Mist Knacks (quickenings in the English release) make a return in Revenant Wings. Unlike Final Fantasy XII where each character’s Mist Knack was unlocked by revealing their area on the License Board, Mist Knacks in Revenant Wings are unlocked through missions that pit you against Espers. Yes, most of the Espers from Final Fantasy XII and the traditional Final Fantasy games return in Revenant Wings for you to do battle against. However, only a few summon monsters are fought against in the game’s main storyline. Consequently, this only lets a few of your characters learn their Mist Knacks. If you really want all your characters to learn their own Mist Knacks, you’d have to take part in the game’s side missions. These are completely optional, but in some cases they add a bit more backstory to the compliment game’s main story. Each of these side missions are unlocked by either completing an entire chapter or visiting the city of Beiluge (also the name of the airship you travel on) and speaking to Tomaj or any other character. Defeating Espers also nets you the ability to summon them in battle by unlocking them on the License Ring. Unlike level 1 or level 2 summon monsters, level 3 summon monsters, which are mostly comprised of Espers won’t be summoned immediately when battles begin.
Revenant Wings does have about a handful of cons that vary from being trivial to annoying. When battles begin to get real intense, too many monsters appear on the field and clash. The game starts to lag, even when using the d-pad to move the camera to another portion of the map. Furthermore, you can only select a group of units under any hero’s command or all of your units to issue an attack on any enemy once. After you’ve issued that command those units are no longer selected. This can be annoying especially in intense battles because not all your units will attack an enemy. The A.I. isn’t as bad as Heroes of Mana, but it does get annoying when your units will continue to stay behind a rock or a pillar for 10 minutes until you manually select that unit and move it. Also, even if you’re accurate in selecting an enemy you want to attack, sometimes your units won’t attack that unit. Instead they will just move to the area where the enemy unit is and wait for the enemy unit to attack first.
While this really isn’t that big of a deal, the game only has one town where all your shopping is done. You can purchase materials that can be used to synthesize items in the town’s synthesis shop, but sometimes not all the items will be available for purchase. If you’re a synthesis perfectionist this means you’ll have to backtrack to previously visited battle grounds, gather the necessary materials and complete the battle there. A few of the optional Esper battles are tough, so level grinding really does become necessary along with a good strategy to defeating the extra Esper. This leads to another small con which is relative to the person playing, Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings really isn’t all that challenging and difficult to complete. Though some battles are intense, they are virtually easy enough to the point where defeat isn’t even a possible outcome.
Overall, Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings is well worth the fairly short (15-20hrs) time invested in it. Yet Revenant Wings has little replay value. There is a secret ending to the game that can be earned by completing all of the game’s missions and earning 100% on mission completion. Since the game is fairly easy to understand, Revenant Wings is a title that anyone can play to help them break into the RTS/RPG mold. Revenant Wings is pretty import friendly as its easy to understand. The only thing you’d really miss out on if you have no knowledge of the Japanese language is the game’s story. Before giving Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings a "buy/pass" raiting, take the time to play it. You may end up enjoying it as much as some importers have.