TwiddleGeek

Rating:

To picture Revenant Wings, imagine a game that’s a cross between the characters and action-based fighting system of Final Fantasy XII, and a sort of Final Fantasy Real Time Strategy game. That is, Revenant Wings isn’t a typical Tactical RPG like Final Fantasy Tactics, FFTA, Disgaea or so forth, it focuses more on a RTS style battle system of “capture resource, make units. Select group, point, click.” What this means is you’ll be less concerned with each individual unit, and more concerned with the group and resources of the map.

This isn’t Starcraft either though, in that the only “resources” you have to manage are basically the summon points and perhaps a soul crystal. Take your enemies’ summon points, and the tide of the battle slowly turns in your favor. Each group of subunits (healers, ranged fighters, melee fighters, flying creatures) are lead by a main party character, and these characters have some of the strongest battle abilities. Perhaps imagine something vaguely like the hero system of Warcraft III.

Revenant Wings is at times a little light on the strategy and heavy on the point-and-click mobbing with a swarm of units, but in the later levels of the game a fairly careful battle must be played or strong foes will easily overwhelm your units and wipe out the party. The frustration of failure is equaled by the joy of success though, and the game’s lengthy 18+ hour campaign clips along with minimal drag and only a little level grinding. If you like RTS games and the idea of one that continues the story of FFXII and stars familiar characters appeals to you, then check out Revenant Wings.

Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings is a bit hard to explain. It plays something like a standard Tactical RPG, yet the battles are in real time and with slightly more direct control over the units. Each main unit has several supporting units, and combat is basically dumbed down into a rock-paper-scissors type affair that, in the end, doesn’t matter a whole lot. Rather than worry about strategy, a much more effective tactic so far into the game has been to simply Zerg rush whatever enemy I’m facing with all of my forces all at once.

More interesting to me are the familiar, and now uber cute, chibi characters who continue the story of Final Fantasy XII in a strange and barely related fashion, much like Final Fantasy X-2. Personally I didn’t see X-2 as the abomination that many did, so the addition to the story is quite welcomed. The combat is interesting enough, especially if you enjoyed games like Tactics and Tactics Advance like I did. It’s different enough from your standard Tactical RPG though that even if you didn’t, this may still be worth taking a look at.

I don’t think the 80-something missions are going to take very long to play through from what I’ve seen so far, but there does seem to be enough variety to keep things interesting if you’re willing to do the side quests. What currently has me stuck though is a seemingly rather ill conceived stealth mission with Vaan, who is basically getting his ass kicked repeatedly for trying to be Sam Freaking Fisher and failing badly. Why does every game insist on throwing a stealth level into the mix?

Phoenix Wright: Trials & Tribulations is not very different from its predecessor. While you do get the chance to play as several characters this time around, that doesn’t change the witness questioning, evidence presenting, crime scene investigating, psyche-lock breaking gameplay. So what is noteworthy about it? I for one enjoyed the interweaving of characters and stories through three out of the five trials - it gave the game more cohesion than “Justice for All,” where the cases were largely self-contained and episodic. It was additionally engaging that these cases involved the backstories and tangled relationships of several major characters; one of PW’s strengths is its characters - Phoenix, Maya and a handful of lovable prosecutors new and old are all present and accounted for.

It’s also worth pointing out that whereas I often find localization of games and anime to be too contrived when they try to add cultural references and jokes, these games handle the job with style (”Special Password Admin-Restricted Data Access? That’s madness!” “No Maya, that’s SPARDA.”). Although the Japanese name puns are lost completely, I feel this is no big loss (puns seem to be highly appreciated in Japanese humor, while in English they’re the last resort before you get the hook).

In short, if you liked the previous two PW titles and you’re craving more, Trials & Tribulations does not disappoint.

Finished up Phantom Hourglass this week and I must say I really enjoyed the experience. Things really came together in the end to form a creative, imaginative, and humorous adventure that fans of the series really shouldn’t miss. Sure, the plot of Tetra getting sucked in by the ghost ship yet again is kind of weak, but the adventure itself more than makes up for it.

One thing that took me by surprise was how creative and fun to use the various items are this time around. Most every item has been reworked to not only incorporate stylus use, but to improve upon the base functions. The bow for instance is shot with a tap of the screen, making aiming rather simple. Complete with an addictive target shooting mini-game, it remains a handy and oft used weapon. Bigger improvements are seen in the boomerang, with which you can draw a path for it to follow, and in the grappling hook, which operates more like a versatile hookshot.

Overall I’d say they not only nailed the stylus controls, but also the DS hardware in general. The use of both screens, 3D boss fights, and drawing on the map was just spot on. The encouragement to take notes at any time lent the game the freedom to use more difficult puzzles than most, requiring the player to put more pieces together rather than having the solution tied to each puzzle area. Surprisingly, Phantom Hourglass has a pretty solid storyline to boot. While it’s no epic, it’s both humorous enough and interesting enough to keep watching for what happens next.

If you get the chance to play it, do so. The sailing still isn’t all that much fun, and it still takes longer than it should, but it’s nothing game breaking like it threatened to be in Wind Waker. Difficulty is still low, but not so low as to spoil the fun, and imaginative puzzles and good exploration add much to the experience. If you’re not put off by the somewhat short length, which is comparable to most DS titles, Phantom Hourglass is well worth the purchase.