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I got an advance copy of Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings about a month ago. For about a week, I did basically nothing but obsessively play it until I beat the easy version of the final boss and saw the end of the story. (I'm working off and on at the missions you need for the hard version of the boss battle, but my patience for grinding is thin.)

Revenant Wings is a game as immersive, compelling, and fun as anything else published under the Final Fantasy name. Bear in mind-- I didn't even like the original Final Fantasy XII that much! But Revenant Wings takes all of the good ideas Heroes of Mana tried and failed to bring to RTS gameplay on the DS, streamlines out the boring stuff, and adds some great customization options. If you want a more detailed take on my opinion of FFXII: Revenant Wings, check out the review of it I did for WorthPlaying.com I did before this particular blog launched.

So, basically, this is a game of the month inauguration I agree with! Don't just take my word for it, though. Check behind the cut for videos, review quotes, and links to damn near every Revenant Wings-related thing I could think of!

Reviews

Three quotes to get you started. First up, GameZone's review:

A sequel of sorts to last years phenomenal Final Fantasy XII on the PS2, Revenant Wings is a bit more of a ballsy title, opting for a fast-paced RTS style of gameplay as opposed to the series tried-and-true turn-based mechanics. However, the gamble has ultimately paid off, as the game is a great direction for the series, and fits well on the Nintendo DS. While the controls themselves are a little hard to get used to, the game is a deep and complex handheld game that will keep Final Fantasy fanatics entertained for a long while.

Next up, IGN's review:

For the most part, the experience is great. Each leader in your party can level up, change equipment, set up a specific move as a gambit, and eventually use mist charges and quickenings much like FFXII did. Control is done entirely with the stylus as well, so you'll either tap a unit, drag a square box to control multiple units, or tap on a leader to control him and all his units. Any actual spawning is done via summoning gates, which allow you to use Vaan's newfound treasure the "Ring of Pacts" to call espers into battle. Simply click the gate, select which leader you want the monsters to travel with, and click one of five available monsters for that mission. Any and all characters on the screen can be controlled individually, but it's a better strategy overall to create groups based on the leaders, and move them as a team. Each esper also has their own special abilities, strengths and weaknesses to certain magic types, and fits into either melee, flying, or ranged class.

Finally, here's a word from GameDaily:

Being able to revisit Ivalice and the memorable characters found therein is a real treat. Final Fantasy XII was easily one of the best games in the series, and much of what you loved about that world returns in Revenant Wings. Even if the RTS genre is not one you particularly enjoy, it's done so well here and designed for bite sized play sessions that it shouldn't even be a barrier to entry. This is simply a beautifully crafted game that is begging you to spend time with it.

Media

Finding cool videos of DS games can be pretty difficult, especially since GameTrailers is being weirdly flaky today. YouTube to the rescue!

A promotional montage of game footage and cutscenes:

Next, the trailer from E3 2007, where I first played this title and found myself impressed:

Interviews

This may seem like a digression, but stay with me here. In Japan, there's a series of strategy guides for the Final Fantasy (and some other Square-Enix games) called Ultimania that are basically what American strategy guides want to be when they grow up. There's a series of spoiler-heavy but super-interesting interviews in the back of the guide that our own intrepid KouAidou is working on completely translating and posting. There are four up now and two to go, and you'd be hard-pressed to find any Revenant Wings interviews with comparable depth or length. Here's a handy link to the four that are already on site so you can read them in order-- but we suggest only doing this after you beat the game.

• Interview 1: Art Staff
• Interview 2: Sound & Music Staff
• Interview 3: Writing Staff
• Interview 4: FMV Staff

FAQs & Guides

I'm pretty finicky about strategy guides because I've written more than a few (good and bad). Ditto for FAQs, because I've contributed to a few (good and bad). Take my word for it when I say the BradyGames Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings guide is really awesome, and I wouldn't say that just because a friend of mine did work on it. I saw it way after I finished with my jag of playing the game, but it you sucked, it would be helpful, and it has most of the core info you need to get 100% on things like Espers and weapons. Even if you don't need it, the complete sets of maps are just kind of pretty and fun to look at.

It's slimmer pickings for good fan-made FAQs. The main guide up at GameFAQs now was written from the Japanese version, so it's full of incorrect terms and strategies that don't really work for the rebalanced English version. It also lacks strategies for Midlight's Deep, since that feature wasn't in the Japanese version at all, and lists incorrect info about battles that got changed. There's a really awesome Ring of Pacts .png up at GameFAQs, and a 100% savefile you Action Replay types might have fun with. The forums fortunately seem full of good help topics for now, so if you've got the patience to sort through it you should be able to find some good information about beating tricky battles.

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