Why People Are Not Liking FFXIII

[Kasz216]

Kenryoku_Maxis said:

Mirson said:

Kenryoku_Maxis said:

Mirson said:

Because it's linear for the first 20 hours.

Uh...I hate to break it to you, but every Final Fantasy game is EXTREMLY Linear.  This isn't Dragon Quest or Pokemon where they give you a vague list of objectives, a backpack and say 'go explore the world at your leisure and have fun!'  Final Fantasy is the epitome of 'Here, let me tell you where to go, what to do....forget that, let me draw you a map, close off all the adjacent roads, put up signs and NPCs along the way pointing you to where you need to go and make CUTSCENES leading you in the right way, just so you don't get sidetracked.'

I take it you haven't played FFXII. The maps were open for the most part. This is just straight line; just move forward and that's it. Four years of waiting and we get a game that goes backward. No thanks; I'm renting it but will probably buy it if the side quests are good.

I played all of FFXII.  And while you could technically say it was less linear than past FF games, it wasn't exactly 'open ended'.  The story was extremly linear.  And aside from the main story, the only thing to do was hunts, search for espers or grind in the same areas you had already been to.  So in other words, you could say FFX or nearly any other FF game is 'Open ended' by the same definition.  Since in those games, you could return to the past areas and grind/do side quests.  But the bulk of the game was still extremly linear, pointed you in one direction on a set path (via cutscenes and NPC direction) and was the majority of the content of the game.

That's what i thought at first too... but by linear in this case... they mean it's exactly 1 path long.

I mean when you look at that map... it's practically the level design of a rail shooter.

Though it does make sense thematically for the beggining since it's taking place in a FF7 like uperworld. (i think.)

 

Later on it could be less linear when it reaches the "below" areas.