
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