Final Fantasy: Record Keeper

[The Twilight Mexican]

I know hito knows about this already (he has the only two posts in the forum's history mentioning it =P), so maybe he's not the only one, but for those of you who don't, it's one of the latest vapid dilutions of the FF brand/micro-transaction-riddled cash-grab pieces of garbage with FF characters that require you to spend real money to perform basic RPG tasks mobile FF games.

The premise -- as much as these things ever have one -- is that there is a kingdom where magic and art go hand in hand. Glorious stories (those of the non-MMO titles in the main FF series) have been chronicled in paintings that serve as living memories of these stories. When a mysterious "darkness" befalls the kingdom and begins to erase the records, you -- as Dr. Mog's best student, Deci -- are tasked with journeying into the magical paintings to save the records from fading. Of course, you can get help from FF characters from the various paintings.

It's been out in Japan since September and will be released in North America in the spring. Oh, and pre-registering now at the official site gets you Tidus when it's released.

So, don't waste your time with this unless you already hate yourself. I've tried enough of these micro-transaction pieces of shit to know by now that it won't be any fun and will just make you hate yourself if you didn't before. Just file this one away with All the Bravest, Airborne Brigade and, most recently, FFVII G-Bike.

Here's a trailer for the NA release:

Japanese trailer:

43 minutes of gameplay:

 

[Strangelove]

bitch you did not just talk shit about record keeper and invoke my name in the same post

i actually think record keeper is one of the better mobile f2p games. the gameplay isn't super deep or anything, you're pretty much fine just powering through most battles. but the bosses do need you to actually think about it and use different skills/abilities.

i started playing this around the same time as g-bike i think, but i rate rk higher and here's some reasons

- for the events, there's a good mix of levels. and to get the more important rewards (which are usually new characters) the level isn't set too high or too difficult. there are some really difficult missions which i've never being able to beat, but they give you abilities and upgrading items which are nice but not special things you can't get elsewhere. by contrast, to get the most of out g-bike's events (fully upgrade the weapons/bikes you get) you need to finish every level since you don't get all the items you need from lower levels. it's fine if you've been playing it for a while and have all the old equipment, but if you haven't then fuck you no fully upgraded stuff for you

- they add a bunch of new systems which are actually good. they added growth egg items which you can use to level up characters (which is nice when you just get a character in an event, since the rewards all include eggs). the level cap was 50 but then they added a level/limit break system, rising the cap to 65. it also gave you 'record materia' items which give you special abilities (stronger attacks when your allies are knocked out, starting each battle with haste, etc.). there's an equipment resonance thing which means that if your equipment or characters match the dungeons (ff7 characters in ff7 dungeons) then their stats are boosted. plus quests which give you rewards for fulfilling certain tasks. a friend summoning system where you can summon someone else's characters for their special attacks. in contrast, g-bike has promised a bunch of systems and upgrades that it hasn't delivered on yet. the talk section has been on the main menu since the start and still hasn't been unlocked.

- on the subject of event rewards, they have been repeating past rewards so if you missed them you have another chance to get them. i couldn't get cecil and sephiroth during the original run of their events, but i have them now thanks to the repeated quests. tidus, who i think was a reward in the dot shaker campaign in japan, was available in another quest later on. some characters were featured as quest rewards as well. and even if you already got the character last time, you could still get the new limit break items for the character in that quest so there's still something to play for. but g-bike, so far, hasn't repeated any quests. i couldn't get all the items for the ifrit weapon and at this rate it looks like i never will.

the iap aspect for rk is limited to gems you use to do stuff like increase your inventory, refill stamina, or i think most importantly summon new equipment. i do have complaints about that, since when there's events they run limited time bonuses that are supposed to give you a better chance of getting character-specific weapons (usually with a power special attack). but i have not found these that useful. there was a valentines day one that was meant to give you a bigger chance of getting squall and rinoa's special weapons but i didn't get one. i don't know if that's because i have never paid, but i wouldn't be surprised. (you can use mythril instead of gems, which are free and rewards for logins or completing dungeons, etc. maybe they have lower odds because fuck you that's why)

i never played airborne brigade, but do not put rk in the same category as g-bike and definitely not the same one as all the bravest.

i will fight you over this

 

[Splintered]

tbh, I fault no one for being wary of any square enix microtransition laden games. Airborne brigade was a product of bumbling around and trying to understand the market at best, exploitative at worst. If they burned they're bridges already, they already have themselves to blame.

That said, Hito's review brings me hope that they are actually trying to be better about their mobile free to pay games. f2p in generally makes me wary because a lot of the games are meant to squeeze the money out of customers like some sort of weird psychological warfare, but they are a few that are getting it right.

Is the pricing structure fair?

 

[Ⓐaron]

This is Square Enix.

 

[Flintlock]

If it comes to Europe, I'll give it a try. Since I won't be spending any money on it, I've got nothing to lose, really. I even managed to get a few seconds' enjoyment out of All the Bravest by laughing at just how terrible it was.

 

[Strangelove]

Is the pricing structure fair?

i had a look at what the gem pricing was for the japanese version, which offers:

Spoiler

set a
97 gems, 100 yen

set b
291 gems, 300 yen

set c
485 gems, 500 yen

set d
970 gems, 1000 yen

set e
1940 gems, 2000 yen

set f
2910 gems, 3000 yen

set g
4850 gems, 5000 yen

set h
9506 gems, 9800 yen

to put that in context, where is what the equipment summoning costs (which gives you equipment of at least 3 star ranking out of 7? i think) in gems and mythril:

1 rare summon
291 gems, 5 mythril

3 rare summons
873 gems, 15 mythril

11 rare summons (1 bonus item included)
2910 gems, 50 mythril

it's not the worst i have ever seen (the game 'spellfall' which has in-game equipment that costs like £70-90 real money was the worse), it looks standard for this type of model really.

 

[Drax]

The thumbnails in the videos and the game's title + microtransactions led me to believe this would be a mad quest to collect all Final Fantasy cutscenes

 

[Claymore]

Just got an email stating that this has been released. Gonna download it and give it a whirl...

 

[Lex]

Um... guys

I just went to the loo and decided to download this in preparation. It's... actually not bad. Like I might be speaking too soon but I'm enjoying it.

 

[Strangelove]

beyond boss battles it's not a particularly deep game that involves a lot of strategy, but in terms of filling a few spare minutes (and if you enjoy collection elements in games) it's not bad

 

[ForceStealer]

Yeah I think it's kinda fun

 

[ultima espio]

I love it

Dunno why they didn't make a Dissidia game like this...

 

[Lex]

I'm assuming there's a massive difficulty spike at some point because I played for a couple of hours there through bits of VII/X/IV and haven't even seen a point where you'd have to pay money for something. I assume it's for equipment rolls or something.

 

[Strangelove]

the 'force dungeons' are where the difficulty tends to spike up

 

[Lex]

Is that the daily event things?

 

[Strangelove]

no, when you complete one of the regular dungeons ('history dungeons' in the japanese version) with all the chocobo trophies it unlocks the force dungeon for that one, which is more difficult but gives you better rewards. some of the special event dungeons have them as well, though

 

[Lex]

Ah, they're called elite dungeons in the English version.

 

[Claymore]

Yeah, it's quite fun. I find myself enjoying it as a nice time waster. It's certainly lightyears better than All The Bravest.

It's just a shame that only Bosses are animated. Would have been nice for everyone to be.

 

[Lex]

Does anyone know how that stamina bar works? I realise it's supposed to run out but mine keeps refilling, is that because I'm doing new dungeons which upgrade it?

 

[Claymore]

When you collect 5 stamina fragments (which, at the moment, I seem to get by just completing dungeons) it upgrades your maximum stamina and refills you completely at the same time.

 

[Strangelove]

yeah, those orange gems under the stamina bar are stamina fragments. i think early on you get a lot, so you can keep going for a while. though you only get those from the regular dungeons, not the special event dungeons.

 

[Lex]

I think I'm right in saying this game ends with South Figaro Cave in terms of current content (aside from dailies and elite dungeons) which is a pity, because I was hoping to see some stuff from VIII, IX and XII before I started messing around with other stuff.

 

[Strangelove]

i would do the daily dungeons first, since if it follows the japanese version they will update those after a while which means you get a new set of rewards (i'm thinking mainly of the mythril).

 

[Lex]

I've been timing it for maximum profit - since most dungeons take around 17 stamina (aside from some longer ones) once you hit 34 max stamina you can do the daily and another story dungeon in one cycle, and since the vast majority of story dungeons completely restore your stamina you get a load out of doing the daily - story, daily - story over and over until you've unlocked everything. Otherwise it's kind of wasting extra stamina.

 

[Joe]

Been playing this a bit today. Classic f2p mobile business model, nothing out of the ordinary there. Loving the nostalgia trip so far, definitely something I can enjoy during downtime when I'm out and about.