Who knew RTS RPG’s could be so much fun?

Author's Rating:

Pros: great gameplay, easy to learn, graphics are generally great

Cons: character sprites are blurry, only 2 save slots

The Bottom Line: 
I recommend this game because it is fun and easy to pick up

Author's Review
Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings is a DS sequel of Final Fantasy XII. You have the same characters, with a few more, to aid you in your adventures as a Sky Pirate. This game isn’t quite the action RPG that FF12 was. Actually it seems more like a cross between an RPG and a Real Time Strategy game (RTS), and it’s a wonderful combo.


Graphics

When gamers think of Final Fantasy, they usually think wonderful graphics and bountiful grandiose cinematics. This is no different. There are various 3D GC movies to be found, and each look absolutely gorgeous even though it’s on the DS (let’s face it, the DS isn’t the greatest handheld graphics-wise). The gameplay graphics are a mixture of delight and disappointment. While the environments and the dialog icons (the 2D still-face icons of people as they talk) are all very well done, the character sprites could use some work. Sure, the anime style is cute but the sprites are very blurry and look horrible on big characters like bosses, or when the small characters are zoomed in. It’s like putting a NES sprite on a screenshot of a SNES game. It’s not a major turnoff but it is an obvious difference.

But overall the graphics are pretty good, as expected.


Sound

The adaptation of FF12’s music into the DS is perfect. It really seems like you’re listening to the same great soundtrack. The sound effects are usually charming but a few do have faults – the sound of the airship’s wind and the sound of enemies dying have a bit of a static-y feel. Whether this was done on purpose or not, it just sounds off.

But once again, overall the sound is good, and the best part is that there are no voice actors unlike other FF adaptations on the DS.


Gameplay

The game is very easy to pick up, mostly because of the great tutorial. You learn in bits and pieces, kind of a one step at a time thing. Whenever a new feature is introduced, first you get to read the instructions, then you get to see them done on the screen, then you get to repeat them and learn for yourself. It’s a very effective technique of a tutorial. The game is really played entirely on the stylus. There are a few uses for buttons, but they’re mostly to serve as shortcuts of what the stylus could do.


At first it will feel as if the characters move too slowly, but as you get into the game and there are more enemies to fight and more allies to control, the slow character (and enemy) movements are welcome to have time to think your strategy through. If you need more time you can pause, but you won’t see much of the screen as you pause.


To play you control troupes- a group of up to 9 fighters. Each troupe has a troupe leader, who is a real character, and the other 8 possible fighters are the Jahri. The Jahri are monsters you can summon from summoning gates. You don’t always have summoning gates available on battles, so what you start with is what you get in that case. When there are summoning gates available, you may need to convert them to use them as some of them are possessed by the enemy. Monster allies can be called from summoning gates as long as you don’t go overboard on the Affinity (basically a bar that limits how many monsters you can have). If a monster ally dies, the affinity goes back down so you can summon more. However it might take a while for them to reach you from the gate so try to take care of them and summon when you have a moment of peace. You can control your people individually, or within their troupe, or control all at once. You simply click on the people you want to control, or create a rectangular area where all of your players within that area are selected. It’s very much like a RTS feel of controlling characters with a mouse.


Enemies can be at different areas, which the map conveniently shows, and you attack them by coming close to them. You have to see which types of enemies they are though, to figure out which troupes are best (or you could send all of your troupes if you don’t like to strategize). Melee characters beat ranged fighters; Ranged beats Flying; Flying beats Melee. It’s kind of a rock paper scissors idea. On top of that there are of course elements to think about, and healing monsters.


In addition, each of the troupe leaders has his/her own special abilities that are gained upon leveling up. You can also use one (and only one) gambit to tell a character to use an ability whenever they can. Abilities aren’t controlled by MP, but by time. You use an ability, and wait for it to be available again. In the meantime you can use another ability, but only one can be automated. You can change which is automated during battles if you like.


Enemies aren’t the only thing battles have to offer. You can scavenge food to heal characters, and hunt for treasure. However once all the enemies are defeated, you can’t keep on exploring so get the treasures first.


In between battles you can usually go back to your airship and put on or create new equipment, read about equipment “recipes” so you can know how to forge them, and talk to other characters. You use the airship to move between areas, but walk within areas to choose battles. Some battles have a flag – that means there’s a mission or storyline event there. Other battles are just available so you can level up and gather materials.


Obviously the gameplay is well thought out but, as I said before, the tutorials do a good job of easing you into it.  The only real complaint that I have is that there are only two saving slots. This is great if you’re the only person playing: 1 slot to play, another to venture if you’re unsure. However if you have many people who want to play and only one cartridge, well, time to buy them their own version I guess.