Why do people miss towns?

[Mo-Nercy]

I hate it when games have huge towns that take forever to explore or get anywhere like in FFXII or White Knight Chronicles. Back in the 2D days they were better. In FFXII I actually dreaded finding new towns because I knew it would take forever talking to everybody, seeing all the shops and completely exploring it.

I agree with this. Towns like Rabanastre and Archades were fun the first time, but if you're going back to them to do something specific like trigger a sidequest, I don't like having to go through 8 screens and a cutscene of a hover taxi just to get there.

Having said that, no towns at all isn't good either. I think the PSX era games captured towns perfectly.