Revenant Wings is the DS's premeire strategy game.
FFXII: RW is a real time strategy game set in the world of Ivalice after the events of FFXII (which was released on the PS2,) and although players do not need to have played the prequal to understand this game, it would help to understand some of the character's relationships a bit more.
In the spirit of breaking away from tradition, Square Enix completely ditched the turn based battles of previous DS FF games and decided to focus entirely on strategic real time combat controlled by the stylus. Although some may have doubts about playing a game entirely with the stylus, it really works surprisingly well.
Tap a unit on the screen to select him/her. Tap the characters icon on the top of the screen to select that unit as well as every summoned Esper under that unit's command (more on Espers later.) Or, if you are in a hurry, dragging the stylus across the screen will select every unit within the radius of your stylus stroke. After selecting your units, tapping on an enemy will order your units to attack. Tap on a resource, such as a crystal, to harvest it. Tap a treasure chest to open it, and so on. The D-Pad will scroll the camera around the map, and there is a less detailed map detailing the locations of your units, enemy units, and other important information on the top screen. The basic controls are really intuitive and easy to get the hang of, but there are a few more complex maneuvers that you can perform that add strategic depth to battles.
Every main character has an RPG esque level up system. Like in a role playing game, the main characters will level up after battles and gain new skills. You can manually activate these skills during battle by selecting the unit, then tapping "Skills" at the bottom of the screen, selecting a skill to use, and finally selecting a target. But this could easily become a hassle to do in large battles. Seeing this, Square Enix has included a gambit system that will tell your AI to behave in a certain way during battle when you are not controlling him/her directly. For example, if I were to assign the "Blizzaga" gambit to my mage unit, he would use Blizzaga as often as possible during battle without my having to tell him to do so. But you are only allowed to assign one gambit to a unit at a time, so choose wisely. This system is an excellent way to keep tabs on your unit's skills during a hectic battle, and its inclusion is much appreciated.
Now, about those Espers that I mentioned before. In the world of Ivalice, Espers are summons that help your characters out in battle. In order to summon an Esper, you must first capture a summoning gate. You may then summon Espers to the battlefield and assign them to a party leader. That way, when you select the party leader's tab at the top of the screen and give him an order, all of the Espers under him will follow that order as well. This is a good, but not perfect, solution to the problem of micromanagement in a handheld RTS. Sometimes battles will be too chaotic for you to really care which Espers are under which leaders, and you will just order your units to swarm all enemies. Still, it pays to use Espers strategically. There are flying, ground, and ranged types of units, and they have a rock-paper-scissors relationship in battle. For example, it would be wise to make ranged units attack flying units, but unwise to have them engage ground units. Also, each Esper has an elemental affinity, and balancing these becomes important.
All in all, the battles in RW can become quite strategic and are always intense fun. In larger battles, however, your units will sometimes run into pathfinding problems. It seems that if a unit can't find his way out of a mob of allies, he will eventually just start walking in circles until you give your orders over again.
Revenant Wing's story is fun to move through thanks to well written dialouge and the feeling that you are playing through a true FF game, despite the fact that you are playing a spinoff. In other words, the story, characters, and overall atmosphere hold up to what you would expect to a console FF game for the most part.
The cutscenes only serve to add to the feeling that you are playing through a true console FF. Frequent at first but much less so later on in the game, the cutscenes are easily the best I've seen on the DS. They really have to be seen to be believed. When you aren't watching a cutscene, you'll still be amazed by the graphical quality on display. It is clear the SE put time into creating a unique looking game. The environments are all rendered in late-Playstation-quality 3D, while the characters themselves are sprites.
Any FF fan should be able to tell you that the FF experience just isn't complete without the excellent music that the series is known for, and RW is no exception. Whether it's a remixed version of a classic FF song or a relatively new song from FFXII or a completely new song designed for the game, all of the music will suck you into the game world like no DS game's music has done before. The audio quality in RW is simply splendid.
In conclusion, FFXII: RW offers a hybrid RTS/RPG experience that no fan of either genre can afford to miss. With its combination of stunning graphics and music, an entertaining story, and intuitive gameplay, Revenant Wings' many missions and side quests should keep gamers busy well into 2008.