History YMMV / FinalFantasyRecordKeeper

* ArcFatigue: With the game entering its fifth year on the market, Magicites and the story unfolding with them have been around for more than half of its lifetime, slowly being rolled out one element at a time a couple months at a time, across four tiers of power. Not only do Magicites take ''a lot'' of grinding to level up[[note]]Even more when they first came out compared to now -- they cost 60 Stamina instead of 20, needed a Magic Stone to fight them (and you only got one a day), and they rewarded only one 3/4/5-star Magicite piece at a time.[[/note]], but each successive tier tends to be a jump in PowerCreep, and the story around Magicites trickled out as players could defeat them. When 6* Magicites were added many players protested because they were sick of Magicites already and wanted [=DeNA=] to come up with something new for the next challenge, and the story of the Magicite arc had been given a satisfactory conclusion in [[spoiler:Dark Odin]] as an AllYourPowersCombined FinalExamBoss.

** "Tyro master race".[[note]]Tyro's JackOfAllStats status combined with several buffing Soul Breaks and Realm Synergy in Core dungeons (which includes many Event dungeons) means he tends to be a highly used character in events despite his terrible stats.[[/note]]

** With the game entering its fifth year near the end of 2019 and going into 2020, new character additions have slowed to a trickle, even though several prominent characters from the franchise are still nowhere to be seen.

** [=DeNA=] intern strikes again.[[note]]Minor errors such as typos and the like are blamed on anonymous, faceless interns of the company that did a slipshod job.[[/note]]

** "lolbio"[[labelnote:Explanation]]The Poison element is regarded as the worst and least covered element in the game, having only [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyII Leila]], [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI Edgar]] and [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII Quistis]] as its most notable users.[[/labelnote]]

** Even worse, the Poison element; [=DeNA=] has pretty much gone out of their way to phase it out of the player's arsenal. Characters who started out as Poison specialists have been shifted to other roles that downplay their Poison affinity; Leila has become a generalist Sharpshooter/Thief with a nudge towards Water; Edgar became a Fire/Lightning Machinist; Kefka became a Dark mage; Quistis became a dedicted support buffer; Marcus went from Wind/Poison to focused as Wind support; and Thancred shifted to an Earth Ninja. For gameplay options beyond characters, there's no Poison Magicite, no Poison Chain Soul Break, and viable Poison abilities are limited to just Chain Biora and Poison Leaves. But don't worry, on the upside you'll never need to use the Poison element because no bosses outside of Realm and Challenge dungeons are weak to Poison. The developers even began to take advantage of how little they've utilized Poison; several of the "Neo-Torment" bosses rely on Poison for their offensive, against which there are fewer ways to defend compared to the other elements.

** Several high-tier commands and all Soul Breaks remove the HUD during their animation. This unfortunately means that if you try to input a command to a character just as one of these animations begins, not only will your command likely not go through, but your input will be delayed because you have to tap the icon again once the HUD reappears. This can also happen multiple times to the same character if the rest of the party happens to attack in sequence. In timed battles against high-level bosses that can wipe out the party with a single attack, this delay can cost you the fight. Magicites are even worse about this, because they appear every few seconds without warning and can really screw up your rhythm.

*** Since ''Tactics'', ''Tactics Advance'', ''Type-0'', and even ''World of Final Fantasy'' and ''Dimensions II'', have reps in this game, that opens the door for other prominent spin-offs to be included, but they have not been. There have been several ''Dissidia''-themed events, and the [=PS4=] ''Dissidia'' is still being updated and the sub-series as a whole remains very popular, but Cosmos, Chaos, Materia, and Spiritus have not been added.

* Narm: Each of the 17 historia Crystals has it's own theme from each corresponding realm. While some are battle themes and important event themes. Some of them are completely unfitting for battle. Notable the FFI and FFII Historia Crystal themes respectively which is the Cornelia Castle theme and the Wild Rose theme respectively.

** Among the 5* Magicites, [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII Hecatoncheir]] is considered the easiest, to the extend a player may not even need a Chain Soul Break to defeat him. While he's still a LightningBruiser who hits hard, he doesn't hit as hard as other characters, and a well-defended party with a competent healer can keep up with him well enough. Also, as the Earth Magicite, Hecatoncheir is weak to Wind, and the Wind-elemental Cloud happens to be one of the most broken characters in the game; with proper support, he can ''solo'' Hecatoncheir. With help from Bartz and Zidane with their stronger kits, especially their Awakenings, the fight gets even easier.

** Leviathan is considered possibly the easiest 6* Magicite. His unique gimmick is that he inflicts Doom on the party at the start of the battle and uses various attacks that lower the Doom counter or set it to 5 or 10 seconds. However, he also provides a mitigation mechanic in that he regularly spawns Air Bubbles that can be attacked to increase the Doom timer. His other gimmick is that he can inflict Stop, but he does it very rarely, always targets the same three characters, and his Mind stat is pathetic, so characters with even only a modest Mind stat of their own will be immune to Stop. Beyond Doom and Stop, his attacks don't hurt as much as the other 6* Magicites, his uses of Lightning Diffusion are buried deep in his attack script save for one instance when he enters his second phase (most other 6* Magicites use their Diffusions early each phase or recast it at both phase changes), and his only way of bolstering his defenses are to cast Protect and Shell on himself one time, as opposed to raising his Lightning resistance or lowering the party's Lightning attack (which most other 6* Magicites do at least one of). This makes Leviathan a much simpler and easier boss than his brethren, especially in comparison to the Magicite that preceded him, [[ThatOneBoss Ramuh]].

** [[BreakoutCharacter Cloud]] tends to get all the new toys first. For a while, this rendered him susceptible to PowerCreep since all the new toys also got better when characters got them later, but he later reversed this trend by getting stuff early that also happened to remain good, such as his Ultra, which, for its time, was considered greatly overpowered.

** Unsurprisingly to many, [[BreakoutCharacter Cloud]]. He got the first Memory Crystals--I and II--the first Super Soul Break, the first Wardrobe Record and the first Burst Soul Break, and got one of the first Record Dives, four days after the feature was implemented. While he's popular among players, the attention turns off even some of his fans, because he typically gets BoringButPractical straight-damage Soul Breaks that [[PowerCreep date quickly]].
*** However, his more recent Soul Breaks have brought him up to par: his Wind-elemental second BSB, plus his Ultra Soul Break, which makes all his attacks critical and breaks the damage cap, are so game-breaking that Japan banned Roaming Warriors from endgame content to prevent abuse. The later addition of his second Ultra, and his first Glint and Arcane made this bigger, and Cloud has never bounced back from the PowerCreep since then.

** Bard abilities in general. While characters with Bard aptitude have other abilities to get use out of, the Bard school itself simply sucks, as it focuses on buffing abilities that either have too little effect or need multiple usages to achieve a noticable effect. The only abilities that will see regular usage are the 5★ Ode To Victory (boosts the party's critical hit rate) and the 6★ Allegro con Moto (gives the party three turns of Magical Quickcast), but they're only useful on specific teams and Soul Breaks to grant the party those same buffs are common.

** Focused debuffers. Most high-level content over a 200 Difficulty feature bosses that are either highly resistant to stat debuffs or plain immune, so it'll take multiple turns of stacking different debuffs on the enemy to achieve a noticable effect. While debuffers aren't ''entirely'' useless, they're generally undesirable over characters who can buff the party, can Imperil the enemy to an element the party can exploit, or just another DPS character who can make up the damage difference the debuffer would have provided.
*** This status is even worse for characters who have abilities that rely on status ailments, because naturally most bosses bosses are immune to all status ailments. Fortunately there aren't too many of these characters and many of them have been given other tools to avoid PowerCreep.
* TookALevelInBadass: Gordon, throughout the game's development. Now, he is one of the few to have an [=AoE=] stacking debuff and an [=AoE=] stacking buff. Originally, he was seen as a Red Mage/support hybrid. However, his highest stat was Magic, he couldn't equip Rods, and other supports were better at attacking than him. With enough buffs and useful Soul Breaks, however, he became very useful very quickly, and is the only character who can buff the party and have a stacking [=AoE=] debuff.

** Several weapon classes are limited to only a couple of characters, like Red XIII's hairpins, Barret's Gun-arms, Lulu's dolls, or Setzer's Gamblers. The last one was even quietly set aside later; after his first Relic was a Gambler, Setzer's later Relics were classified as Throwing weapons, leaving his first Gambler Relic as the only one of its kind in the entire game.
** The Witch ability class was introduced around the same time as, and designed to synergize with, Chain Soul Breaks, as they have low power but deal multiple hits to increase the chain count quickly. Then for months afterward they were forgotten, with only two 4✩ and two 5✩ abilities in two elements each, and when they eventually got new abilities, they were just stronger versions of the four they already had before so Witch specialists could avoid PowerCreep. Given that the only other dedicated magic schools are Black Magic and Summon, there's plenty of room for a third magic school to offer strategic variance, but it wasn't capitalized on for Witches. When they eventuallygot a Fire-elemental skill, it was obviously just so Matoya could pull off her FireIceLightning focus properly, as no other Witch characters need or want Fire.

** A lot of characters are added to the game, get a handful of Soul Breaks to go with their inclusion, and are then forgotten about for years. When they ''do'' get more Soul Breaks, it often feels like obligation more than anything else, as though the developers only gave them Soul Breaks because they'd run out of characters in the realm and these guys were saved for last.
*** Of the ''Final Fantasy I'' cast, only Warrior of Light, Garland, Sarah, and Meia get new tools on a regular basis; Wol, Matoya, Echo, Master, and Thief get little, if anything. They eventually got Awakenings in the game's 5th year, by which time Synchros and Limit Breaks were the newest tech.
*** From ''II'', Guy has nothing higher than Ultra tech, though his is at least decent. Still, with ''II'' containing two other prominent Earth characters, including Guy's sister Maria, one would think the Earth Monk would get attention if just to add more synergy to the realm.
*** Cid from ''IV'' has been entirely forgotten and sits on a subpar Ultra Soul Break as his best tech, while everyone else in the realm gets new toys fairly regularly. Even Rubicante and Barbariccia have more Relics than him, including Glints and Awakenings.
*** Sazh sees utility because the limited Relics he has still make him an effective supporter, but he didn't get anything higher than an Ultra until the game's fifth year.
** ''Tactics'' had LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters, so it was inevitable that it would take time for them to all get new toys. Many of them -- Mustadio, Gaffgarion, Meliadoul, March, Montblanc -- only go up an Ultra, maybe with a Glint or Arcane Overstrike.

** Magicites have stats displayed for how long it takes for them to charge in battle and how long they last while summoned, and also have limited charges like Roaming Warriors. Until 6* Magicites came out, all Magicites were exactly the same in all these areas and any opportunities to affect strategy or balance of using Magicites were ignored.