Hands-on: Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings
- May 15, 2007 13:36 PM PST
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While American gamers are itching to find out what's in store for the heroes of FFXII, Japanese gamers are already experiencing Vaan's newest adventures. GamePro got some hands-on time with the DS spinoff, Revenant Wings.
As evidenced by the success of Final Fantasy X-2 and the fevered pitch of Crisis Core, Final Fantasy fans are eager to see their favorite epics continue on into new directions. They've also made it quite clear that putting classic characters into sub-par titles, a la Dirge of Cereberus won't cut it. Luckily, from what we've seen of Revenant Wings, fans of Final Fantasy XII will enjoy this new chapter of the FFXII story.
My, How You've Changed
Even though it's meant to be a successor in terms of story to FFXII, Revenant Wings shares little else in common with the PS2 RPG hit. For one this game is an RTS title, where you control Vann and Penelo--and every so often, other FFXII heroes-- as they lead summonable troops into various battles. The game also, obviously, can't match the lush visuals of FFXII that pushed the PS2 to its limits, so the team decided to take the look of Revenant Wings in an entirely new direction. Making Vaan and co. more like the small, cute sprites of the Final Fantasy Tactics series than their previous incarnations is more than just a result of the hardware, the producers divulged. As Revenant Wings takes place after the end of the war ravaged throughout FFXII, the game was able to take a more lighthearted approach that fit Vaan, one of the game's more cheery characters.
Break Me off a Piece of that Tactics Bar!
The game's battle system is somewhat similar to the Final Fantasy Tactics series, which shares the Ivalice setting. Unlike those titles, however, the real-time element requires constant attention to the battle. Your troops are divided into various squads, which can be cycled through with the DS' face buttons. The battle we tried had various bases for both the heroes and enemies from which extra soldiers could be summoned. Conquering a base allowed another spawn point and defeat of the enemy commander was the condition for victory. There didn't seem to be much of a semblance of grid-based combat to the battles, as all of the movement was done via the touch screen. And even though the demo was completely in Japanese, we were able to get a handle on things pretty easily. If anything, the game seemed really simple, but the developers assured us that the game was made easy for the RTS-averse Japanese, and the difficulty will be ramped up for the US release. Hopefully that time can be shared with putting together another amazing translation that can pay property respect to Final Fantasy XII.
