I hate to go straight out and say it, but FFX whooped FFXIII in almost every aspect. The 'linear' paths in X at least had a wide-open enough expanse to miss a treasure chest or something. The battle system in X was slow, yes, but much better than XIII's. I like to control my characters, sorry Squenix. The Paradigm system was "unique", but bored me very quickly. Shin said it best "Everything in FFXIII has a cheap way to kill it. Ratkavija's giving you trouble - make yourself immune to magic. Need to kill adamantoises - spam death. Even the super boss vercingatorix is eaten away by poisen while you sit there and defend while he dies. No effort went into these bosses at all." FFXII's battle system was pretty enjoyable but had the same flaw as XIII.

For story, FFX was much much better. I actually had a feel like: "I'm about to set off on a quest with these people, but hey let me explore this beach and talk to the NPCs to hear what they say about the pilgrimage before I set off." In XIII, the best thing the NPCs say is "OH MY GOD, Eden's gonnnaaa dieeeee!!!!!" (Or something of that nature lol) And then I was on my way to another battle and non-character building cutscene. Followed of course by me looking at the Datalog to see what the F just actually happened.