Quote Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover View Post
FFX is linear but not linear like FFXIII. It's a false comparison and people really need to stop making it.
FFX has towns, for one thing, as well as the ability to backtrack. There is actually more to do than "go forward" therefore it is not as linear as XIII.
Yeah but towns are kind of pointless in the game when you think about it. Enemies are far more generous with dropping items and equipment, not to mention the equipment system in the game makes carrying a whole lot a moot point in general. Also save points fully restore characters and are literally everywhere in the game. So in a lot of ways, it's kind of like FFVIII where towns were also useless beyond needing to go there for story purposes because all the important game functions can be done almost anywhere in the menu system.

You can backtrack, but there isn't a whole lot of reason to ever do so beyond Jecht Spheres, an useless upgrade to Valefore, and picking up stuff you might have missed which you'll find a bajillion more by just going forward. So it's kind of a moot feature.

I'll agree the level design is just poorly done and made the linear nature of dungeons more obvious than previous games.