Quote Originally Posted by Flying Arrow View Post
Nothing needs to be open and I don't think anyone really believed in actual freedom in an FF game (or even the 'illusion' of it) until interesting world design was removed from the series entirely. I think people just want a game where the world isn't as predictable as a straight line. A few hours into X or XIII and it becomes really obvious that This Is It. The Calm Lands and Gran Pulse were exceptions but those were some damn awfully integrated exceptions.

EDIT: Thinking on it, there is quite a bit of freedom in the older games. Not at all times, but that's really also why FF game worlds are so exciting. In a single game you can be on the run, adventuring forward at your own pace, exploring a town, or even traveling back and forth between towns interacting with NPCs and making little connections between everything. You can even go back into old dungeons and find some chests, or grind for monsters, or whatever you want. By the end, you can really kind of go anywhere you want, and it's usually why a lot of people (me, I guess) get frustrated with VIII or IX when they block off locations during the endgame with some kind of cop-out plot excuse.
Personally, i don't see that big gab between Snes/PSX and X~XIII style. In case of X~XIII, they didn't even have a role of level designer in teams, they let art director and art teams handle levels just like Snes/PSX era.