Quote Originally Posted by arcanedude34 View Post
See, the only real problem I had with the lack of towns and all was the fact that NO RPG, not Final Fantasy XIII, VII, VI, or even my favorite, IX, can possibly hope to maintain the momentum of a storyline for 40+ hours. It's just not doable. So the only real solution to this is to lighten the tension so it doesn't drag after a while. Whether this is done by towns, NPCs, side-quests, exploration, mini-games, whatever, it's definitely a necessary part of an RPG experience.

I wont lie and say I didn't enjoy this game. I did, I had a LOT of fun with it... for a while. Then it just got so bogged down in all the tension and drama and everything that I really just wanted it to end. This is the first FF that I felt went on for too long since FFVIII, in which the sidequests never really appealed to me.

At least for me, the "Crash Bandicoot: The RPG" approach really hurt the game in the last quarter or so, when I really just stopped caring. The game refused to give you any reason to sympathize with anyone in Cocoon, the complete black-and-white morality is tedious and tiresome, and the narrative is not strong enough to carry the game. I repeat, NO narrative is strong enough to hold my attention for 40+ hours. You need MORE than that, and FFXIII fails to deliver.
First that needs framing. Secondly, the whole reason we have minigames and towns and NPC in RPG"s is precisely for that reason. It is to a. give players a choice on how they proceed, b. maintain the illusion of the world you are in c. expand the story and d. break up the battles and tedious dungeon crawling.

When you try to "fix" a genre by removing things that made that genre popular you are going down the wrong street. And as you just said, when you do take away these things, the world becomes less real and thus the emotional impact of the story is severely weakened.