Revenant Wings is set in a land that floats in the sky above Ivalice, otherwise known as the Ethereal Land of Remrais. Remrais is governed by the power of holy crystals, a type of magic belonging to the god known as Forsanoth. Thanks to a barrier surrounding the land, it cannot be seen from outside, and is known to the sky pirates only as a legendary floating continent. (Part of the game still takes place in the old Ivalice, however -- the adventure starting with Vaan being routinely late to meet Penelo at the fountain in Rabanastre.)
On its adventures, our intrepid duo meets up with friends, both new and old, as well as a new race of beings, the Eguls. These winged characters inhabit Remrais, and one of them, a warrior named Llyud, quickly becomes entangled in Vaan and Penelo's adventures. Though the Egul race looks similar to Humes, their life expectancy is only 40 years. Because of this, they look at death in a very philosophical way.
Unlike Final Fantasy XII, Revenant Wings is set to appear on DS, so a graphical shift is the first thing that is apparent. Instead of the huge three-dimensional world we were treated to previously, this sequel is depicted by lush backgrounds similar to those of the PlayStation era Final Fantasies. The characters have all been recreated as sprites and have a somewhat super-deformed look about them, with large heads on small bodies. Summoned beasts and larger monsters stand two or three times taller than the character sprites and still look formidable on the small screen.
Despite the platform shift, the game remains an RPG, but from the screens we've seen, things look to be running in real time. Though the typical command menu input of previous Final Fantasies is gone, the feeling of XII's battles should be kept largely intact thanks to a refinement of the gambit system. Another similarity with XII is the ability to fight multiple monsters at once.
Most of the action takes place on the touch screen, with players able to move characters around and select battle commands using the stylus. The top screen will display other types of information and can be pulled down to the bottom screen with ease, and when it becomes unnecessary it can be pushed back up to the top screen. To target multiple monsters at once, the player simply drags the stylus across the screen to draw a rectangle around the desired area, similar to PC RTS games.
As it stands now, Revenant Wings looks to be an incredibly desirable sequel to Final Fantasy XII, and we look forward to further details on the game in the near future. Hopefully a release next year is in the cards.
