I loved Lost Odyssey precisely because it *was* a "been there done that" game. The past couple of Final Fantasies, whilst hailed by some as brave bold new directions to make it more 'interesting', have (in my opinion) been pretty supportive of the saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I like this one a fair bit, but I loved "Final Fantasy" for what it was and would ideally have preferred it not to change (apart from ditching random battles, even that is just a personal preference). FFX proved that it didn't *need* a fully explorable world map you could get lost on to be a truly awesome game - though it'd have been icing on the cake.

Again, linearity is probably the wrong way of describing the issue. It's more that there's nothing to do other than fight or gaze at the scenery. L.O. had a lot to do... talking to people, watching those very moving dreams, solving puzzles, treasure hunting, completing mini quests, or just enjoying flying around in the Nautilus later on (even though it wasn't proper oldschool airship exploration, it was a step in the right direction).