Review: Final Fantasy XII - Revenant Wings

This is one of Square Enix's more brilliant excursions into RTS (Real-Time Strategy) games, since it's original debut as Final Fantasy XII. One year has passed and the land of Ivalice is pretty much at peace. Or so everyone thought. Because now there's an odd airship (that I renamed The Phantom) in port at Rabanastre, a lost sky continent has reappeared and things are about to go from bad to worse for air pirate Vaan and his trusted navigator and poor cook, Penelo...

Game Play:

Like all the best Final Fantasy games, you play in a party. You can have full control over each member or set different members to use certain tactics. I prefer to have full control over my characters, but that doesn't automatically mean that your characters will do everything you direct them to, which can work in your favour but often doesn't.

The espers (renamed as Yarhi) return, as do the quickenings. Like the original, you gain them steadily throughout the game. This can get particularly annoying when a) You don't have enough auracite to form a pact with a more powerful new one or b) You have too much auracite and not enough new espers/yarhi to form pacts with. The second one is particularly accurate once you reach the end of the game and the only yarhi left to form pacts with only become available after you whup them in seriously difficult side missions.

The upside to party-fighting is that you can split the group up and send each half to mow down enemies on each side of the fighting map. Also, thanks to the inclusion of summoning gates, if you lose a Yarhi, even the most powerful ones from Rank III, you can re-summon them at full strength. There is a limit to how many you can summon, but they are useful when entering battles that are dangerous to central party members.

Interface - The Nintendo DS:

In truth, there's probably nothing gained from using the dual screen. A similar style of RTS play was demonstrated in Tactics and the GBA (Game Boy Advance) version worked just as well. But it is handy to have the map in the top screen to show you mission objectives and enemy locations. The touch screen also makes it slightly easier to control larger parties (once summoning yarhi has become second-nature).

Graphics/Music/Sound:

Harking back to the days when Nintendo made excellent use of the angular sprites, most of the game is enacted through little representations of the characters so beautifully represented in the original FFXII. The only time the player is shown the resplendant original portrayals is during dramatic cut scenes.

The music is quite beautiful and changes with each mission. My personal favourite is the music played during the adventure on the Isle of the Yarhi, the place from which all Yarhi are summoned. In retrospect, it casts the Final Fantasy regular back in time to the tenth official installment in the series during Yuna and Tidus' fateful excursion to Macalania Woods.

The sound effects are enjoyable and not really repetitive. Still, like will all games, you wouldn't want to be listening to them constantly. There's good breaks and even usage of them.

Overall Impression:

It's really quite an enjoyable game with good plot structure for the game narrative and excellent pick-up if the player can't understand it by the end. While it does have its faults, it is perfectly playable during long trips and excellent escapism with the nostalgic element for those who played its predecessor on the playstation 2. I'd give it an 8/10.