Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings Playtest

Final Fantasy X-2 was a great offshoot to the PS2's first Final Fantasy game thanks to its light-hearted storyline and an exciting battle system where you got to play dress-up with a trio of hot videogame babes. But was this just beginners' luck as Square Enix attempted to take its biggest franchise into the previously unfathomable realm of direct sequels? Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings is the company's chance to answer that question.

Released to Japan on Thursday, Revenant Wings shares much in common with X-2. It's set after the events of last year's Final Fantasy XII and features many of the old cast members, including Vaan, Panelo and Fran. However, in the first few hours of playtime at least, the connections to the original are kept in the background, with a few vague references here and there. Panelo will, for instance, refer to some great event from some time long ago without going into specifics. This should make the game suitable for FFXII fans as well as for those who've never played the original.

Also like FFX-2, Revenant Wings seems to be a bit light hearted when it comes to storyline. The first few hours have felt like the further adventures of sky pirates Vaan and Panello rather than an epic quest one expects from a real numbered entry in the series. Combine this sense of adventure for adventure's sake with the cute sprite art that's used for the characters, and Revenant Wings feels like it's giving us a glimpse into the childhood of the two heroes rather than the events following FFXII.

As different as FFX-2 was from FFX in terms of gameplay, Revenant Wings is an even greater departure from its predecessor. Aside from the new battle system, which we'll get to in just a bit, Revenant Wings is entirely mission based. You select a mission from a world map, clear the mission, then bounce back to the world map where you can repeat the process. You can also take part in free battles by selecting previous locations.

There doesn't appear to be any actual exploration or adventuring in the game. You have full control over Vann when moving about the world map, although the map is only a few screens wide and appears to exist primarily as a hub for connecting the mission spots. I haven't encountered any towns yet, although if you feel like chatting with other characters, you can board your air ship and walk around as you equip your characters for upcoming battles.

In the few hours that I've played, all the story progression has taken place before and after missions. Even though things have, as mentioned above, been on the light side so far, Square Enix still saw fit to include lots of dual-screened CG footage. The production values are high for these clips -- so high that its a shame to see them spoiled by the DS's choppy, garbled video compression. The CG clips are silent as far as voices are concerned, but this is true of the game as a whole.

The real meat of the game is in its battle system, which brings a new type of gameplay to the world of Final Fantasy. Square Enix has previously attempted to expand the series to new gameplay fronts with varying success, giving us one of the finest Japanese strategy titles around in Final Fantasy Tactics, and... well, Dirge of Cerberus wasn't exactly Japan's answer to Half Life. Revenant Wings tries out something that's a bit rare in Japanese-developed games, and home console games overall: real-time strategy.

The battle system places your party of warriors against enemies spread out over a large field or dungeon. Usually, there's a winning condition -- defeating a certain enemy character, or making your characters arrive at a certain point on the field, for instance. There's also a losing condition, usually the death of all your main party members.

Different from a turn-based strategy game like Final Fantasy Tactics, the enemies in Revenant Wings won't wait for you to move. Thankfully, everyone, enemies and allies alike, move nice and slow, giving you a chance to think.

In addition to your main party of characters, you can summon helper beasts into battle. You start off battle with an initial set of such beasts. Find a summon point on the battle field, and you can replace beasts who've been killed, or simply swap out old beasts for new ones who seem to be more appropriate for the battle at hand.

I've managed to engage in battles with over two dozen units, including main characters, main enemies, and helper beasts on both sides. This may seem like a lot to manage, especially on the tiny DS screen, but the developers have made some effort to simplify management. In addition to selecting individual units by pointing with the stylus, you can also use the stylus to draw a rectangle around groups in order to issue group commands. It's possible to make an entire flock of troops move to a single spot or attack a single enemy with just a couple of motions.

I haven't made much use of this box selection method since I stumbled upon the other way to move units. The creatures that you summon into battle are assigned to one of your main characters. During battle, by simply tapping the character's icon at the top of the touch screen, you can select the character and his full set of up to eight helper troops.

Rather than dealing with individual units, or even entire armies, I've found it easiest to issue commands at the group level. When managed in this fashion, the beasts are like replaceable support units for the main characters, who are really the main focus of the battles. There are some things that only the main characters can do, like flipping switches to open doors and gathering items from treasure chests. The main characters can also be ordered to cast heal and attack spells, something that's necessary when facing off against tougher opponents.

If you use your imagination a bit, it's possible to see how Revenant Wings' combat system resembles that of FFXII, only with helper characters assisting your main party members in the fight. The developers took things one step further by including direct samplings of some of FFXII's more well known gameplay systems.

You'll find a limited version of the "gambit" programmed intelligence system in Revenant Wings. FFXII allowed you to program your party members to automatically perform special moves under particular circumstances. You could equip a set of rules, or "gambits," as they were called, to each character, then let the CPU take care of the rest. In Revenant Wings, the gambit system is limited to selecting a single attack that a character will continue to automatically execute unless commanded otherwise.

Revenant Wings also has something superficially similar to FFXII's licensing system. In FFXII, your characters earned license points in battle, which could be used to unlock new abilities from squares on a checkerboard. Revenant Wings uses a similar system for unlocking new beast forms to add to your party. Beasts are hidden away on a "License Ring," with your initial set of beasts at the center. Using holy stones that you win in battle, you can unlock new creatures from this ring. Once unlocked, creatures can be added to a roster of up to 5, determining your potential arsenal for your next battle.

Based on my couple of hours of playtime, the Revenant Wings battle system seems like it might have the potential to suck up time like Tactics before it. The only thing that troubles me is the lack of difficulty. I haven't felt much of a challenge through what appears to be the first 10% of the game. With zero multiplayer support, I'm hoping things will get tougher and make Square Enix two for two with direct sequels in the Final Fantasy franchise.

via ign