Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings / FFXII RW / FF12 RW

Final Fantasy Rebirth » Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings » Review

Many Final Fantasy fans regarded Final Fantasy XII as the pinnacle of the series and with that in mind it came as no surprise that Square Enix decided to pump out a sequel, what did come as a surprise though was the fact that Square Enix decided to make Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings a Real Time Strategy for Nintendo DS.

Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings takes place a year after the events of Final Fantasy XII. Vaan is now a Sky Pirate, but his fate takes a turn for the worse when Balthier and Fran shaft him out of his airship – The Strahl. With no airship Vaan is grounded and forced to live back in Rabanastre, however a series of twists and turns result in Vaan getting a new airship and accidently landing himself in the middle of an eternal feud between the Aegyl race and their supposed god.

Final Fantasy has always been about strategy, it’s not one of those games in that you can just bash buttons to make progress so it would make sense to say that Square Enix could make a pretty good RTS (Real Time Strategy) game – and in Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings’ case, they’ve done just that. Revenant Wings takes classic RTS style gaming and adds a Final Fantasy twist to it in more ways than one.

All RTS games require you to build an empire, rather than just the three/four man cell seen in previous Final Fantasy titles. Take Age of Empires for example, before you can do anything you’ve got to build an army – you’re probably wondering, “How do you build an army in Final Fantasy?” Well simply put, you summon Espers. Espers play a far more important role in Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings than they have in previous titles as you need them to build up a small army and win battles.

Another twist Square Enix has added to the RTS style game play, and that’s the rock-paper-scissors setup that’s used to determine what units are more powerful than what units. For example, Melee units conquer Ranged units, Ranged units conquer Flying units and Flying units conquer Melee. Again, this adds a further element of strategy that really adds to the depth of the battle system in Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings.

Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings’ battle system only has one major flaw, and that’s the fact that it gets boring, fast. Within a few hours you’ll find Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings so repetitive that you’ll probably only be playing it for the storyline, skipping all optional side quests.

So we all know that Final Fantasy XII was sold as the “darkest”, most “mature” Final Fantasy title yet – so I ask you Square Enix, how the hell does Final Fantasy XII’s cast go from been young adults to well, just young. Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wing’s character art makes the characters look about ten years old and of course this shows in the game’s full motion video sequences and in game graphics. That’s not to say the game’s full motion video sequences aren’t good, because don’t get me wrong they’re stunning and on par with the FMV sequences shown in previous Nintendo DS outings such as Final Fantasy III DS. It’s the in game graphics that get me though, Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings looks like it’s been ripped straight from a Super Nintendo, and that’s not right considering Square Enix have shown us what they can do with titles such as Final Fantasy III DS and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates.

Graphics aside, Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings has a semi-decent battle system that’s fun whilst it lasts (but due to the repetitiveness of this game, that fun won’t last long), with a solid storyline to back it up – to sum up, this games only really worth playing if you’re dying to know what happened after Final Fantasy XII, otherwise it’s a bit of a cash in.

Rating: 6.5/10

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