When I saw this comparison between the Final Fantasy and the battleship Yamato (the largest battleship ever made), I was wondering how the comparison would be drawn: the spectacular demise, perhaps? Not quite.
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]