I never cared for towns. There I said it.

they used to be a crucial part of the game

and do I know you?

isn't your name Gianni?

I cant believe a developer would admit to not creating areas in the game that would have fleshed out the experience much more because it was too much work. Ridiculous, I guess they dont realize what it would be to experience a live, bustling town that had numerous npc's to interact with, sidequests, secrets and just exploring the town to see what it has to offer. Man I miss the good ol' final fantasy days, I guess im just searching for that "wow" factor again, I guess ff IX will remain my favorite final fantasy.

Square has really changed.

In JRPGs: Lost Odyssey, Star Ocean 4, White Knight Chronicles, and Blue Dragon all have towns...

In WRPGs: Dragon Age Origins, Fallout 3, Mass Effedct 1 and 2 all have towns...

Hell, ME2 was developed in 2 years and has a solid handful of full robust FF-sized towns, as well as just as long a singleplayer and a lot more sidequests.

FFXIII had a 4 year development cycle and couldn't break its linearity at all? Why are people still defending this game?

Indeed. I quite like you. FFIX is your favorite and you have a Reggie Wayne avatar. You sir, deserve a friend request.

I rather wait for 2 years for much bigger exploration like FFXII. I was waiting this since 2006 and i really trust them to mkae this game the most epic game ever. I'm quite dissapointed. Well the game will be amazing but not as good as I imagined . It is just town but everything else will be great (still my most anticipated game). Hope FF Versus XIII will be better.

It is, I mean I havent personally had a chance to play this game yet so I should reserve judgement a little bit and will still most likely purchase this game because I love final fantasy and most square-enix games, but not having towns in a final fantasy or very few is not acceptable, I know its good for developers to innovate and shake things up a bit, but there are different ways to go about doing this, not cutting out what I see as essential parts of the experience. Instead of just having 3 or 4 people to talk to in town, they could add plenty of other quests to accomplish, fully flesh out each city to make it seem like its lived in and give plenty for the player to do, more than they ever have before, maybe even allowing you to purchase your own property ala fable and set up shop. Instead, they do away with towns altogether and to make it worse its due to laziness. After typing this, im beginning to wonder if I even want to play this game, maybe I should wait for versus XIII or some other rpg to make things right. Dissappointing to say the least.

I appreciate that haha, I love me some colts, super bowl baby!!!  That and playing FF IX for the first time, it was one of those rare gaming experiences that has stuck with me since I played it, the music still rings in my ears lol, as a matter of fact I might just go back and play it again.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII is going to be MASSIVE:

See how relaxed Noctis is? Nothin to worry about!