The vast majority of JRPGs are linear, but most of them try, in some degree, to give you an illusion of non-linearity, a fake feeling of being in an open world. They usually try this giving you a world map where you can move, and let you access a city where you are not suposed to go, even if there is nothing to do there. There are games that don't try to mask linearity, and some people (like me) don't like that.
FF10 is the most famous, where you just had to follow the arrow of the mini map to the next boss/cutscene, giving you what I would call a "corridor feel". I like JRPGs that try to fool me and hide their linearity. I think the presence of a world map is very important (for example, I loved the Dragon Quest 8 map, because it was beautiful, and gave me a sensation of "traveling").
This doesn't mean that games like FF10 or FF13 are bad games. I liked games like Rogue Galaxy that also used corridors, but I think that hiding linearity adds value to the game.
PD: English is not my first language, so there may be some errors. Sorry.
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