For people who grew up playing Final Fantasy games on their SNES, Final Fantasy Record Keeper will be a nostalgic experience. I remember when I first played Final Fantasy VI - where characters like Locke, Terra, Celes, Sabin, Edgar, Cyan, Gau, Mog, and Shadow became the topic of conversation among friends. It was this series, in my opinion, that made the FF franchise a gamer brand. And with the recent drought of FF games, perhaps Record Keeper is Square Enix's way of trying to prevent the brand from fading from gamer's minds.
Record Keeper brings back characters from FF IV, V, VI, VII, and X (so far - and although their ads show Squall from FF VIII, I've yet to encounter any characters from that game). Come to think of it, I haven't encountered a FF VI character either. The main character, Tyro, looks like Strago's granddaughter - Merle. He's a hybrid between a warrior and a mage - which is what makes him special. Other characters are either warriors only or mage only. Aside from him, what I have right now are Cloud and Tifa of FF VII and Tidus and Wakka of FF X. Not really a fan of FF IV, and FF V characters are more of roles (Ranger, Bard, Warrior, etc). Some of these characters will become important in certain stages because of their abilities - for example, a stage in the Shinra building where I'm trying to acquire Sephiroth (yes, the FF VII bad guy) has a boss that can only be hit using range attacks. So Cloud and Tifa - the members of my party which I've been using most of the time, become useless for that stage, and I have to rely on Wakka, the Bard, and the Ranger for offense. The Priest becomes the only FF V character that is staple in my party since it is the only one with mass healing capabilities at the current level I am in. Game play is similar to FF VI - but limited in that you can only have two abilities or spells equipped during any battle. So you have to swap out abilities depending on the battle scenario - which means your party has to die and you'll have to repeat the process with the new abilities to win. From a developer standpoint - this is smart, since it ensures that players will be playing this game for a long time. (As if leveling up multiple characters wasn't enough of repeat playability).
FF Record Keeper is the only free FF game on Google Play. The intro was pretty awesome, but the lack of depth in the story line is uncharacteristic of an FF title. There isn't even a villain - or an explanation for the fading records (or paintings in this case) except maybe, that the gamers are forgetting about the FF titles due to an abundance of other great games out there.
So what will keep this game going? If you love collecting equipment and party members and leveling up characters, then those would be the reasons for you to keep on playing. But mission wise, you save all of the paintings in probably three days of continuous play. (And with most games having stamina as a way of limiting gamer play time - that really says a lot about the length of this game. I remember the 90 plus hours I invested in FF VI - now that was a really long game with all those quests). Square Enix developers should still invest in the story. I think that the stories of the characters were the reasons I wanted to collect them when I was playing FF VI.
Still, if you just want to reminisce and can't afford a PS4 for the latest FF game, then try out Record Keeper. At least you'll get to see Cid and Mog. Kupo!
Finally got Cloud, Cecil (knight), Sephiroth, and Cecil (Paladin) in that order. Took a lot of leveling up. Stamina is becoming the bottleneck of this game. I understand that the developers want players to keep playing - indefinitely if possible - instead of finishing the game and moving on with their lives =). But wouldn't it be better to come up with fresh content that keeps players coming back, rather than a deterrent which will eventually cause players to lose interest? For now, I would recommend increasing the player's stamina limit to 1000 since the Elite dungeons require staminas of 14 per level. And you need to grind to level up to beat the enemies in these levels. But because of the limit of stamina, you're not even able to do that consistently.
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