Rob-Ot said: How could you feel FFXIII was less linear? Regarding endings, least XIII-2's ending made sense, FFXIII's didn't even make sense at all, I had to go around forums to read so called "theories" on forums to see how it made sense. |
I disagree with the rest of your post, especially the part about not having replay value, a memorable villain and the ending not making any sense, but I'll focus on why I felt FFXIII-2 was more linear.
The main thing that made FFXIII feel less linear for me was the fact that I was always progressing. I don't care if I was walking through a corridor, because it felt like I was actually advancing through the game, the amount of distance you cover and scenery you see in FFXIII is huge. Sure you might not be able to backtrack in the first half of the game, but I didn't really feel the need to, I had done everything I needed to do in the time I spent in each area. The only area where I felt I needed to backtrack and explore was Gran Pulse, and that's exactly what they allowed me to do.
With Final Fantasy XIII-2, there are only a small selection of zones and most of them are very small, infact, most of them are just trimmed down areas of Final Fantasy XIII (Oerba, Yaschas Massif and the Archylte Steppe especially). There is no feeling of progression either, you can spend hours in the small sandboxes in Final Fantasy XIII-2 and barely achieve anything. The Gran Pulse section of Final Fantasy XIII is almost as big as Final Fantasy XIII-2 itself, the only difference being, in Final Fantasy XIII it is all connected, being able to walk from Yaschas Massif all the way to Oerba gave me a huge sense of freedom.