Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings

"A fun game that anyone can enjoy"

Title: Final Fantasy 12: Revenant Wings Release Date: 11/20/2007 Publisher(s): Square Enix, Think and Feel Genre: Role-playing game, Real-time strategy

Plot: Revenant Wings is a direct sequel to Final Fantasy 12 for Playstation 2 and takes place one year after the events of its prequel. The game opens with Vaan (the main character), Penelo (his best friend), and Balthier and Fran (sky pirates) exploring an underground cavern for treasure. While there the party encounters and defeats the Esper Ifrit and then they receive two crystals, one of which goes with Vaan and Penelo and the other to Balthier. After taking the crystals the building collapses and destroys Vaan's ship. Balthier then drops Vaan and Penelo off in Rabanastre where you meet up with Kytes, Filo, and Tomaj. Not long after Vaan arrives he sees an airship fly over his head and he, Kytes, and Filo sneak onto and once they defeat Ba'Gamnan they take control of the ship.

Once on the ship the crystal that Vaan got from the underground temple starts to glow and then monsters, known as Esper, are summoned. The group then takes off into the sky and come across evil sky pirates pillaging the sky continent known as Lemures. They continue on and rescue a Aegyl, the winged inhabitants of Lemures, by the name of Llyud who joins them. Llyud reveals that the sky pirates were sent by the Judge of Wings to seek out Auracite, the crystals that allow Espers to be summoned. Vaan and the party then decided to protect the Aegyl and Lemures. 9/10

Gameplay: As I already said the game is a real-time strategy similar to the Age of Empires games or Starcraft with a few differences. The major difference is that there is no resource gathering but instead each map contains Summoning Gates that can be captured by leaders (not Espers) and used to summon as many Espers as your affinity will allow. This makes controlling Summoning Gates the most important feature of battle.

Another cool feature is the "rock-paper-scissors" approach. Each unit, whether it be a leader or Esper, is either flying, melee, or ranged. Flying is good against, melee, melee is good against ranged, and ranged is good against flying. This forces you to pay attention to enemy units instead of just your own.

Each leader, and a few Espers, also gets special abilities. You can set one of these abilities as a Gambit for each character that will allow them to automatically use it whenever it recharges. Or you can just tap on the unit yourself and use the ability.

As you progress through the game you also get more and more Auracite which allows you to form pacts with new and more powerful Espers. There are over 50 Espers of 6 different elements to choose from (none, fire, water, thunder, earth, and healing) and once you get to the end of the game you will have gained enough Auracite to unlock every Esper. Before each battle you choose which 5 Espers you can summon during the battle. You have to choose wisely based on what kind of Espers your enemies are using. 10/10

Graphics: The graphics are a little pixelated, I have to admit, but during the battle you won't even notice since there is so much else going on and it is not like there is a problem telling units apart. There are also a few 3D cutscenes, too few in my opinion, that use both the top and bottom screen and are beautifully animated. 7/10

Music/Sound: I am not really someone who pays attention to the music in video games as I am usually watching television while I play but whenever I decided to turn the volume up I enjoyed it. 9/10

Replayability: With all the customization and what not you would think that the replayability value would be high but after a while the game seems like the same thing over and over again. You press the 'X' button to select all of your units, set Penelo's Gambit to Curaga, and tap the bad guys. No matter what Espers or leaders you have it is the same. 6/10

Overall: Overall it is a good game that is fun to pick up and play as it does not have much of a learning curve. If you are looking to get into either the Final Fantasy series or real-time strategy games I suggest you get this. 8.5/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/31/08

Game Release: Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings (US, 11/20/07)