Last week, Square Enix released yet another trailer for Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, its upcoming Souls-like prequel to the original Final Fantasy. And while the project continues to look great, English-speaking fans apparently missed out on some more aggressive references to Chaos, the Stranger of Paradise villain whose name became the subject of much memeing following the game’s reveal back in June.
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin protagonist Jack Garland—yes, that Garland—is on a mission: kick the shit out of Chaos while listening to sick nu-metal jams on his smartphone. He’s not afraid to let everyone know it, either. The first Stranger of Paradise trailer included at least eight growly references to the demonic entity, several of which were just about how excited Jack was to finally put the antagonist six feet underground.
Sadly, the developers at Square Enix weren’t quite as delighted with the over-the-top silliness as fans, prompting someone to completely remove all references to Chaos in the new trailer recently shown at Tokyo Game Show. As pointed out by Twitter user Ajya, the Japanese version of the video still very much discusses Chaos by name, but the English localization only includes vague allusions to its presence in the dialogue.
“We didn’t really think it was going to cause quite as much of a reaction as it did, and that was a little bit unexpected.” Stranger of Paradise producer Jin Fujiwara told TheGamer last week when asked about the Chaos memes. “It’s obviously not something we’re terribly pleased about. But I think looking back on it from where we are now, it may have had a slight positive impact if it got people interested. From our point of view, it’s better than nobody paying attention.”
Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin comes to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on March 18, 2022. A second demo is currently available on home consoles and will be playable until October 11.
