Collab REM Review – Final Fantasy Part 3

I know I’m late to the party, but I still wanted to write this review. I considered skipping it altogether, but I thought it was a good chance to try some things out that I’ll explain in a bit. In a way the delay wasn’t all downside as I was able to write my review with YamaP’s roll buffs in mind from the ground up (for those not familiar, PAD’s producer Yamamto Daike sometimes steams his rolls and give them buffs; this is the first time he’s done it for a collab).

Anyways, Final Fantasy was one of the strongest collabs to hit NA and that still remains the case. The new 6-stars, Tifa and Noctis, are exceptional and the returning 6-stars all received substantial buffs. The 5- and 4-stars are more of a mixed bag. The 5-star golds are mostly situational cards like Vaan and Rinoa, but Y’shtola does present tremendous all-around value at this rarity. The silvers are almost all garbage, though, with Penelo being the only moderately usable one. Fortunately, the gold rate seems rather high so the overall value per roll is actually respectable for a collab.

Collab Review – Final Fantasy Part 2

Similar to the BvS/DC Collab, I’m going to mail in this review. Hopefully you can take away something useful regardless. Thankfully, there’s really not much to say about it: it’s by far the best we’ve ever gotten in terms of top-end power which is made all the better by it reaching NA with a respectable delay, allowing many of the cards to still be somewhat relevant. Collabs will always have horrible EV and this is no exception, but if there was ever a time to roll in one, this is it. For all those fans clamoring for this collab, they gave you a decent product, so now’s the time to show your support.

Final Fantasy Farming and Skill Ups

I guess I’m supposed to be thankful that there are skill ups at all?

Farming Numbers

Final Fantasy Legend – 2x Drops – 110 Runs
Weapon	Drops	Drop %	Stam / Drop
Yuna	29	26.36%	170.69
Cloud	41	37.27%	120.73
Sephiroth	4	3.64%	1237.50
Squall	39	35.45%	125.92
Rinoa	37	33.64%	133.78
Tidus	28	25.45%	176.79
Zidane	37	33.64%	133.78

I ran Legend because it was the lowest difficulty that guaranteed a Cloud/Kefka drop, the only skill up I was interested in besides Yuna. I’m not sure if other difficulties are better or not, but I couldn’t find any good sources indicating otherwise. I encountered Gilgamesh 13 times, or 8.18% of my runs, for a total of four Masamunes. Meaning even if you’re farming to skill up an entire Cloud System, you probably won’t be able to skill up a Sephiroth in the same about of time. Pretty lame, in my opinion.

Skill Up Numbers

Monster	Tries	Success	Rate
Yuna	20	5	25.00%
Cloud	40	5	12.50%
Squall	35	10	28.57%
Rinoa	37	9	24.32
Tidus	28	5	17.86%
Zidane	20	5	25.00%
Chaos	70	10	14.29%
Emperor of Palamecia	63	10	15.87%
Cloud of Darkness	46	10	21.74%
Zeromus	32	10	31.25%
Neo Exdeath	36	7	19.44%
Kefka	34	10	29.41%

All of my luck went into skilling up everything except the one thing I wanted: Cloud. I went 0-for-5 on him five times. Luckily I got two 2-for-5s, but it was still frustrating as fuck. This is what I get for trying on 2x instead of waiting for 2.5x, but I just wanted to get this out of the way. Hopefully we never get 2x again.

Collab Review – Final Fantasy

The initial reaction to this REM is usually one of two things: excitement for actually getting Final Fantasy on NA or disappointment that the monsters are so outdated. As far as value, the disappointment is justified; at the rate PAD is power creeping, no card is going to look great after almost 200 days with no upgrades. That being said, the top-end of the collab has aged fairly well, much of that is due in large part to the haste mechanic being so powerful. Conversely, the low-end of the REM has never been relevant as GungHo didn’t price their hastes competitively enough. This pretty much sucks all value out of the collab, making it very risky to roll.

Regardless of the REM’s power, a major question for those that intend to roll is whether now is a good time to do so. FF is almost certainly going to see multiple installments on JP and in addition to uevos and balance updates there will certainly be more eggs from the games not already featured. Rolling now means you have a “better chance” of getting what you want, but if the collab ever returns you run the risk of dupes. Rolling later could be better value, but that’s assuming we even get the collab again (looking at you, Eva). It’s a tough call to make.