Take out all quotes or outside information from the directors and producers...

If you had played the game, you would realize that the content doesn't fit the game.  You go from cutscene to cutscene for 25 to 30 hours with no options.  The game has a linear path with no hidden dungeons, minimal branching paths all of which are dead ends, very obvious treasure chests, no sidequests, no minigames (outside of one mandatory one during Chapter 4 and a single optional one near the end of Chapter 8), you don't even have the ability to choose your party members, you can't backtrack, there are no NPCs, there are no traditional shops, there are no traditional towns, there are no optional party members, you have level caps, grinding is heavily discouraged, and you are forced to use the characters the game tells you.  This was a conscious decision.  Freedom and optional content was not what they had in mind for the first 10 chapters.  This is why they said "content volume concerns".  They wanted a very controlled experience.  

If you knew anything about the development of the game, you'd know there was massive miscommunications within the team.  People were creating assets for ideas long since cut.  People were rendering cutscenes to story bits that had been changed ten times over by that point.  They didn't even have the battle system set till the Advent Children Demo.

Kitase and Toriyama call Final Fantasy XIII an "Interactive Movie RPG".  They wanted a linear, movie like experience.  The content you speak of was cut enable to accomplish this.

ethomaz said: ShroudedDarkness said:   Take out all quotes or outside information from the directors and producers... If you had played the game, you would realize that the content doesn't fit the game.  You go from cutscene to cutscene for 25 to 30 hours with no options.  The game has a linear path with no hidden dungeons, minimal branching paths all of which are dead ends, very obvious treasure chests, no sidequests, no minigames (outside of one mandatory one during Chapter 4 and a single optional one near the end of Chapter 8), you don't even have the ability to choose your party members, you can't backtrack, there are no NPCs, there are no traditional shops, there are no traditional towns, there are no optional party members, you have level caps, grinding is heavily discouraged, and you are forced to use the characters the game tells you.  This was a conscious decision.  Freedom and optional content was not what they had in mind for the first 10 chapters.  This is why they said "content volume concerns".  They wanted a very controlled experience.   If you knew anything about the development of the game, you'd know there was massive miscommunications within the team.  People were creating assets for ideas long since cut.  People were rendering cutscenes to story bits that had been changed ten times over by that point.  They didn't even have the battle system set till the Advent Children Demo. Kitase and Toriyama call Final Fantasy XIII an "Interactive Movie RPG".  They wanted a linear, movie like experience.  The content you speak of was cut enable to accomplish this.   I had other interview with Kitase saying otherwise... but forget what I said in this thread... the guys here are too exalted to understand .

http://www.1up.com/previews/final-fantasy-xiii-rpg

"As far as Kitase is concerned, FFXIII isn't even really a role-playing game. "We didn't really intend to work within with the RPG template," he says. "We wanted to create a new game, even a new genre. The way we look at it, there's isn't a certain format that we have to keep to and build a game around. Rather, it goes the other way around. We create a game and, depending on what works or doesn't work within that game, it ends up reflecting different staple elements."

"Because players are presented with multiple different situations on the field, in a lot of senses FFXIII is more like an FPS than an RPG," says director Motomu Toriyama.

"Kitase and Toriyama are determined to give gamers a lush, cinematic experience, and to that end they've severely limited player freedom to minimize the possibility that you might encounter a blemish."

"The earlier part of the game is designed so that players get accustomed to both the storyline and the battle system," 

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/235030/final-fantasy-xiii-boss-responds-to-review-scores/

 "When you look at most Western RPGs, they just dump you in a big open world, and let you do whatever you like... [It] becomes very difficult to tell a compelling story when you're given that much freedom."

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/03/18/final-fantasy-xiii-director-answers-your-ffxiii-questions/

"The content that was cut were in various stages of development. We took a step back from having a lot of ideas upfront and then cutting them a little by little as the game was being completed. This is a normal process when developing a game, so this is not particular to Final Fantasy XIII. If we did cut the content it wasn’t fit for the final product, which is why it didn’t make it in. "

"The game, unlike previous titles in the series, includes no explorable town areas; Toriyama said in an interview that the team was unable to make them as graphically appealing as the rest of the game and chose to eliminate them."

-Final Fantasy XIII Scenario Ultimania 

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/01/13/noras-secret-base-and-lightnings-home-cut-from-final-fantasy-xiii/

"These areas were running in an unreleased build of Final Fantasy XIII, but were cut from the final version due to considerations about game balance and game volume."