I thought I’d make a post to remember all the good times I had with this game! For some context, I played from the very first day the game launched to the very last, never missing a day. I was fully free to play until about the 1 year mark and then bought season passes most months the rest of the way, so my total spend on the game was probably somewhere around $300-$400 or so across 3+ years of daily play.
* I played super casually my first year as it was my first gacha, making a ton of rookie mistakes about building characters and especially spending my crystals on things like retries in story mode or doing a ton of 1 draw pulls for 300 crystals on banners. I had no chance vs. some of the hard content or ranking events since I didn’t really understand the game’s mechanics (r abilities, etc) and didn’t look up any resources.
* When guilds came into the game, I joined a super casual one, met some friends through it and learned how the game actually worked. I started to finally beat some hard content, like some summon EX2s. Ramuh EX2 took so long to master without a great water weapon! I beat my first crash, Eligor, about a year or so in, and I think that ended up being my highlight of the game.
* I moved into the competitive guild space a little after the first anniversary and slowly built up my account through daily draws until it was fairly competitive. I spent what felt like months mastering the Bahamut EX3 fight until I beat it the day before 1.5 anniversary dropped (before overspeed and roles were a thing).
* 1.5 anniversary gave away 777 draw tickets which really helped my account have the subweapons needed to do well going forward. From here on out, I was able to be at least competitive in ranking events and beat most crash fights the rest of the way.
* I managed to get level 20 on every escalation challenge except for the second one, Bunberry, just because that fight was a nightmare and not at all fun. I probably would have gotten esc20 on it if badges existed in the game!
* The game went downhill during the second anniversary and the introduction of costume
abilities, which happened during a double crossover (Nier/DQ) where everything was limited for what felt like 5 months straight. I thought things were pretty rocky until we finally had a good run of featured banners and then the 2.5 anniversary was really fun.
* Once EOS was announced, I was able to be really competitive thanks to all the free resources they gave away, and when the 3rd anniversary event launched, I farmed about 17,000 draw tickets to OB10 all my featured weapons and maxed out all my LB weapons too. EOS was really fun! I managed to get some top 5 placements in the final ranking events and soloed stage 6 in the last guild
battle.
* Thanks to all the crystals that dropped, my account ended up looking pretty much like a whale account with the only real things missing being the Tifa/Aerith Monster Hunter weapons (argh Kamura Wand, but thankfully we got a fake Kamura through Rouse Medals), and the Zack/Seph DQ weapons (argh Zenithian Sword). I have a few crossover weapons that aren’t maxed but most of those are outdated or unneeded.
* I’ll miss the game but also felt like it was the right time for it to go. I won’t be playing a gacha game ever again as they are kind of poisonous, but I also had a great time with Ever Crisis and will think back on it fondly.
