In response to what Galvaniser is saying, my opinion is:
- according to interviews with Kitase and Toriyama, FF13 was not meant to be an RPG experience, but something a lot closer to Modern Warfare 2 and other FPS. it was designed to bring in new fans into the series and forgo the traditions of the past.
- imo, FF12 is an extremely dense RPG experience, in fact it is too dense and suffers from balance problems for the first half of the game.
- this is because FF12 features, immense cities and towns, featuring tons of NPCs, some side quests (not enough in the towns), dozens of shops. FF13 has no towns in a conventional RPG sense, and features only a few NPCs, you cant revist previous locations.
- FF12 features enormous exploration, and customisation. the game lives through the exploration of non-linear based environments. there is a lot of replay value in discovering the whole map, obtaining treasures, and chaining enemies together for better item drops.
- theres also monster hunting. in FF13 we have go to point A, fight mark X, repeat 70 times for a trophy. in FF12 the hunts actually mean something and they ultimately lead to hunting the ultimate mark. the hunts are linked to the environments you fight them. you dont just go to pont A to fight person X, you have to meet certain conditions - you complete side quest to trigger the hunt to appear. so each of the elite marks are different encounters, linked to the mythology of the environments you fight them in. the hunts in FF12 yield great rewards, where as in FF13, we get items we cant customise because we never have enough gil, and i dont think you get gil from hunts.
so much more we could say about the story and characters, but Galvaniser has pretty much said the same thing. my point is whether FF13 is a good game or not; as an RPG FF12 trumps it in every department. and my biggest concern was whether FF13 was even designed to be an RPG experience or an interactive movie based experience, with scripted battles prompting you to press X when your told to do so.
