I agree - I haven't truly enjoyed an FF game since the 9th one.

FFX had this:

/end thread

I really dislike random encounters.

Implying linearity is FFXIII only problem.

FFX had a better story. It's also good to remember that final fantasy universes use both Fantasy and SCi-fi elements, and that FFX is closer to fantasy while FFXIII took more from sci-fi, so it doesn't appeal to the same audience.

Lack of side quest sucked too. Battle system was good, but people need to make an effort and check the option menu. I know, that's hard. Music was awesome, as always, character design pretty good, while some characters may have been annoying for older audience ( But let's face it, a 15yo boy and a 16 yo girl not being annoying ? )

Scenario is arguable, i personnally liked 13, tough I'm not a big fan of Lightning herself. X was better IMO

FFX got a lot of stick at the time and some of them are pretty valid criticisms, but it also did a lot of things right compared to FFXIII.

- Linearity: Whilst FFX was also linear it, FFXIII was a lot worse. FFX had branching paths, dungeons with puzzles to solve before you could progress and by the last third of the game you had the ability to return to virtually any area of the game to complete optional side quests. FFXIII was basically a long path and a giant field you could re-visit right at the end.

- Side quests (with variety!): FFX actually had them! Extra areas to discover whilst in game, Dark Aeons, hidden Aeons, extra locations to find in the airship etc. FFXIII only had the hunts which is basically the same combat system used in the main game... over and over. Not something most people want to repeat when the main game is 40+ hours of the same.

- Mini-games: FFX actually had in mini-games! Whether you liked them or not, stuff like Blitzball which could be played at any save point gave players a nice optional break from the main action.

- Towns: FFX had fully fleshed and explorable towns. Why is this so important? If you wanted to discover the world you were playing in (and the lore), having towns allowed you to discover them yourself. In FFXIII this sense of discovery was relegated and lost to a Wiki style datalog.

- Useful collectibles: The Al-bhed primers for instance allowed you to decipher their language. FFX was one of the few games to get collectibles right. This allowed you to decipher new words/locations for the airship to visit. It wasn't essential, but it was useful. In FFXIII they're absent.

- Levelling system: I'm actually not a huge fan of the sphere grid system, but after using the advanced grid, I actually appreciated the customisability. FFXIII's is pretty linear throughout the bulk of the game and seems to do everything to sway you away from customising.

Overall: A total lack of variety in XIII lead to a repetitive game that for the most part, lacked immersion. So people the criticse XIII whilst loving X are not hypocrites as there are numerous critical points to divide the two. 

I haven't commented on the story or the characters as that's relatively subjective but for me personally I found nothing of substance and on the whole I couldn't bring myself to care about them. If FFX came out now, I might feel the same way, but for the time the story and characters had depth. General storytelling in games has improved a lot since then though.

No. You are singling out one complaint and use it to call people hypocrite.

Furthermore, in FFX it took me 20 hours to realise I was merely walking through a corridor. And that is only because people were complaining so much about corridors since XIII. I hadn't even noticed them the first playthrough a decade ago.

In XIII however, you 'notice' it pretty soon after the start and you start to wonder whenever the hell the game is gonna kick off.

In my book there is no such thing as a 'bad' Final Fantasy. All of those games have value, some more than others, but all are at least 'decent' games. Everything beyond boils down to personal preference.

Yeah.  I made it clear I'm singling out the one complaint because it's a frequent complaint of Final Fantasy 13.  Over half of the time someone bad mouths Final Fantasy 13, they mention how it's a long hallway.  Look at how many people seem to have ignored my statement of everything Final Fantasy 13 does worse in the OP and are trying to back Final Fantasy 10 up with other instances of gameplay.  I think my OP hit very close to home.

Except FFX was a superior game so people don't care if it was more linear than past FF's.

XIII gets shitted on for its linearity because it's a lackluster FF. That's a legitimate reason. If FFX was objectively a bad game and they didn't complain about the linearity, then you'd have a point.

But but... you cut out my explanation of why it could be a legit excuse to bash on XIII and like X. It actually feels like a long corridor as opposed to X.

It's not the corridor that's the problem, it's what happens when walking through that corridor. It just wasn't captivating enough. And that is why you can not single out 'corridor' imo.

On a side note, in the OP you yourself mention bad story and characters before singling out your main concern. You should have left those complaints out of the OP, it has given people arguments to side-step or dodge your analysis.

This is literally the first I've heard of anyone bashing X and XIII's soundtracks. I've heard some say XIII isn't fantastic, but never poor.

and if FFX has the worst voice acting you've ever heard, you have skipped quite a few games in the past few generations.