Rock, paper, scissors. Anyone that has ever played a strategy or role playing game knows in the back of a hearts that this is what it all boils down to. My archers versus their infantry. My big gun versus their little knife. But even with truth evident, a game may still rise above this limitation to do something truly unique if the immediacy and importance of these simplistic match ups are exploited to their fullest.


Advance Wars accomplishes this task by spacing out the battles, and in doing so forces the user to constantly flex his/her strategic inclinations by positioning units four or five steps ahead of the current situation. If an anti-air tank is in the area, I cannot move my plane within four or five squares of it, because Anti-air beats plane and so forth.

I submit that Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings should voluntarily distance itself from any "Strategy," or "Tactics" monikers. I would have them do this only to limit the confusion of anyone that will pick up this title in the future expecting strategy to be involved in troop movement and combat.




Any stage in the game will have you placed at starting point X with your base party all concentrated in one area. The old friends are all here. Cut off shirt kid, his "girlfriend," Pirate guy, and Fran. I say her full name with proper respect because I am in love with her, and we will get married, and you need to respect that, Lyly.



Anyway... npc's that played minor roles in the former game have now been upgraded to full time annoyances. One of which,interestingly enough, has stole Marty's pink hoverboard. Which proves beyond a doubt that the Final Fantasy Cannon is set in the (future)? And doc Brown was the mastermind of the Janus project. Which has been believed for years as truth by FF scholars such as me, for instance.


So you are in level X, you have arranged you battle party according to Melee fighters, Flying fighters, healers, and ranged attackers. The various enemies roam the plains in clumps of the same type, so you ever so carefully drag the stylus across the length of the battlefield to get the lay of the land, which is almost impossible to do without somehow selecting all combatants to full on attack, thanks to the horrible stylus centric control scheme.


nevertheless, you select a target close to your current location that is ripe. With a battleplan set, all spells upgraded, support summons for backup monsters called out, and all characters in the party equipped with the most powerful armor and weapons possible, you release your troops to as Sun Tsu said, "Strike like Lightning."

It is at the moment that your party meets the enemy that you realize none of your preparations truly mattered because the whole of your party will commence to doing whatever the fuck they want to do anyway. The Gambits that you selected for your characters will execute at mostly inappropriate times, the characters themselves will clump together to the point that any attempt at a functioning in battle micro strategy is an act in futility.

You would do well at this moment to just get up and make yourself a sandwich, or talk to your significant other about his or her day, because your party, If they do not meet a wall or any other collision that halts forward progress completely, giving the enemy a chance to pick them off one by one(which happens frequently), will take care of everything themselves.


Any given stage in this game is like passively watching a living deer being squeezed and consumed by a large(depending on your current level) Boa constrictor. Its slow. The deer is kicking and fighting in the first part, but towards the end has given up completely against an overwhelming aggressor. The outcome inevitable, you just watch this brutal play unfold helplessly, and walk away feeling rather sorry for the food.