• 14Mar 10

  Impressions Journal #2: FFXII: Revenant Wings (DS)

  

  Revenant Wings came up with something new to the Final Fantasy series by shifting its original solid RPG gameplay for an uncertain RTS game sty|e. As for me that was a good excuse to try the RTS genre harder, since my (few) previous tries were disastrous and frustrating. I can say the game is friendly to newcomers because it's much more focused in the action than in micro management and because there are some 'virtual checkpoints' along the stages - by that I mean you can 'rest' (cure, dismiss units, cast new units) after facing a group of enemies without being much bothered by new hordes.

  Here I go with some impressions so far.

  Completion status: 30%

  Time spent playing it: around 7 hours

  

  What's Good

  Gorgeous. I love everything about the graphics presentation of the game. CG scenes, environment design, pixelated characters, coloring... All good taste choices.

  Feeling at home. I was thinking I wouldn't recognize anything from the series since I'm just an old-school FF player (I've played the NES/SNES versions and some GBA remakes) but they managed to make me feel comfy with that everlasting title screen theme music, canoeing and other small details.

  Forging pacts with Espers. As you advance into the game you learn about Auracite, a magic gem stone that allows you to summon beings from other worlds – the Espers. Since you manage to get a certain amount of gems you can forge pacts with different Espers and thus make them available for you to summon in battle fields. The whole thing is controlled through the Ring of Pacts, a device that shows you how your relationship with them is evolving to the next possible pacts. That screen alone is such a source of amusement to me – even the sound the ring makes when you rotate it is pleasing. (Maybe it's just my 'Gotta catch'em all!' spirit arising again...)

  

  What's Bad

  Apparently shallow characters. Everyone praises the story in this game but I find the characters shallow so far. Looks like they can overcome any pain, any peril with a blink of an eye.

  Unbalanced forged weapons. From a certain point of the game on you'll be able to forge new weapons with the materials you gather in your missions. The problem is they're so overpowered that you may never want to buy another weapon again.

  Lack of 'Ctrl' and 'Shift' keys. OK, just kidding. But even for me, not a seasoned RTS player, is clear that a way to pick out units individually is needed. The game allows you to select one unit at a time or the entire group but not one of each group, for example. You can select units by just drawing a square in the field but it becomes impossible into a mess of a battle.

  That's it for now, see you next time!

  • Posted Mar 14, 2010 7:48 am PT
  • Category: Games
  • 11 Comments
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• 7Mar 10

  Review and Article for The Autonomous Regime

  

  Hi there! I would like to invite you to take a look at my first article and review for The Autonomous Regime Union. Every now and then I'll be writing something about old games that were innovative at their time - and I'll ask some friends here for help doing that... Feel free to browse the union's site.

  Article: Avenging Spirit (ARC)

  Review: Avenging Spirit (GB)

  • Posted Mar 7, 2010 4:45 pm PT
  • Category: Games
  • 13 Comments
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• 28Feb 10

  Torture Chamber

  This is a new screenshot for Mega Man 10:

  

  How many deaths can a player face in a single screen?

  This is not for the weak.

  • Posted Feb 28, 2010 5:21 am PT
  • Category: Games
  • 12 Comments
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