With Final Fantasy XII, Square Enix introduced characters that fans around the world grew attached to and left them wanting more. When a direct sequel was announced for the DS, it's safe to say that many gamers were thrilled they'd be able to continue the adventure with some of their favorites. In Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, players are thrown back into Ivalice where they take control of Vaan and his party of cohorts, albeit in a different sort of game than they might be expecting.

Taking place after the events of Final Fantasy XII, Vaan is currently living his dream of being a pirate, traveling around Ivalice in his search for treasure, when calamity strikes. However, fortune smiles on the young thief as he's quickly back on his feet with his adventures taking him to the previously unknown sky continent of Lemures; here he uncovers a plot that could potentially devastate the entire world. Naturally, it's up to Vaan and his loyal pals to keep the peace and protect the populace from this new danger. The story is pretty convoluted but, with a more light-hearted atmosphere, has been geared to appeal to younger audiences. Gone are the days of political intrigue and drama, replaced by the RPG equivalent of puppy dogs and candy canes. Despite our preconceptions about this sort of approach, it all works rather well and we're pleased with the way that the game incorporates charm, humor and solid visuals to tell its story.


In terms of gameplay, Revenant Wings provides an enjoyable experience that's intuitive and fun but that is not without its fair share of stumbling blocks. The game is, for all intents and purposes, a real-time strategy title which makes great use of the DS touch screen. It exclusively uses the touch screen during combat, nicely mimicking the mouse and keyboard control scheme used in a PC RTS. The stylus controls everything from selecting who goes where right down to which unit attacks which, making for an experience that is easily accessible to nearly anyone.

One of the downsides of combat is that it doesn't require any real strategy. You can select smaller forces to attack groups of enemies, but without your entire horde backing you, you'll find more often than not that all of your units will be decimated, forcing players to simply select all of their soldiers to attack a given objective. On the upside, every unit has a specific job, which in turn creates a balance to the entire team. That's not to say there's a job system, but rather that each main character has a given niche.

You cant train every character in a slew of abilities as was found in the original FF12; rather, new pre-determined abilities for a given character will be unlocked as they level up, making each character very defined. Where one character is a heavy damage dealer, another is in charge of the healing of the entire group; a given character may be your only ranged attacker while another is the only one capable of reviving fallen allies. The loss of a single member can quickly affect the tide of battle.

The gambit system also makes a return, but it's not quite what we were expecting. While it works, you'll have to really fiddle around with it to find a balance of automation and micromanagement, and when you've got your entire force cluttering the screen, you want to do as little micromanagement as possible. These gambit abilities will be cast as often as they're available, but since you're confined to one, you'll have to determine which is best for your play style. Do you want to be focused on offense? Would you rather cast debuffs to make enemies easier to slay? Oftentimes you'll find that the AI can be rather dense with these gambits, forcing you to manually cast these abilities as the casters aren't focusing on who needs it most.