Not much to say, but it's something good (and random) to discuss.

Long story short: Final Fantasy Record Keeper is a mobile, F2P with gacha battle simulator that has you, as the eponymous "Record Keeper", restore "Records" which contain all of the Final Fantasy stories from I to XIV, with Tactics tagged in, and soon enough XV and World of Final Fantasy. The reason is unknown (and only recently there's some sort of clues), but you have to get into the Records and fight classic monsters with all your favorite (or loathed) characters tagging along.

Or, you just get to fight. And fight. And fight some more. And, curiously enough...it's fun. No dungeon crawling, no deep story - just battles all the way through, but it's the battles themselves which are fun. They're also in glorious pixel art, with good ol' Active Time Battle.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster, no? Well, surprise surprise, FFRK is about to have its 2nd Anniversary in Global (it already had its anniversary on Japan), with a load of goodies around. I'll explain for the non-players:

  • First, there will be special banners. This is your "gacha", which is in essence gambling; you can do it via Mythril, which you can acquire just by logging daily or finishing "dungeons" (i.e. collections of battles), or you can spend real money for it (Gems, the Premium currency). These are half-priced Lucky Draws which are curated - that means you ONLY get the stuff from characters, and from a select list, and nothing more, for half the price (typically 50 Mythril or 3000 gems, so 25 Mythril/1500 gems for half-price). The gacha allows you to get high-level Relics for your characters, which allow them to learn Soul Breaks (i.e. Limit Breaks), which are divided into Unique (run of the mil), Super (more powerful, and give you stat boosts when mastered), Burst (same as Super, except you enter Burst Mode and replace the Attack and Defend commands with special skills) and Overstrike (as Super, except it has ridiculous damage multipliers and allow you to break the damage cap of 9999 HP, up to the first limit of 99,999 HP. There will be three such Lucky Draws (one containing Medicas, or AoE healing Soul Breaks; the other containing only Burst Soul Breaks, and the third...I can't really recall), plus the Ultros Selection (a handful of SSBs, BSBs and OSBs chosen by the players via survey), and then a set of five Anniversary banners containing old and new relics.
  • Orbfest! The "Orbfest" is the given name for special events that allow you to "farm" (repeat the event for acquisition of) gems, which allow you to create and hone your skills (i.e. Fire as Black Magic, Lifesiphon as Combat skill, Ifrit as Summon magic, etc.) These events are for a limited time, but also offer great amounts of Gil (the currency you use for...well, honing and refining weapons/armor and stuff, but is otherwise useless) and more importantly, XP. Completing each for the first time also gives you Mythril.
  • Record Missions! These require you to complete new or previously completed missions for prizes (which will most likely be Orbs). For this, the requirement of Stamina (your limiting factor when speaking of how much you can progress) is halved, meaning you can complete more missions per day. That is, when you're not spending time in the Orbfest anyways.
  • Mythril galore! Every now and then, there are special prizes just for logging in, and that usually includes effort-less Mythril. A bunch of it is expected.
  • Mythril Dungeon! While not entirely confirmed, when Japan had its anniversary, there was a special dungeon that you could repeat. There, and only there, players had the chance to farm for Mythril, which could be acquired by defeating enemies - to a total of 50 Mythril, enough for a single "pull" on any banner (or for what Mythril is also useful, such as expanding your item/ability slots on inventory, or refreshing Stamina)
  • Whatever other surprises happen (usually music remixes playing on different parts of the game, mini-games, and whatnot)


The 2nd Anniversary will be by March 25th of this year, though some of its parts will appear much earlier. There's already a login bonus every weekend giving effortless Mythril (3 per day), as a countdown for the Anniversary.

So, is anyone here playing the game AND excited for the Anniversary, or lured by nostalgia and deciding to give it a try? It's fairer than most other games in terms of its gacha (allowing you a guaranteed high-rate Relic if you make the 11-pull, which costs as much as 10 pulls so they're basically giving you one for free), it can be quite engaging (battles don't always revolve over who has the better items; some thinking goes a long way, and many of the old strategies for the bosses are re-enacted), and has constant events, so it rarely gets stale - the power-creep is there, sure, but not as strong as with other games. And, in a way, it can be actually played for free, without having to invest anything (that way being if the gacha is lucky, though even then you can do well with the events with minimal items, and recent Relics offer very solid Soul Breaks), which is a plus.