Final Fantasy Record Keeper

I've never blogged about an app for smartphones before, but today I'd like to tell you about my favorite game on the iPhone.  While Candy Crush and Soda Saga are great in their own right, and I'm digging the Simpsons' Tapped Out, the game I look forward to logging into every day is Final Fantasy Record Keeper.

Pretty much everyone knows how much I love the Final Fantasy franchise.  I own almost every Final Fantasy created (excluding the MMO version of 11 and 14, or FF Tactics).  I've played countless hours trying to get every item in the game, running through all the sidequests, and leveling all my characters to their theoretical limit of 9999 (or in the case of FF10, 99999).  When Facebook suggested that I might like this new app when it was released in the U.S. on March 26th, I quickly downloaded it, eager to see what it entailed!

When you first open the game, you'll get a little story background and plenty of tutorials to try and get you started.  It was a little intimidating at first, but anything with a learning curve usually is.  The game gives you access to realms that you can jump into memorable battles from various Final Fantasies across the generations (FF1 through FF13).

 

Each realm has a number of dungeons you can embark on, with wide ranges of difficulty.  And if you master one, it will unlock more dungeons or enable the Elite version of the dungeon, which is even more difficult but has even more rewards.

Before jumping into a battle, you have the option of selecting and setting up your party.  As a fanatic, I love unlocking my favorite characters and getting them great gear to use in battle.  I can pick certain equipment that "synergizes" with the realm I'm playing to make those weapons and armor even stronger.  The abilities I choose are more dictated by the bosses I'll face and the weaknesses I'll want to expose.  I usually like to roll with 1 healer, 1 black magic mage, and 3 melee characters.

 

The battles are very straightforward and are based on the classic turn-based style with Active Time Battle (ATB) that has grown accustomed to Final Fantasy games throughout the years.  You can choose to attack with your weapon, defend, or use an ability.  Abilities have a set number of uses before they are depleted, so deciding when to use those abilities is key if you want to survive and pass the later stages of the dungeon.  And because it's ATB, you have to make decisions quickly, otherwise the enemy will just pummel away at you.  Fortunately, you can change the speed of the game on the fly without penalty.

As a completionist, I'm doing pretty well getting all the characters that have been released to the game so far.  There is a Japanese version that was released about 6 months earlier that has a lot more in the game than the U.S version.  However, I love the pace of the game.  They release a special Event dungeon about once a week that will typically focus on just a single character and allow you to unlock them if you haven't gotten them already.  I personally like to level up all my characters to level 50 (which is the initial limit; they can reach 65 if you find their memory crystal when it becomes available).

 

I like to have one party that I'm working on leveling to 50 to take out the easy dungeons.  Then I have a party of 50+ to use for the challenging dungeons.  I'm constantly leveling up players and trying to get them better gear.  I don't really think the game involves as much grinding and farming as in other games, which is really nice.  There's also so much in the game that even though I've started since day 1, I always have something to play when I log in each day.  And because the game uses "Stamina" in order to play, it controls just how much you can do in the game in a single sitting if you don't want to spend money or precious mythril.  I personally choose to use mythril on expanding my inventory space or on rare relic draws, which can give you powerful weapons and armor, some that are character specific and change their limit breaks.  The game is pretty good about slowly giving everyone mythril, there is not a finite amount.

As of today, I have not contributed any monies to FFRK.  I can comfortably play this Free-to-play (F2P) game without ever feeling the need to spend money, but my patience with these types of games has never been a problem anyway.  As you can see, you can still have a pretty awesome collection of gear if you are just diligent and disciplined.

And that's about it with Final Fantasy Record Keeper!  It's simplicity makes it easy to play, progress, and get addicted to.  The nostalgic feeling makes me want more and even replay old titles I haven't in a while.  And it is easily my favorite game for the smartphone.  If you want to see a well done video review, I recommend this one by AppSpy.  I know most people are crazy Final Fantasy fanatics like myself, but if you like Role-Playing Games (RPGs) at all, I think you should give this one a shot.  I personally can't wait to see what more gets added over the months!

DISCLAIMER: Final Fantasy Record Keeper is produced and owned by Square Enix and its developers.  All the pictures on this blog are screenshots of the game on my iPhone 6.