Freemium Perdition: Final Fantasy: Record Keeper

Final Fantasy: Record Keeper
Turn Based Battle Simulator
1 Player
System: Android
Developer: DeNa
Year of Release: 2015
Beaten: April 11th, 2015

Final Fantasy: Record Keeper is a free to play game for smart phones. The basis of which is that you play the titular role of the Record Keeper (or work for him, honestly I skipped a lot of the introduction), but things have gone awry. Now it is up to you to team up with heroes throughout the multiverse to fix problems and keep the records straight. This is a weird game to write about. I quickly learned my lesson in regards to free to play games, so a game has to offer something unique or very interesting to lure me in while toting "premium currencies" or the like. For the most part Record Keeper doesn't abuse this payment model, as is so easy to do. Which is good because for a game with a premise like that to be squandered on ridiculous fees would be a shame.

Too bad being designed for phones does it no justice.
Still the game is decent, if only in a limited capacity. It's not even technically due to being a phone game, while I've never played it, Final Fantasy Dimensions is a full fledged RPG and though I've heard it heavily relies on references to older Final Fantasy titles it still has its own full world ripe for exploration. Record Keeper really drops the ball in this regard (which to be fair it never touted as having) becoming nothing more than an FF-style battle simulation game. Everything is streamlined down to ensure quick play sessions, which in and of itself is a double edged sword.

Now I do enjoy these battles and there definitely is room for strategy, but most battles can be easily overcome with the auto battle system. You can turn auto battle off and on with a click of a button, and once engaged you can just set the phone down and do something else. Actually I'm doing just that as I write this. Assuming you're taking on fights that you are suitably leveled for the game plays itself. Of course boss fights at the end of "dungeons" usually require you to turn it off and handle things more personally which is a decent way to force interaction. The dungeons themselves are just lists of rooms that each cost some stamina to enter, fights ensue, then you're back to the list. Stamina being the main free to play barrier in this game, it accrues slowly overtime (honestly it is a pretty fair rate) or you can pay to regain your stamina, allowing you to get back to the grind quickly.

After battles you acquire money, equipment and upgrade orbs. There is a pretty simple alchemy/upgrade system where you combine various items into other items at a cost to power them up, then once fully powered, you can combine duplicate equipment to further boost their powers. Abilities, including spells, have a similar upgrade system. This is where the majority of your resources are going to be going, grinding battles to earn a bit more stuff to get a bit stronger. Another sort of currency that is obtainable on rare-ish occasions is called mithril, you can use this in a raffle sort of thing to gain high quality equipment. This happens slowly, and is probably the biggest temptation to actually spend money on this game, anything you can buy with mithril you can get with gems which is available only via actual purchases. I really recommend against that though as the prices are just really high for what equates to a few extra stat points.

Finally, the interesting premise. Getting to "explore" the worlds of previous Final Fantasies is an awesome concept, seeing battles reimagined in 2D (or just repeated in the case of the earlier games) is really neat for a long time fan of the series. Unfortunately, my game stopped having completed only a few dungeons in Final Fantasy IV, V, VI, VII and X, leaving out a fair few games in between. There are daily dungeons to grind in, and events seem to pop up frequently to the point where at least one is constantly running. Events wind up being the most interesting thing, as sometimes they operate a little differently, and usually offer an exclusive character if you can get far enough in the "dungeons". You can unlock a few characters in the base game too, but its mostly base classes like Black Mage or Bard and not the traditionally thought of characters too often, though a few do show up. It's really disappointing how little content is in such a little game, but weekly updates do help a bit, especially with how the game is designed.

(Also of note, as was rumored and now confirmed in game, new "Classic and Elite Dungeons" are being added from FFI and II, which are the core dungeons available at any time, the fact that expansion could keep coming for years to come is promising, but I'm still confused as to why this wasn't included from the get go. A battle simulation game shouldn't keep my interest for an extended period of time, or at least I hope it doesn't.)

This game is an oddity. Mobile gaming as a whole is beyond me, I don't really like or recommend this game, but I can't stop playing it. Even if for just one full stamina's bar worth of "dungeons" I end up playing for a bit a day. I don't know what drives it, nostalgia partially I'm sure, but honestly I'm over that consciously. So what the hell is the draw? I don't know, but it's free, and if you've enjoyed some of the main Final Fantasy games it might be worth a bit of your time. Just keep in mind patience is better than wasted money, and getting through Record Keeper without spending a dime is not only doable, but preferable. If played at all.