So it's no secret that the Final Fantasy franchise has always been a welcome face in Nintendo's quarters. It's home to countless remakes, spin-offs and sequels to those spin-offs. Revenant Wings isn't a spin-off or a remake, it's a direct sequel to Final Fantasy XII. That's twelve for those who weren't taught roman numerals. It's also the first game in the Ivalice Alliance collection of games which are games set in the Final Fantasy world of Ivalice. Before you get excited about this I should point out the only games in the collection at the moment are Revenant Wings and the 3 Tactics games. We're concentrated on Revenant Wings though so lets get started.
I'm surprised that it's a direct sequel because handheld platforms are usually snubbed in favour of the high and mighty HD ready consoles. The game is almost entirely stylus controlled and unlike the other games in Ivalice Alliance, it is actually real-time instead of turn-based. That's being quite ambitious isn't it? Stylus controlled and real-time. Quite a big step from the classic controls. Well it can work, until you realise this isn't a RPG. It's the stunted half-brother of the Real Time Strategy cosplaying as Cloud Strife.
If you remember Espers from Final Fantasy XII, they are back and form the core of the gameplay here. You are given a ?Ring of Pacts? which allows you to recruit bigger and more horrifying beasts. Sadly you are only allowed 5 types of Espers, which are split into the formation 2-2-1 for their rank. There are 3 ranks, with Rank 3 being the strongest, it's reserved for the classic summons you've seen in countless other Final Fantasy games (i.e. Ifrit). To recruit them, you must use Auracite, a material given out in treasure chests and mission rewards, for some reason Espers obey your command when you have Auracite in your possession.
Espers come in different shapes and forms and have their own natures. Almost every mission in the game has you using your Espers to complete a certain goal, whether it be to capture the summoning gates which bring Espers into the world, defeat the enemy leaders or destroy the large soul crystal. These are fun, but it does get pretty repetitive. They manage to keep it fresh by switching the Espers you fight and allowing you to unlock new Espers.
Final Fantasy games of recent years revolve around their complicated stories, so when I heard that Revenant Wings starts off with Vaan and his crew of sky pirates looking for adventure I was slightly taken back. Looking for adventure leads them to Lemures, a sky continent inhabited by the mysterious Aegyl and under threat by the Judge of Wings and other greedy Sky Pirates. Along the way you'll meet all your old friends from the original game and make a few more. Well actually just one more. Two if you try hard enough. As you delve deeper into Lemures the story unravels into something much more similar to a Final Fantasy game, with romance, sorrow and otherworldly evil thrown into one.
That sounds good, but the pacing for the game is abysmal in terms of difficulty and story. Split into 10 chapters, actual character development doesn't start till chapter 7 and the story decides to chug along at a slow speed until the second half of chapter 7. The game gives you optional side missions which often give out a simple reward and in the second half of the game rank 3 Espers which you are able to unlock. There's no real incentive to do these side missions, but you'll find yourself doing them anyway to take a break from the storyline. Sadly, when you receive a side mission, it's usually above your reach to complete. Completing each chapter gives you a new set of them but near the end of the game they become terribly hard to finish because of the fact that the enemies are miles away from your own in terms of level.
It's the same with the storyline I'm afraid, they decide to really push the boundaries in terms of difficulty here in the last 2 chapters, sending wave after wave of enemies and giving you little time to respond. The game decides to become a hardcore RTS for the last two chapters along with it's side missions and while this wouldn't be that difficult if I had a keyboard and mouse the fact that I'm stuck with a stylus with dodgy controls.
"My healing units are about to be flanked, no worries, I'll just move some back up that way...wait no, I didn't want that unit, hit deselect, no don't move there! Cast flare! CAST FLARE!"
That's how it is. RPG-wise it defies every rule in the book, in chapter 6 you face off against a difficult boss. It's an annoying battle since the boss is around 20 levels above your characters. In chapter 9 you face off against a reincarnation of that boss, this time he's 2 levels stronger, but for some reason all his stats have dived. Considering you are 10-15 levels stronger at this point, this should be a pushover right? Wrong. An entire group of leaders, rank 2 healing and ranged Espers and a rank 3 Esper are all wiped out by a single attack. This is the point where you would ragequit. But I pushed on, only to fight the same boss 4 more times in different incarnations. That's not fun at all. That seems more like a waste of time than anything else.
Although the difficulty varies for the last chapter I have to point out. Rather than having all your enemies at around the same level as your group to make this a fair fight, the levels of your opponent depends on your completion of the game. So the more side missions you do, the tougher this becomes. The level cap is 99 and after completing as many side missions as I could possibly do I wasn't anywhere near it. That's the game punishing you for enjoying it. If you want to get the most out of your game, you're in for a) hell or b) hours of grind to get your characters to the level where they stand a chance.
Revenant Wings is a good game, I liked it's story, I liked the fact that it was real-time instead of turn based. The ability to save after every event makes it a game that would appeal to a more casual player. As a RPG it's not half bad, it won't be celebrated like the main series but it does what it was made to do. As a RTS it's not good, the unresponsive controls let it down. If you were to strip away the Strategy but keep the real time, set an even difficulty throughout the game with a nice learning curve and fix the other pacing errors, you would have a brilliant game. Squeenix deserve kudos for trying something different, and depending on the way you play it, it'll get you anywhere between a solid 10 hours of fun and a solid 10 hours of fun with another 20-30 hours of grind. The fun is guaranteed, shame there's not more of it.
I'm surprised that it's a direct sequel because handheld platforms are usually snubbed in favour of the high and mighty HD ready consoles. The game is almost entirely stylus controlled and unlike the other games in Ivalice Alliance, it is actually real-time instead of turn-based. That's being quite ambitious isn't it? Stylus controlled and real-time. Quite a big step from the classic controls. Well it can work, until you realise this isn't a RPG. It's the stunted half-brother of the Real Time Strategy cosplaying as Cloud Strife.
If you remember Espers from Final Fantasy XII, they are back and form the core of the gameplay here. You are given a ?Ring of Pacts? which allows you to recruit bigger and more horrifying beasts. Sadly you are only allowed 5 types of Espers, which are split into the formation 2-2-1 for their rank. There are 3 ranks, with Rank 3 being the strongest, it's reserved for the classic summons you've seen in countless other Final Fantasy games (i.e. Ifrit). To recruit them, you must use Auracite, a material given out in treasure chests and mission rewards, for some reason Espers obey your command when you have Auracite in your possession.
Espers come in different shapes and forms and have their own natures. Almost every mission in the game has you using your Espers to complete a certain goal, whether it be to capture the summoning gates which bring Espers into the world, defeat the enemy leaders or destroy the large soul crystal. These are fun, but it does get pretty repetitive. They manage to keep it fresh by switching the Espers you fight and allowing you to unlock new Espers.
Final Fantasy games of recent years revolve around their complicated stories, so when I heard that Revenant Wings starts off with Vaan and his crew of sky pirates looking for adventure I was slightly taken back. Looking for adventure leads them to Lemures, a sky continent inhabited by the mysterious Aegyl and under threat by the Judge of Wings and other greedy Sky Pirates. Along the way you'll meet all your old friends from the original game and make a few more. Well actually just one more. Two if you try hard enough. As you delve deeper into Lemures the story unravels into something much more similar to a Final Fantasy game, with romance, sorrow and otherworldly evil thrown into one.
Yes. Penelo is a bellydancer in this game.
That sounds good, but the pacing for the game is abysmal in terms of difficulty and story. Split into 10 chapters, actual character development doesn't start till chapter 7 and the story decides to chug along at a slow speed until the second half of chapter 7. The game gives you optional side missions which often give out a simple reward and in the second half of the game rank 3 Espers which you are able to unlock. There's no real incentive to do these side missions, but you'll find yourself doing them anyway to take a break from the storyline. Sadly, when you receive a side mission, it's usually above your reach to complete. Completing each chapter gives you a new set of them but near the end of the game they become terribly hard to finish because of the fact that the enemies are miles away from your own in terms of level.
It's the same with the storyline I'm afraid, they decide to really push the boundaries in terms of difficulty here in the last 2 chapters, sending wave after wave of enemies and giving you little time to respond. The game decides to become a hardcore RTS for the last two chapters along with it's side missions and while this wouldn't be that difficult if I had a keyboard and mouse the fact that I'm stuck with a stylus with dodgy controls.
"My healing units are about to be flanked, no worries, I'll just move some back up that way...wait no, I didn't want that unit, hit deselect, no don't move there! Cast flare! CAST FLARE!"
That's how it is. RPG-wise it defies every rule in the book, in chapter 6 you face off against a difficult boss. It's an annoying battle since the boss is around 20 levels above your characters. In chapter 9 you face off against a reincarnation of that boss, this time he's 2 levels stronger, but for some reason all his stats have dived. Considering you are 10-15 levels stronger at this point, this should be a pushover right? Wrong. An entire group of leaders, rank 2 healing and ranged Espers and a rank 3 Esper are all wiped out by a single attack. This is the point where you would ragequit. But I pushed on, only to fight the same boss 4 more times in different incarnations. That's not fun at all. That seems more like a waste of time than anything else.
Although the difficulty varies for the last chapter I have to point out. Rather than having all your enemies at around the same level as your group to make this a fair fight, the levels of your opponent depends on your completion of the game. So the more side missions you do, the tougher this becomes. The level cap is 99 and after completing as many side missions as I could possibly do I wasn't anywhere near it. That's the game punishing you for enjoying it. If you want to get the most out of your game, you're in for a) hell or b) hours of grind to get your characters to the level where they stand a chance.
Revenant Wings is a good game, I liked it's story, I liked the fact that it was real-time instead of turn based. The ability to save after every event makes it a game that would appeal to a more casual player. As a RPG it's not half bad, it won't be celebrated like the main series but it does what it was made to do. As a RTS it's not good, the unresponsive controls let it down. If you were to strip away the Strategy but keep the real time, set an even difficulty throughout the game with a nice learning curve and fix the other pacing errors, you would have a brilliant game. Squeenix deserve kudos for trying something different, and depending on the way you play it, it'll get you anywhere between a solid 10 hours of fun and a solid 10 hours of fun with another 20-30 hours of grind. The fun is guaranteed, shame there's not more of it.