100% completionists beware - 2 jobs, 2 achievements/trophies, 2 menu awards, and bestiary entries are locked behind premium gacha. Forcing encounters with each step is locked behind paid DLC.

A warning up front! Ambition Record is a bad game for 100% completionists. Two jobs, two Achievements/Trophies for getting those jobs on Steam/Xbox/Playstation versions, two menu award prizes (for 10 and 15 Overkills), and a handful of bestiary entries (connected to training gauntlets for the two jobs) are all locked behind premium gacha. The ONLY way a player can get any of these things is to spend Shop currency on random “crafting” and hope for a lucky roll.

I have been told that Ambition Record’s gacha is not purely random. There is a set list of gacha prizes and the player will eventually get each one of them from gacha, after which another gacha cycle begins and the player starts getting random picks from the list until the list is exhausted again, etc. However, this list of gacha prizes is so long that the player will NOT exhaust it in a normal playthrough, even if they’re playing a console/PC version (which gives 10 Shop currency every few random encounters) and spend all their Shop currency on gacha.

Furthermore, the consumable gacha items that teach the special jobs can only be used on one party member, and the only way to get the 15 Overkill Award is to get two of a certain gacha item (“Eight-Fold Crest”). This means that a dedicated 100% completionist has to finish an entire gacha cycle and start a second gacha cycle to achieve their goal. A player determined to teach all jobs to every character would have to finish three gacha cycles and start a fourth.

To make 100% completion even worse, the ability to force random encounters with every step is locked behind $2 paid DLC to control the encounter rate. Running around to trigger random encounters gets tedious, and there is nothing like the monster-attract pillars of other Exe-Create games.

The player doesn’t need to deliberately grind levels or job experience to finish the game and earn both endings (there is only one difficulty setting). Only optional superboss challenges and the desire to amass Shop currency incentivize grinding.

There is one other way to play gacha. The toughest optional superboss in Ambition Record is a postgame Arena challenge; victory earns the player a “premium ticket” that functions as a free gacha roll. This Arena challenge can be repeated as much as desired; there isn’t even an in-game gold fee.

Farming the Arena is quite tedious even at high levels because Arena enemies have too much HP and take way too long to be KO’d. There is no reason to make players focused on 100% completion suffer like this… other than to extract more money out of them for gacha or paid DLC.

So, what if the player doesn’t care about 100% completion? What if they’re fine with just beating Ambition Record and its optional challenges? Gacha nonsense aside, Ambition Record is a helping of JRPG comfort food – enjoyable, but nothing really stands out.

Ambition Record recycles the 3D graphical style, basic gameplay, and probably some environmental art of Sephirothic Stories. Unlike Sephirothic Stories, there are no timed run-and-dodge puzzles (I consider this a good thing) and no real-time garden. No garden means that the player can’t easily obtain enough stat boosters to trivialize the combat by putting all stat boosters on one character; Ambition Record’s entire party of four is useful throughout the whole game.

The 3D character models of Ambition Record (and Sephirothic Stories) aren’t as appealing as the full-sized and detailed models of Revenant Saga, Revenant Dogma, Alphadia Genesis 1 & 2, or Illusion of L’Phalcia. Ambition Record uses blocky, small-sized, oddly-proportioned “chibi” models. The environmental art of Ambition Record is also 3D, but pretty bland – there are only a few environmental types and everything looks the same.

The gameplay of Ambition Record is quite basic. There is a job system, but the player can finish the entire game and all challenges if they just use the default four jobs assigned to the party. Switching jobs can be done anytime out of combat and has no cost, but is almost pointless because job skills do NOT carry over into a new job. Only a job’s “passive” bonuses carry over, and only if the job is completely maxed out.

If the player does not buy items from the Shop that boost job experience, then the party won’t master more than two jobs in a normal playthrough to earn both endings, or maybe four jobs if the player chooses to grind up to level 90+.

Ambition Record’s story is its brightest point, and even then the story is average at best. It’s set in the Kingdom of Francia, which is very loosely inspired by the French monarchy. Most characters have French names, in both the original Japanese and the English translation.

Francia is under attack by a murderous rebel army, whose leader has absorbed the power of a dragon and gleefully exterminates whole villages. Francia’s nobles and army are riddled with corruption and incompetence; only a substantially more disciplined and competent company of mercenaries has a chance of stopping the rebel warlord’s ambitions. The playable heroes are three leaders of this mercenary company, plus a fourth recruit the company trains as a mercenary.

(Ambition Record is not a tactical RPG; although army battle tactics are occasionally described as part of the story, the gameplay is that of a standard turn-based JRPG with a four-person party.)

While this war story is interesting enough to follow through to the end, it has several weaknesses that severely undercut its potential. Even though corruption and incompetence among Francia’s nobles is a recurring theme, there is NOTHING analogous to the historical French Revolution. When a major NPC says “people always follow strong leaders”, no one disputes him, and the merit of continuing the feudal system is never questioned. There’s not even any hints of reform into a constitutional monarchy.

Also, the playable characters of Ambition Record lean a bit too hard into JRPG tropes. The female strategist obsesses way too much about marrying the main hero and having his children; she mentions it in every other dialogue. This is clearly intended for comedy relief but gets tiresome fast. There could be a romance triangle (romance square?) between the hero and the three other party members, who all seem to be attracted to him, but this has no resolution. Some Exe-Create games let the player choose which party member the hero grows closest to; Ambition Record does not.

The story is at its best when it breaks away from the tired anime cliches and explores smaller moments – testing and training the new recruit as a mercenary; the dark history of plagues in Francia; the execution of battlefield tactics; and so on. Some of the optional sidequests have good story moments. Ambition Record also deserves credit for having mercenary heroes who aren’t “pure” – they will use lethal force when they are pitted against truly monstrous criminals.

I don’t regret buying and playing Ambition Record, but 100% completionists should stay far away due to gacha nonsense. Even players who aren’t 100% completionists won’t find much of anything special, and I can’t recommend playing Ambition Record over most other games. Maybe if one can pick it up cheap.

A Half Decent Game

Ambition Record had the potential to be a pretty good game. I enjoyed the characters & dialogue, the Job System, Skills and equipment customisation – the normal ending part of the game was enjoyable, though a bit too easy.

You can only level to 99 and Job level 10, which is easily do able during normal. Locations, dungeons, etc are small and easy going and boring. There is little opportunity to farm skill enhancers etc – not that you need them.

2 of the Jobs can only be obtained through the in game shop and are entirely based on luck as they are random. This is rediculous in any game, but especially one where levelling is not necessary and locations are few and boring.

So what is there to do in ‘post game’? Basically – not much!

2 new fighting locations (which are tiny)
I think you maybe able to do more arena in post game
And the ‘end boss is the same one, in the same location as the normal ending

The equipment customization was interesting, but I felt as though I had wasted my time buffing my stuff – didn’t need it with these enemies.

Ambition Record had the potential to be a really good game, instead it feels like half a game. Maybe they ran out of money or time half way through? Or maybe they just couldn’t be bothered!

A Nice Time Sink

When before purchasing Ambition Record, I checked around our forum to see what other people thought of it. For the most part, it was compared to Sephirothic(SS) Stories and Dimension Cross(DC) which makes sense due to it’s 3D aspect. After finishing the game with the true ending, Ambition Record is more of a cross between SS/DC and Exe Create’s Dragon games i.e. Dragon Sinker, Lapis, Alvastia Chronicles, Heir of Kings and Liege Dragon.

Graphics: The graphic are clearly an evolution from SS & DC with the maps being 3d. NPCs are less detailed than the party and main characters but, there are fewer npcs than most games so it isn’t as noticeable. Battles are 2.5D, with the party using the same graphics that are used out of battle unless they’ve reached Lv5+ in one of the game’s job classes.

Story: The story revolves around a group of mercenaries tasked with defending the kingdom of Francia against a skilled sorcerer who has stolen the power of the kingdom’s King Dragon. Most players will figure out what happens before the characters do however, there were a few twists that surprised me later in the game.

Job System/Skill System: There are 8 job classes in Ambition record, 2 are locked behind the game’s premium lottery and 1 is gained by finishing one of the game’s subquests. The Job system is similar to Dragon Lapis’ if the skill plate system didn’t exist. Like in Lapis, a character can only use a job’s abilities while in the job which limits customization. At job levels 1, 5 & 10, new passive abilities are learned and once a job is mastered(Lv10) the character now has those passives no matter what job they are in. Skills only require MP aside from one skill which reduces HP to 1 so MP management is important.

World Map: Similar to SS, DC and Liege Dragon, Ambition Record’s world map is not explorable. Instead, a list of destinations are listed and the player just chooses where to go with the next story destination listed.

Weapon System: Like many of Exe Create games, weapons can come with a + with the max being +99. Weapons can be combined to increase the bonus and transfer effects. The “Forging Ore” item can be used to transfer bonuses and attributes 100% instead of roughly 50%. Special effects can be found on dropped/found weapons and can be added by sacrificing accessories most of which can’t be bought.

Difficulty: There is no difficulty option to choose. Ambition Record’s difficulty does spike when entering a new area for the first time until you level up enough times. Otherwise, the game’s difficulty is dependent on how much you improve your weapons, equip weapons and armor above what an area roughly requires and complete bonus areas.

Shop & Lottery: The premium shop uses ARP to purchase items/accessories and to play the two different lotteries. ARP is very easy to acquire at 1 point per battle which is a good thing due to a stupid decision to lock two of the game’s jobs behind one of the lotteries. Most of the shop items as usual can be found in game aside from the no-encounter ring and increasing the maximum amount of weapons that can be carried by the party. Aside from earning ARP from battles and paying money for ARP, premium tickets can be earned to play the lottery by completing a few “achievements” and by finishing the “extreme” training course that is unlocked after earning the game’s normal ending.

Non-story dungeons and Post-game: As you go through certain dungeons, there will be a sign present indicating that you shouldn’t go in due to how powerful the enemies are(relative to when you’re first exploring the area). The game will never require you to enter but, various stat boosters and more powerful equipment is available in these areas.

After earning the normal ending, two new dungeons are added with one being required to get the game’s true ending while the other is optional. The optional dungeon’s enemies are weaker/equal to the “extreme” training course which are far more powerful than what was fought in the final dungeon. Additionally the game’s final subquest is unlocked which is a boss fight.

Length: Having cleared all of the game’s subquests and explored every dungeon except for the optional dungeon, I finished the game at 11 hours. If your aim is to clear the optional dungeon, the extreme training course and earn the extra jobs without spending more money I would likely clock the game at 20-25hrs.

Ambition Record was a much better game that what I had expected going in with a enjoyable story but, the problems with the job system don’t help it.

A bit fun?...I guess

Well,that was a short(if you rush it)or long and super tough one(the tough part is getting premium ticket from extreme course…for foresight book and fascination book)the game have a nearly useless mini map…you barely need it,most of the powerful equipment locked by the d**n item crafting(astro and shining set)oh and you can get the best dragonstone there too,well you can just get one SR dragonstone later in game for free tough