Marcel Winatschek

Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings

Square Enix put together a website for Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, this Nintendo DS game that’s coming in a couple of weeks. Beautiful site—orchestral soundtrack underneath, trailers, downloads, the whole thing. Which makes sense because this is still Final Fantasy, even if it’s on a handheld and smaller in scope.

I’ve been into the series forever, but XII isn’t one I ever played. Timing didn’t work out, or I heard enough about sluggish combat and weird pacing that it didn’t seem worth the investment. But that’s never stopped me from being curious what comes next. The worlds stick around. They keep exploring them.

There’s something appealing about a portable Final Fantasy. You’re not signing up for sixty hours. The DS was already killing it for RPGs—Dragon Quest, Monster Hunter, all of it. A compact FF that fits in your pocket and lets you spend half an hour in that world before moving on to the rest of your day. That’s nice.

I don’t know if Revenant Wings is going to be the one that makes me regret skipping XII or if it’s just a fun distraction. Either way, the website got me thinking about it, which is probably exactly what it was supposed to do.