FF12:RW opens up new doors for the Final Fantasy series, with great graphics and good controls to boot.

User Rating: 7 | Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings DS
The Final Fantasy series is known for it's metro sexual male leads, deep stories, and, most of all, being the most well known RPG series of all time. Final Fantasy 12 was the first game in the main series to step outside the the lines of the standard FF game and completely revamp the battle system. The game was successful enough to get a sequel in the form of Final Fantasy 12: Revenant Wings.

Revenant Wings closely follows behind FF12's story, so it probably helps to have played FF12. Sadly I was unable to play FF12, so I had a difficult time picking up on certain things. Basically, the group (Vaan, Penelo, Balthier, and Fran) run through some ruins to collect a treasure known as the Cache of Galbados. The group heads back to Rabanastre where a strange airships crash lands a few days later. Vaan, Filo, and Kytes decide to explore the ship where they meet some trouble with a bangaa called Ba'Bamnan who attacks the group. You, of course, win the fight and continue to the airship's control room where Penelo meets up with the group. The air ship suddenly takes off and heads for the land above the clouds, Lumeres.

Lumeres is inhabited by a race known as the Aegyl. The Aegyl have the appearance of winged people and basically have a non-existent personality. Shortly after landing, the group finds one of the Aegyl being attacked by monsters, or Espers or Yarhi as they are known as in the game. The groups aids the Aegyl warrior, Llyud, and he joins the group. The story is quite amazing, but it doesn't really pick up until about half way through the game.

The characters in Revenant Wings are actually quite memorable and distinct. Vaan, the main character, is outgoing and strong hearted, but rather ignorant of other's feelings. Penelo is kind and gentle, but a terrible cook. Filo is energetic and joyful, but naive. Kytes is generous and thoughtful, but, being a mage, frail. Llyud is spiritless but a strong warrior. All of the characters develop well throughout the game, and you really get a picture of who they are by the end.

The RTS controls work out surprisingly well. Using the touch screen to select individual units or groups of units is intuitive and easy. After having a unit selected, tapping an enemy will cause the selected unit(s) to attack. Of course, if you want all units to attack at once, pressing the X button selects all allies. Sadly, that's how most of the game is going to work, by simply having your army move in one mass group. Strategy is sadly not a big focus.

Of course, you'll be controlling more than just your characters. Through the power of the Cache of Galbados, you are able to summon Espers. Espers are generally going to be weaker than your main characters, and each is under a specific type and element, same with your characters, although the element of your characters is affected by weapons. The three types are melee, flying, and ranged. The types best each other in the rock, paper, scissors fashion, meaning that melee beats ranged, ranged beats flying, and flying beats melee. Assigning different espers to cover your characters' weaknesses is key to victory.

The game's pacing is absolutely terrible. Beginning missions are very easy, as would be expected, but there are occasional missions that you will have to pull a win out of nowhere or grind for hours to get past. Then the game turns the easy back on until the next hard mission comes. This happens through most of the game.

Revenant Wings is a great looking game. The 3D backgrounds are actually quite pleasant to look at. The 2D character sprites, however, looks like someone made a picture on paint and then had a child vomit on it. The sprites move fluidly though right? No. Even motions look worse than NES game motions. Luckily, anything done in 3D is gorgeous considering the DS hardware. The music and sound affects aren't exactly amazing either. It becomes apparent that the music was made for the last few chapters, because the music matches perfectly then.

Overall, Revenant Wings is successful in opening up the FF series to the RTS genre. With tight controls, great graphics, and an amazing story, Revenant Wings is a game FF fans or RTS fans looking for a game should not miss.