Final Fantasy from that collection you’ve doubtless seen pictured on the twits or the

bookface or what have you, and get my classic JRPGing on. Only I did nothing of the sort.

Instead, I grabbed Final Fantasy XII Revenant Wings, a curveball so weird it leaves the

PS2 original entirely, pulls a hard left, and ends up as a DS real-time strategy game.

That’s right, it swung so hard back through the admittedly Tactics-influenced source material

that it became a unit-grouping, target-designating, tech-researching, reinforcement-building RTS.

When we last left our heroes... well, I don’t want to spoil XII itself for you so let’s

just say everything’s hunky dory and Vaan and Penelo are trying their hand at being

super awesome sky pirates... just like Fran and Balthier over there. While investigating

(read: stealing) the Glabados Cache, they accidentally trigger a landslide, what swallows

up Vaan’s brand-new airship and really puts a damper on his plans for sky piracy. So Balthier

and Fran go off and continue to be awesome while Mr. Who Let Me Be A Protagonist Anyway

slinks back to the Rabanastre slums, until he hears tell of a massive, ancient, abandoned

airship that docked itself nearby. Being the most interesting thing to happen in milliseconds,

Vaan grabs a couple nearby accomplices and sets to the task of investigating (again read:

stealing) the derelict. And all this is done through the use of point-and-click RTS controls,

which actually feel quite comfortable in the hand. The primary resource throughout the

game is summoning portals, which can be turned to your side and used to produce henchmen

to serve under and fight alongside your up-to-five lead characters. These summoned creatures

are separated into tiers, with tier 1 being the cheapest peons, tier 2 being your Tonberry-level

hitters, and tier 3 being your familiar Final Fantasy summons.

It seems a strange, strange concept, but there’s enough RPG in this RTS to make it comfortable

to fans of the series, while RTS fans will find the game fairly challenging (if a bit

rudimentary). The tech trees (read: the progression of pacts you buy to obtain new espers to summon)

are rather shallow, though the Flying-Ranged-Melee balance of power means that you’ve got several

options in each of the four elements (as well as neutral and healing units). There’s a

healthy game here, especially near the end where you’re getting five and six Grand

Malboros thrown at you at regular intervals. But you’ll keep pressing on, trying to unravel

the fate of this mysterious floating continent, and whether or not Balthier has beaten you

to the good spoils. Because, let’s face it, Balthier is the Gary Oak of Final Fantasy.

Just check the sign welcoming you to Nalbina. Do it.