Ray Huling argues that the next crop of Final Fantasy games will be, like theYamato, obsolete by the time they hit the ground. Impressive in their size, yet obsolete at the time of their completion. Huling says that the games have become such giant enterprises, it's sapping the fun out of the whole production (does that mean 'obsolete' or simply 'not fun anymore'?):

... the optional elements that demand so much effort to achieve on the DS represent only a bite-size version of the gaming Gargantua Final Fantasy has become. Mini-games, bestiaries, accessories, rare monsters, rare weapons - Christ! The humongousness of it all defies belief, defies completion. Sure, people have achieved all that can be achieved in a game like Final Fantasy XII - one of its FAQs, not even the largest, is spread across more than 770 pages. But people built the actual Battleship Yamato, too, which now lies in two pieces on the floor of the ocean off Okinawa.

Just as has happened with the main plot, the sidequests of Final Fantasy have become ends in themselves, separated from any notion of the fun they were supposed to provide. Final Fantasy has the most compelling profile of any videogame. It bristles with guns - but what can actually be done with all of that firepower?

I suspect there are many that would disagree, and while I didn't like FFXII for a variety of reasons, I just turned it off and hoped the next iteration would strike my fancy (and if not, oh well — there are plenty of other fish in the gaming sea). I'll agree that plenty of aspects of the games are ridiculous, but that's hardly confined to the Final Fantasy series. Is the game formula 'obsolete,' or just tired (or is Huling just tired of it?)? And what does obsolescence (of a non-technological variety) really mean in the context of RPGs or games more broadly?

The Battleship Final Fantasy [The Escapist]

The key thing for us is being flexible. We never said that we wanted to move away from licensing, and we don't intend to. Great examples of licensed games that we make that we would love to continue to make those licensed games.

A great example of that is Kingdom Hearts. It's a great collaboration between Square and ourselves. Disney characters are in there, and Final Fantasy characters are in there. It's the kind of collaboration that works, and where we see other opportunities like that, we will do them.

We've got a relationship with THQ, and things with Konami. It's not an aberration for us to be licensing. They stay part of our portfolio. But a big piece of the focus is that we didn't feel that purely following a license would give us the right kind of investment focus on quality, and building our brand in games where we thought we had the potential to do.

As tempting as it can be to dismiss a lot of the more casual and kid-geared offerings from companies like Disney, those markets are growing by leaps and bounds - a lot of kid games may fly under the proverbial radar while they're snapping up new users like no tomorrow. It's interesting to read how one company with a very well defined image is trying to cater to a number of pretty diverse markets.

Evolving Disney: Graham Hopper Speaks [Gamasutra]

Released just last week, the latest entry in the increasingly erroneously named Final Fantasy series has reached franchise record-breaking 1.5 million copies shipped to retail outlets throughout North America, according to a press-release issued by RPG masters Square-Enix today. Impressive numbers indeed, though keep in mind this doesn't reflect the actual number sold, which judging by the stack they still have on hand at my local Gamestop is substantially less.

Still the demand for the title is quite high, despite the pseudo-realtime combat revamp the twelfth entry has undergone. Even the most vocal of detractors (that would be me) cannot seem to resist the siren song of a freshly pressed Final Fantasy game. The game has turned out to be kind of relaxing, really. Once you get everything setup correctly you almost don't even have to actually play it, leaving you completely free to write about video game shipping numbers. And here we are. Michael Fahey

Square-Enix Ships 1.5M Copies of FFXII [1UP.com]

There's some new Final Fantasy III footage up. It looks absolutely swell: the animations are smooth, the art style appropriately bobble-headed, the synonymous battle theme swells underneath a cliched battle between pixy and goblin. Unfortunately, I just don't like Final Fantasy. Better start learning, though, I guess... I don't see any other Triple A, or even Triple D, RPGs on the DS horizon. Florian Eckhardt