Although the sheer fiscal power and market visibility of the Final Fantasy series may flatter to deceive, Square Enix does in fact create games other than those set in the land of Airships, Chocobos and Cid. Granted, the house that Masafumi Miyamoto built and Hironobu Sakaguchi elaborately furnished isn’t as prolific as its late-Nineties output since its merger with Enix, but there are other series that carry the standard for the corporation, even if Final Fantasy is very obviously Square’s favourite offspring.

The venerable Dragon Quest is one of these, and the Front Mission series is another. Debuting in 1995 on the SNES, the main series is typically a tactical turn-based RPG that focuses on the political machinations of various nations in the 21st and 22nd Centuries. This being the future, the nations are less individual states and more amalgamations of geographically disparate but ideologically linked nations such as the Unified Colonial States (the consolidated Americas) and the European Commonwealth (a futuristic version of the current European Union), among others. Evolved is the story of young engineer Dylan Ramsey, who is thrust into a brewing conflict between the blocs when an unknown threat destroys one of the UCS’s orbital elevators, which are key to the ongoing space colonisation race.

Of course when diplomacy breaks down, out come series highlight and tactical focus, the Wanzers (walking tanks whose name is a portmanteau of the German Wanderung Panzers) to wage war. While series purists may be appalled by the decision to change the primary play style from a tactics RPG to a fast-paced third person shooter /and/ hand development reins to the team behind the truly dreadful GI Joe movie tie-in, Double Helix, at least the basic tenets remain – you’ll still spend a good amount of time upgrading your Wanzer, tailoring each aspect of your war machine to expedite mecha-on-mecha violence as you trundle around locations ranging from ruined cities to Antarctica.

When you’ve finished politicking and then subsequently crushing your enemies like some sort of futuristic addendum to Clausewitz’s On War, the option remains to take the fight online. Double Helix is promising the mode will enable players to team up with other Wanzer pilots to take on rival teams, utilising each others skills and complementing each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

While for some put off by the tactical nature of the previous instalments it sounds very progressive, unfortunately for series veterans it all sounds very Western. There’s a fine balance to strike, but we’re willing to give Double Helix a chance to show that they can make something of this latest Japanese franchise to fall under their stewardship, even if the last (Silent Hill) didn’t exactly set the world alight. The online modes may yet offer some promise, but we just hope the third-person action doesn’t get in the way of what made the series so good in the first place.