I probably wouldn't have minded it being so stream-lined. Considering that is one of the few reasons I -don't- hate FF10. I haven't personally played this game. But for some reason my nephew was desperate to check it out last time he visited, so we rented it, and I got to actually witness it personally for once. And the only real thing that bothered me was the writing. The plot moved along at a really quirky rate. And the quips from the characters are oddly neither dramatic, melodramatic, charming, or badly acted. They're just weird. Which I figure is a problem with the writing. Though I can't say I would have enjoyed a gauntlet of dungeons and battles as a game, but its been done before. Some breathing time probably would have been nice. But I never played Final Fantasy games just so I could explore dungeons and towns. But pacing could have probably used some tweeking regardless. And I can probably blame the writing for that too. So pretty much like a few declared in the thread about whether or not it'd be a good idea if Square handed off FF to a western developer, the main argument is that Square just needs better writing and fresh ideas. They're not a bad company for designing games. They're just running out of ideas and burning themselves out, and you get boring and wonky results. In my opinion anyway