In celebration of the series' 35th anniversary, Square Enix and Team Ninja have now unleashed the appropriately strange Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. Instead of sticking with the usual JRPG turn-based combat, Stranger of Paradise is more of a Souls-like action-RPG somewhat similar to the Nioh series.

What this means in gameplay terms is that you have a variety of different moves and abilities to play around with, enemy attacks that deal a hefty chunk of damage but are completely avoidable with skillful play, as well as a whole host of items and gear to collect in order to help customize your playstyle. As for what this looks like in action, that you can find out through one of the trailers below:

While the combat is remarkably fun on the higher difficulty levels, as you would expect from a Team Ninja game, the unfortunate thing with Stranger of Paradise is that both the story and the characters are just uninteresting. Needless to say, for a game that's here to celebrate the series' legacy by offering an alternate-universe retelling of the original Final Fantasy story, that's a pretty big problem!

So if you do decide to grab the freshly released Stranger of Paradise on PC, Xbox or PlayStation, make sure you're doing so for the action parts rather than the RPG ones. Personally, I'd recommend waiting on a sale before jumping in, if for no other reason than to give the team enough time to patch out some of the post-launch issues.

Whatever your plans may be, you can learn more about Stranger of Paradise over at the official website.