Originally Posted by
Elexia
Well....it's because FFXIII was "linear", given the fact every FF game internally was linear with pre-rendered backgrounds and a overworld map you'll eventually explore in full (near the end of the game) as said it was no different from other FF games.
FFVII, "THE GREATEST FF EVER" you spent all of disk 1 in midgar, then you get to the overworld map, you're told to go straight to Kalm, can you do anything else before hearing the backstory and learning about chocobos? Nope. That's linearity.
Hell, XIII's datalogs went "in depth" on things most FFs just completely ignore.