When is Square Enix going to start taking the state of the game seriously?

[Cairdeas]

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.

Thats my point. All the Final Fantasy's follow the same exact linear design but when you get to FFXIII people complain that its too Linear and doesn't play like Past FF's when it plays MORE like past FF's then FFXII did.

[Betelgeuzah]

Thats my point. All the Final Fantasy's follow the same exact linear design but when you get to FFXIII people complain that its too Linear and doesn't play like Past FF's when it plays MORE like past FF's then FFXII did.

No it doesn't, because the "challenge" and "fun" of finding one NPC out of 100 NPC's in any given town/area is gone. Man, I loved the thrill of speaking to every single NPC just to progress the story, not to mention the excitement of having to hunt each weapon, armor and ingredient from separate shops in separate towns.

[Boricua]

No it doesn't, because the "challenge" and "fun" of finding one NPC out of 100 NPC's in any given town/area is gone. Man, I loved the thrill of speaking to every single NPC just to progress the story, not to mention the excitement of having to hunt each weapon, armor and ingredient from separate shops in separate towns.

I too found 'fun' in speaking with all the NPCs in FFXI to come to know lore of the zone. Most enjoyable was the Tav. safehold, right after getting access from prommy fights. The thing is many find this tedious, whereas very few can argue against a beautifully rendered cutscene (i.e. FFXIII), that serves to perfectly detail the current situation. Even the datalogs as earlier mentioned were a perfect backup for recalling past events. The voices reinforce the storyline and immerse the player beyond a generic 'chatlog'.

tl;dr FFXIII is stupidly ridiculed for tweaking a long standing formula.