5) Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings
Revenant Wings was another entirely unexpected spinoff. The game takes place one year after the events of Final Fantasy XII and focuses on the characters Vaan and Penelo who have now become sky pirates with their very own airship. That’s right. No more Vaan saying “I’m gonna be a sky pirate!”
Vaan and Penelo both get a little better characterization than they had in the full title, and other characters from XII appear throughout the story. In Revenant Wings, they explore a mysterious floating continent called Lemures, and the pair ventures forth to find the riches that might lie in wait in this new land. A race of winged humans called Aegyl inhabit the continent, one of which becomes one of the new main characters of the game.
The story of Revenant Wings adds in some interesting new characters and it’s great to see some of the party come back together, but the game really shines with its gameplay. Revenant Wings is actually a real-time strategy game, where you’d control your characters with the stylus on the bottom touch screen of the DS. Points could be captured on maps that would spawn additional friendly monsters, and summons can even be used to call in some serious help.
Battles could quickly become hectic, with you trying to keep on top of every facet of a battle. There were also three different unit types to add another layer of strategy – melee, ranged, and flying. Even though Revenant Wings was a follow up to XII, its art style was very similar to that of the Final Fantasy Tactics Advance games, and its story tone tends to match that more as well. Revenant Wings was a fun continuation of some of the characters’ stories from XII, and its combat system is entirely unique for the Final Fantasy series.
