spoilers wanted please!

[Xander]

Hey, I just got Revenant Wings for the DS, but I only played something like 2 hours of FFXII ! I don't know if the story's gonna make sense for me, so I wondered if anyone could summarise what happened in FFXII, anything important, what happened in the end, that kinda thing. Just anything that might help really!

I know I could look it up but I figured sites wouldn't really spoil stuff so I need someone who played the game :D Thanks loads if you can help :heart:

[Renmiri]

read a game script on GameFAQ

[Skyblade]

First, the cast of characters: Vaan, Penelo, Ashe, Balthier, Fran, Basch, and Larsa (Larsa comes in as a guest, but is not playable). You've probably gotten that Vaan and Penelo are orphans from Rabanastre right now. Other orphans, who show up in XII but don't become major characters until XII:RW are Kytes and Filo. Balthier and Fran are sky pirates. Ashe is the princess of Dalmasca, in hiding due to her supposed death. Larsa is a prince of Arcadia's ruling family, house Solidor, and brother to Vayne Solidor, the main villain of the story.

The heroic adventurers wind up meeting up and leading a war against the Archadian empire, which invades and quickly takes over Dalmasca in the beginning of XII. Basch, a high ranking captain in the Dalmascan army, is framed for the murder of the king of Dalmasca, in a savvy political move by Vayne, the heir apparent of Arcadia. The real murderer is Basch's brother, one of Arcadia's judge magisters. As the war progresses, Vayne kills his father, frames the Senate for his death and has them arrested, and takes sole control of Arcadia.

Balthier's father, Doctor Cid, runs Draklor Laboratories, the weapon research lab of Arcadia. You quickly find out that he is studying nethicite, a strange type of magicite with the odd property of absorbing Mist, the magical energy that pervades Ivalice. This research leads to the ability to manufacture (manufact) nethicite, though their manufacted version is a pitiful imitation of the deifacted nethicite that was created by the gods and given to the Dynast King: The three relics of the Dynast King, the Dawn Shard, the Midlight Shard, and the Dusk Shard are deifacted nethicite. It was the power of deifacted nethicite that annihilated the city of Nabudis at the beginning of the game.

You eventually learn that Vayne and Cid are both working with an entity called "Venat". Venat is one of the Occuria, the entities that pose as Ivalice's gods, and the ones who created the nethicite, through the use of an artifact called the Suncryst. Our fearless adventurers are sent to the Suncryst to acquire nethicite to fight Arcadia with. Instead, they act all noble and destroy the thing.

Eventually, the group stops all the main villians in a big climatic battle containing details unimportant to the story of XII:RW. The details of importance are this: Larsa takes over the rule of Arcadia. Basch replaces his brother as a judge of Arcadia, letting everyone believe he is dead. Ashe rules Dalmasca and works with Larsa and Basch to improve both countries. Vaan and Penelo get an airship and become sky pirates, and join up with Balthier and Fran for new adventures at the start of XII:RW. And, finally, the explosion of the Suncryst caused a vast amount of Mist to be expelled across Ivalice, and will be touched on later in the story.

[Bolivar]

Well, out of what happens in Revenant Wings, there's a few things you should know. In one scene (you might've seen it) they reference how they destroyed the Sun Cryst. The Sun Cryst was the source of nethicite, a huge crystal-like source of energy, derived from the "gods", that was the origin of deifacted nethicite - stones that could unleash massive power. One had to cut a shard from the Sun Cryst and that shard would be nethicite.

About relationships, Vaan is the main character in both, Penelo is a chick he grew up with/lived with after his parents died. Sometimes their relationship is implied as platonic, at other times it's not. Balthier is Vaan's personal idol, someone he looks up to very much. Fran's Balthier's partner and it's never disclosed as to what their exact relationship is, although there's some hints that its possibly romantic. There's some hints at Vaan having romantic interest in princess/now queen Ashe, and at some parts it seemed mutual. Balthier also seems to attempt to throw some lines at her. Vaan's brother fought under Basch in the battle he died in, Basch is someone who Vaan learns about knighthood from, as opposed to skypirating from Balthier. Larsa is heir-apparent of the Archadian empire, the bad guys in XII, although he was always a close ally of the main party, yet he also seems to have a thing for Penelo.

The Occuria are also referenced - they are undying beings ("The Undying") and self-proclaimed gods of Ivalice, although after the events of XII, their sovereignty is mostly undone.

If you played Final Fantasy Tactics, there's something from the updated War of the Lions version you should know - the Auracite are the Zodiac Stones.

[Xander]

Sorry I forgot GameFAQs had scripts, good idea XD But thanks for the info Skyblade and Bolivar, that's a good summary, I think I can start now ^_~

[Skyblade]

I tried to spare you most of it, just wanted to give you the info that pops up again in XII:RW. The plots are fairly unrelated, most of it what you needed was just the fates of the characters so that you'd know what each person's position was when they showed up in XII:RW. I only spent so long talking about Nethicite because the Suncryst is mentioned (only once, and you might even be able to skip it, but it is a fairly important piece of info), otherwise I would've skipped that altogether.

[Bolivar]

^ word