Linearity!

[Flying Arrow]

Okay so ever since around XIII's release (and even before), there has been concerns about the linearity in the Final Fantasy series.

Now, to a degree they all are linear. That is how JRPGs work. There is greater focus on telling the story than there is "do what you want and see what happens". But! There is a way to do it right, and a way to do it wrong in my opinion.

XIII was a terrible way to do this in my opinion. It's not just that the game is linear in story and progression, it's that the maps are line segments.

Nail on the head. The linearity criticism is generally a dubious one but in this case it is spot-on. I've noticed a lot of people lately doing some thoughtless retro-tossing of this 'criticism' at the old games and it's just stupid. Linearity in terms of story and area progression is not a flaw - in fact, it was one of Square's resounding strengths back when they put effort into designing a game and its artwork. XIII is an outright straight line with a generic over-the-shoulder camera looking ahead always. With nothing remarkable or engaging about the environments, the only thing one can do is hold up on the analog stick until the end. Awful.

And by not letting you back track to earlier areas as other FF have done wasn't really a bad Idea, as it played well into the plot of the game. It wouldn't make much sense if you could just up and waltz back to the ice plane area after all, not given the conditions.

I always found it to be an unforgivable sin when RPGs would lock players out of locations at the end-game. VIII and IX did this and it really soured me. I love post-game exploring or just visiting old locales to take in their vibe. With XIII, there's no reason why players should be locked out of past locations. SE are in charge of the plot; they could have concocted something - anything - to justify some late-game exploring. It definitely would have made for a more interesting game.