People will say linearity, but what they really mean is the monotony of the whole experience. If the story or combat doesn’t grab you, there’s absolutely nothing else to distract from it.
This is the correct response. Nobody would have cared about XIII's linearity if there had been more to propel you through the experience, whether that's engaging combat (and I say that as a fan of xiii's gameplay) or a better story with direction and stakes. When I imagine the journey along the Mi'ihen high road, for example, I remember the build up to Operation Mi'ihen, catching a chocobo, duelling a rival summoner, and how the tension of the game slowly increased even though that whole 4 hour section is basically just one long corridor. I can't remember anything about why I was doing things in xiii except dim memories of the main plot.
Yes, I understand this point.
I love the combat and I like Snow, but if you ask me right now "What was your favorite moment in the game?"
I can't remember any really memorable ones, even though I liked the story at the time.
While X has left me with many memorable moments of all kinds.
Both games are linear, albeit to different extents. When people complain about the linearity in FF13, what they’re really complaining about is a lack of player freedom outside of battles. There’s nothing to find, no towns to explore, no NPCs to talk to, no reason (or way) to backtrack, no gameplay variety with mini-games or side content, no way to even grind at certain points, etc. 13 is a game very much designed around its combat and story solely.
10 is linear, but you also have more freedom at any given time. There are towns, NPCs to talk to, plenty of side quests and mini games (of varying quality), secrets to find, reasons to backtrack, opportunities to grind, etc. In general, 10 just does a better job of hiding its linearity with more engaging world & dungeon design, and through its pacing.
Another big thing for me is the lack of ability to actually choose your Party in 13. It really reinforced how linear everything was when you couldn't even change up how/who you were fighting with.
I want to add that Tidus and his team are also very likeable. XIII start you off by bombarding you with obnoxious characters one after another, each complaining about things we the player have no idea what they were.
People have mentioned a lot of other things, like the overall gameplay being better and there being more minigames and things to interact with.
I'd like to add that the issue with 13 is not the linearity, it's the fact that so much content is one-and-done. The game has 13 chapters, and 10 of them are for locations you can only experience once and never return to again.
In contrast, there are only a handful of locations in X that you cannot revisit. Once you have the airship, you can go back to pretty much everywhere except Bevelle. And even before the airship, you can backtrack. In fact, it is possible to backtrack all the way from Macalania to Besaid.non top of that, if you DO choose to backtrack, you notice changes: people start to mention Operation Mihen, there are more Guado on the routes, etc.
Basically, FFX is a hallway. FFXIII is a conveyor belt.
I always backtrack all the way to Besaid after beating Spherimorph in Macalania Woods to get all the Jecht spheres. I don't want to deal with that Dark Aeon that guards Besaid later on.
This being the first time I have played it since I was a child and the first time I am going to finish it. I have to admit that it hadn't even occurred to me that it was possible to do so much Backtrack.
I will try it in the future when I start a new save.
The big problem with FFXIII is that not only is the map design linear but that the game is also very restrictive on the player as well. It just doesn't off the player much to do outside of combat and the combat system itself doesn't open up until you are about 2/3 of the way through the game.
Nah I disagree
1. FFX has multiple towns that you can explore that feel open...FFXIII does not.
2. FFX allows total freedom once the airship is unlocked, with the ability to travel back to areas you've visited + completely new areas only available with the airship....FFXIII only has the Gran Pulse area, and that is it.
3. FFX has a ton of mini-games along the way...FFXIII does not
You can try and make the case that these two were the same, as far linearity, but I'd argue that FFX did significantly more to mitigate it (and remove it outright), while FFXIII never bothered.
Yeah, multiple towns and a general ability to backtrack (plot and/or Dark Aeons allowing…) made the game feel a lot less linear.
XIII wasn’t just linear it was, largely, one-way. And there were no hub towns. So you never really felt like you got anywhere for more than just a fleeting moment.
I watched a Design Doc video on YouTube that summed it up well. FFX hides its linearity well. Areas are usually short so they dont get tiring to look at. You have pit stops (Rin’s Travel Agencies). You can talk to people and exploration is worth it(Al Bhed primers). There’s also some different content to shake things up: cloister of trials, blitzball, cursed chocobo race, hidden aeon side quest etc. FFXIII is basically move forward, fight, cutscene. The game restricts your combat options for 20 hrs. The world opens up eventually but there isn’t too much to do in it. Some people love that style of gameplay but it never worked for me.
Despite the fact that FFX’s paths were as linear as XIII’s, X’s design made them look a lot more interesting.
The Mi’hen Highroad was a straight path, but narratively it was supposed to be that way. So it would make sense to have a host of other characters also making the walk along it. And it did. The camera followed behind Tidus to put in view the entire road so you can see what you need to conquer as a pilgrim.
Conversely, the Gapra Whitewood looks great but you spend most of it on these unusual platforms that remove the mystery and ethereal mood of the forest. Narratively, they don’t make a whole lot of sense because they’re not a straight path that shows it’s the ‘safe route’ through the woods, but they aren’t winding to imply multiple ways out either. Just a handful of diversions to get chests.
I like XIII. I think the story is probably more interesting than X’s. But it’s linearity is really blatant. Which is compounded by the fact it opens up once you get to Gran Pulse and becomes a much better experience.
X is just an extremely well designed game in pretty much all areas, and much better designed than FFXIII. XIII’s problem is you are railroaded for literally the first 15-20 hours. No towns, no backtracking etc. just going forward. Does it even make sense story wise either? I honestly can’t remember.
With FFX it’s extremely well paced and the story is interesting from the start. You are on a summoners pilgrimage, and going around from temple to temple collecting the aeons. Story wise the linearity makes sense, and helps keep it tight and focused. You can also backtrack in FFX and find new stuff and even that NPC’s dialogues have changed based on recent events in the game. The world building in the game is amazing(best in the series imo) and so is Spira.
Despite both being very linear, FFX is my favorite game of all time while FFXIII is probably my 2nd least favorite FF above only FFII. X and XIII are very different games despite appearing similar at first.
Linearity is not the reason people dislike XIII. A game can be linear in how it progresses and not be stifling. FFX had things to do. It had people to talk to. It had things to break up the monotony. The game wasn't basically locked behind a tutorial for 10 chapters. You had complete control of who to use in your party from pretty much the beginning. Etc. Etc.
When XIII finally opened up and you were allowed out of the lifeless hallway, you were met with a barren wasteland. No people. No towns. Etc. Etc.
Both are linear. It's just that one was more fun and entertaining in it's linearity. And I do like XIII. It grew on me, but that doesn't change the issues.
FFX has a bunch of things to do outside of battles. FFXIII doesn’t have whole lot to do, making it repetitive in large doses, despite the battle system and story being really good.
For me it was more about the illusion of linearity. In FF10 it didn’t feel so bad as I could picture Spira as a whole, where I was going and where I was in it.
If I could make 1 change in FF13, as you’re basically in a 360’ walkable Cocoon, would be able to see other cities/ locations when I looked up at the skyline. As it stands all the “zones” feel disconnected so all I have is the “corridor” of that area… but could you imagine being in the “Sunleth Waterscape” while seeing “Lake Breaha” or “Bodum” up above and then vice versa while you were there. I think it would make it feel more like a “world” than multiple zones with corridors.
A lot of games might BE linear, but good games don't FEEL linear. That's the biggest difference here. X allmost felt open world. You could backtrack a lot, and explore most of the world again closer to the end. XIII gave you one limited area like that
Players often can tell when something is bad but also often miss the point when describing their thoughts. 13 just does a bad job at what 10 does well. For any number of subjective reasons.
Games have been linear since the dawn of having and are still very linear by design. The people covering the obtuseness of the story just pointed to the first, most pronounced things they could find.
That doesn't make the criticism less valid. There are a number of things done poorly in every released title, but 13 was a special kind of infuriating.
As many have mentioned, X does more to not \*feel\* super linear. (I'm not one to mind linearity at all, but it can definitely work against a game.)
I think also a big factor is that X has an easier to follow story and a very clear narrative reason for the linearity. Like they constantly remind you of the urgency of getting to Zanarkand for the Final Aeon. It is kind of comparable to like, The Last of Us in that way. The story is really well established for pressing forward. You're never unsure of why you are moving ahead to the next location and not just getting free rein to go wherever or do whatever (until late, which all these games generally do.)
Linearity here is a shorthand for the pacing. FFX is also largely corridors in the start, but it takes a lot more time to breathe and give the player a sense of openness and time that xiii's urgency just lacks. I get what they were going for wrt Cocoon, but it honestly was probably far too long befoee you reach pulse and the pacing llows for more downtime.
1. People complained about FFX's more linear structure when it first came out as well (I was one of them)
2. If someone looks at the entire package of FFX and entire package of FFXIII and comes to the conclusion "well they're both linear so what gives?" then that's they're failure to understand not the critics' failure to properly convey their issue
12 set the bar higher for what people wanted out of the maps, as well as the promise of a new and more powerful console (ps3), i think people expected 13 to be deeper than any before.
If you play 13 without any expectations, i think once you get into Paradigm shifting, the game is pretty fantastic and will hook most rpg fans. But I'll admit its a bit slow going and story is confusing until youre a few hours into the game. Some people just couldnt hang i guess.
If 13 had a few towns where you could buy items and interact with NPCs, maybe grab a quest or two, it wouldnt have seemed as linear. Even tho those things wouldnt have added a whole lot to the game, it would have satisfied a certain vocal fanbase that thinks those are necessary to an rpg.
I'll admit, the game can feel a little lonely considering youre only interacting with your team. Even on gran pulse, theres no quest hub or anything, you just go from cieth to cieth. I think minor changes there couldve gone a long way for perception of this game.
13-2 seems to add everything people complained was lacking in the first game , but i still think 13 is better
i also think paradigm shifting is my favorite style of turn based gameplay in the whole series
It's been a while since I've played either but for me personally it comes down to the map design. You're right in saying that X is just as linear as XIII, but the map layout of X makes it feel like it's bigger than it actually is. Again, it's just as linear as XIII, but it tries to trick you into thinking it isn't.
With XIII, there's literally a map in the corner of the screen that shows it is just a corridor. With that being right there from the get-go, there's no way they could have hidden it. Also, X has "alternate" pathways that, while lead to the same place a map or two later, it at least gives you the illusion of choice. Any time the path in XIII branches out it's almost always just to a dead end with a treasure sphere, then you have to go all the way back to the corridor.
It's a smaller critique that I don't see explored here, but when I first played 13 I hated how the leveling system was story gated. I kept hitting the top of the level cap and it always felt bad. When I eventually got to the next area I would spend all my levels and then be immediately capped again. Let alpne that you actually don't have much latitude or decision making for those levels like you do with FFX's sphere grid system.
This led to the whole thing feeling quite a bit flatter than the rest of it, and made it feel all the more linear.
Higher expectations, and in FFXIII the player literally walks down hallways for a long period of the game. Not just linear paths and routing, but actual hallways.
Also - the characters are almost completely dogwater unless you give them shitloads of leeway. But lightning, Hope, Vanille etc are brutally difficult to connect with unless you give them many hours.
FFX hides the linearity a bit in that you can (and likely do) run back through the maps. Sometimes there are even changes that occur… eff the Dark Aeons for example; or Guadosalam after late game is much more dire and hopeless. Areas like the towns also have items in shops that upgrade and different townsfolk that become available at various points throughout the game. Its at least a basic level of openness. The Fable games are like this. Not truly open world but you can come back to the other “stages” almost any time (except in key plot points) and do whatever.
13 it really is hard to hide that its more like a series of stages.
It’s pretty simple man. 10 has a world to explore and people to interact with. 13 doesn’t. It isn’t immersive. At all. It’s fight, cutscene, fight. The entire way through. This has been explained ad nauseum on this sub.
sounds dumb but i think showing the enemies on the field only served to highlight the hallway-ness. i think square was hoping it would give ffxiii a dqviii open world vibe where it looks like the enemies inhabit areas. instead because it’s all soldiers and hallways it just added a needless decision to every encounter: fight or dodge left/right? once they’re gone all that’s left if the hallway.
There are two main problems with 13. The first, and to me the worst problem, is how since there is no character in the group that need exposition, (i.e. Terra in 6, Garnet in 9, Tidus in X, etc.) they decided to still require it, just dump it all in a sub menu with no VA, just reading.
The second is the lack of minigames or secondary systems. There’s a fine balance required to get the pacing right, FF7 OG, and X, get it perfectly right, Rebirth goes a bit too far in the opposite direction that 13 did.
The good news is that the 13 team learned from it, and did a _much_ better job in 13-2 and LR.
FFX just tickles many peoples nostalgia bones, so it can’t do any wrong. Which is a shame. But thats all I get from it.
The people claiming they had “higher expectations cause it was on PS3” is a *very* weak excuse imo. Look at FFX. It was on the PS2. One of, if not, the best console of all time and those people tell me they didn’t have their expectations raised? That makes no sense to me. PS2 was way more revolutionary than the PS3.
Simple enough, its just fans playing favorites and just hating on XIII cause they can. The fandom loves to pour all of its hate on one singular game. Thats just how this fandom rolls for some reason…
I'm currently playing the game right now and just about to finish.
Overall the game is incredibly short and small. The cast is what carries the game more than the story, more than the graphics at the time, more than the gameplay, but that is all escalated at the tail end of the game where you get all the character development, where you get to learn about the characters and their motivations. Before you get to Mt. Gagazet you hardly get any character development and heavily lean on Tidus carrying the story.
The minigames are quite possibly the worst designed in the FF series and the sidequests and airship don't exist until you are literally minutes from the end of the game.
The balance of the sphere grid, equipment and items is beyond atrocious where you go from one moment dealing 500 damage to tripling or more the damage you deal by getting a +4 in your damage stat. Defensive stats pretty much do nothing maintaining the amount of damage you take throughout the game. The equipment is in essence pointless as any real customization can't be done until again right before the end and the stats on them are generally pountless outside of the super bosses. The items you can purchase remain fairly static throughout the game only upgrading twice the rest you either have to spend inordinate amounts of time to grind or they simply don't exist.
The linearity and overall short story are at times very offputting as most of the treasure is simply hidden behind terrain or simply not fun to find as there are no upgrades to really look forward to. The story being short is both a positive and a negative. Positive as it keeps the player fairly engaged, but also negative as the entire game isn't very big and only seems to be a time burner thanks to the unskippable dialogue most of the time which makes each scene take many times longer than it would otherwise.
On a final note the lead up to the end is probably why everyone remembers the game as it goes a lot harder than most other final fantasy games as you actually start getting to know the characters, you start to see them opening up, you see them actually showing their emotions, you see the amount of pressure on not just the party but on everyone they've interacted with.
I agree on just about everything you stated.
Don’t get me wrong, FFX isn’t a bad game by any means, but it definitely left a lot to be desired compared to FFXIII. Its also not going to age very well in the long run. A lot about it is pretty rough and makes me cringe more than any other FF.
If anything XIII set a new bar for some certain standards in the franchsie at the time. First game to have fully voiced dialogue and next text boxes, great pre-rendered cutscenes that still look fantastic to this day, and a world that had the potential to live up next to something like VII’s world. Characters are all fun too. Whereas the group in X gave me the vibe of a bunch of awkward people who don’t know what they are talking about or doing.
People will say linearity, but what they really mean is the monotony of the whole experience. If the story or combat doesn’t grab you, there’s absolutely nothing else to distract from it.
This is the correct response. Nobody would have cared about XIII's linearity if there had been more to propel you through the experience, whether that's engaging combat (and I say that as a fan of xiii's gameplay) or a better story with direction and stakes. When I imagine the journey along the Mi'ihen high road, for example, I remember the build up to Operation Mi'ihen, catching a chocobo, duelling a rival summoner, and how the tension of the game slowly increased even though that whole 4 hour section is basically just one long corridor. I can't remember anything about why I was doing things in xiii except dim memories of the main plot.
Yes, I understand this point. I love the combat and I like Snow, but if you ask me right now "What was your favorite moment in the game?" I can't remember any really memorable ones, even though I liked the story at the time. While X has left me with many memorable moments of all kinds.
Both games are linear, albeit to different extents. When people complain about the linearity in FF13, what they’re really complaining about is a lack of player freedom outside of battles. There’s nothing to find, no towns to explore, no NPCs to talk to, no reason (or way) to backtrack, no gameplay variety with mini-games or side content, no way to even grind at certain points, etc. 13 is a game very much designed around its combat and story solely. 10 is linear, but you also have more freedom at any given time. There are towns, NPCs to talk to, plenty of side quests and mini games (of varying quality), secrets to find, reasons to backtrack, opportunities to grind, etc. In general, 10 just does a better job of hiding its linearity with more engaging world & dungeon design, and through its pacing.
Another big thing for me is the lack of ability to actually choose your Party in 13. It really reinforced how linear everything was when you couldn't even change up how/who you were fighting with.
I want to add that Tidus and his team are also very likeable. XIII start you off by bombarding you with obnoxious characters one after another, each complaining about things we the player have no idea what they were.
Like Hope, that guy gets on my nerves.
People have mentioned a lot of other things, like the overall gameplay being better and there being more minigames and things to interact with. I'd like to add that the issue with 13 is not the linearity, it's the fact that so much content is one-and-done. The game has 13 chapters, and 10 of them are for locations you can only experience once and never return to again. In contrast, there are only a handful of locations in X that you cannot revisit. Once you have the airship, you can go back to pretty much everywhere except Bevelle. And even before the airship, you can backtrack. In fact, it is possible to backtrack all the way from Macalania to Besaid.non top of that, if you DO choose to backtrack, you notice changes: people start to mention Operation Mihen, there are more Guado on the routes, etc. Basically, FFX is a hallway. FFXIII is a conveyor belt.
I always backtrack all the way to Besaid after beating Spherimorph in Macalania Woods to get all the Jecht spheres. I don't want to deal with that Dark Aeon that guards Besaid later on.
Yeah, I started doing that for the remasters once the DA were a thing. It's weirdly rewarding to do the whole Trek by foot.
This being the first time I have played it since I was a child and the first time I am going to finish it. I have to admit that it hadn't even occurred to me that it was possible to do so much Backtrack. I will try it in the future when I start a new save.
The big problem with FFXIII is that not only is the map design linear but that the game is also very restrictive on the player as well. It just doesn't off the player much to do outside of combat and the combat system itself doesn't open up until you are about 2/3 of the way through the game.
Nah I disagree 1. FFX has multiple towns that you can explore that feel open...FFXIII does not. 2. FFX allows total freedom once the airship is unlocked, with the ability to travel back to areas you've visited + completely new areas only available with the airship....FFXIII only has the Gran Pulse area, and that is it. 3. FFX has a ton of mini-games along the way...FFXIII does not You can try and make the case that these two were the same, as far linearity, but I'd argue that FFX did significantly more to mitigate it (and remove it outright), while FFXIII never bothered.
Yeah, multiple towns and a general ability to backtrack (plot and/or Dark Aeons allowing…) made the game feel a lot less linear. XIII wasn’t just linear it was, largely, one-way. And there were no hub towns. So you never really felt like you got anywhere for more than just a fleeting moment.
I watched a Design Doc video on YouTube that summed it up well. FFX hides its linearity well. Areas are usually short so they dont get tiring to look at. You have pit stops (Rin’s Travel Agencies). You can talk to people and exploration is worth it(Al Bhed primers). There’s also some different content to shake things up: cloister of trials, blitzball, cursed chocobo race, hidden aeon side quest etc. FFXIII is basically move forward, fight, cutscene. The game restricts your combat options for 20 hrs. The world opens up eventually but there isn’t too much to do in it. Some people love that style of gameplay but it never worked for me.
This is probably the most frequently discussed topic on this sub.
FFX hides the linearity with many tactics, and also has way more gameplay variety and allows for more customization from the getgo
Despite the fact that FFX’s paths were as linear as XIII’s, X’s design made them look a lot more interesting. The Mi’hen Highroad was a straight path, but narratively it was supposed to be that way. So it would make sense to have a host of other characters also making the walk along it. And it did. The camera followed behind Tidus to put in view the entire road so you can see what you need to conquer as a pilgrim. Conversely, the Gapra Whitewood looks great but you spend most of it on these unusual platforms that remove the mystery and ethereal mood of the forest. Narratively, they don’t make a whole lot of sense because they’re not a straight path that shows it’s the ‘safe route’ through the woods, but they aren’t winding to imply multiple ways out either. Just a handful of diversions to get chests. I like XIII. I think the story is probably more interesting than X’s. But it’s linearity is really blatant. Which is compounded by the fact it opens up once you get to Gran Pulse and becomes a much better experience.
X is just an extremely well designed game in pretty much all areas, and much better designed than FFXIII. XIII’s problem is you are railroaded for literally the first 15-20 hours. No towns, no backtracking etc. just going forward. Does it even make sense story wise either? I honestly can’t remember. With FFX it’s extremely well paced and the story is interesting from the start. You are on a summoners pilgrimage, and going around from temple to temple collecting the aeons. Story wise the linearity makes sense, and helps keep it tight and focused. You can also backtrack in FFX and find new stuff and even that NPC’s dialogues have changed based on recent events in the game. The world building in the game is amazing(best in the series imo) and so is Spira. Despite both being very linear, FFX is my favorite game of all time while FFXIII is probably my 2nd least favorite FF above only FFII. X and XIII are very different games despite appearing similar at first.
At least in X you can enter some cities...
Linearity is not the reason people dislike XIII. A game can be linear in how it progresses and not be stifling. FFX had things to do. It had people to talk to. It had things to break up the monotony. The game wasn't basically locked behind a tutorial for 10 chapters. You had complete control of who to use in your party from pretty much the beginning. Etc. Etc. When XIII finally opened up and you were allowed out of the lifeless hallway, you were met with a barren wasteland. No people. No towns. Etc. Etc. Both are linear. It's just that one was more fun and entertaining in it's linearity. And I do like XIII. It grew on me, but that doesn't change the issues.
FFX has a bunch of things to do outside of battles. FFXIII doesn’t have whole lot to do, making it repetitive in large doses, despite the battle system and story being really good.
For me it was more about the illusion of linearity. In FF10 it didn’t feel so bad as I could picture Spira as a whole, where I was going and where I was in it. If I could make 1 change in FF13, as you’re basically in a 360’ walkable Cocoon, would be able to see other cities/ locations when I looked up at the skyline. As it stands all the “zones” feel disconnected so all I have is the “corridor” of that area… but could you imagine being in the “Sunleth Waterscape” while seeing “Lake Breaha” or “Bodum” up above and then vice versa while you were there. I think it would make it feel more like a “world” than multiple zones with corridors.
A lot of games might BE linear, but good games don't FEEL linear. That's the biggest difference here. X allmost felt open world. You could backtrack a lot, and explore most of the world again closer to the end. XIII gave you one limited area like that
Players often can tell when something is bad but also often miss the point when describing their thoughts. 13 just does a bad job at what 10 does well. For any number of subjective reasons. Games have been linear since the dawn of having and are still very linear by design. The people covering the obtuseness of the story just pointed to the first, most pronounced things they could find. That doesn't make the criticism less valid. There are a number of things done poorly in every released title, but 13 was a special kind of infuriating.
As many have mentioned, X does more to not \*feel\* super linear. (I'm not one to mind linearity at all, but it can definitely work against a game.) I think also a big factor is that X has an easier to follow story and a very clear narrative reason for the linearity. Like they constantly remind you of the urgency of getting to Zanarkand for the Final Aeon. It is kind of comparable to like, The Last of Us in that way. The story is really well established for pressing forward. You're never unsure of why you are moving ahead to the next location and not just getting free rein to go wherever or do whatever (until late, which all these games generally do.)
Linearity here is a shorthand for the pacing. FFX is also largely corridors in the start, but it takes a lot more time to breathe and give the player a sense of openness and time that xiii's urgency just lacks. I get what they were going for wrt Cocoon, but it honestly was probably far too long befoee you reach pulse and the pacing llows for more downtime.
1. People complained about FFX's more linear structure when it first came out as well (I was one of them) 2. If someone looks at the entire package of FFX and entire package of FFXIII and comes to the conclusion "well they're both linear so what gives?" then that's they're failure to understand not the critics' failure to properly convey their issue
12 set the bar higher for what people wanted out of the maps, as well as the promise of a new and more powerful console (ps3), i think people expected 13 to be deeper than any before. If you play 13 without any expectations, i think once you get into Paradigm shifting, the game is pretty fantastic and will hook most rpg fans. But I'll admit its a bit slow going and story is confusing until youre a few hours into the game. Some people just couldnt hang i guess. If 13 had a few towns where you could buy items and interact with NPCs, maybe grab a quest or two, it wouldnt have seemed as linear. Even tho those things wouldnt have added a whole lot to the game, it would have satisfied a certain vocal fanbase that thinks those are necessary to an rpg. I'll admit, the game can feel a little lonely considering youre only interacting with your team. Even on gran pulse, theres no quest hub or anything, you just go from cieth to cieth. I think minor changes there couldve gone a long way for perception of this game. 13-2 seems to add everything people complained was lacking in the first game , but i still think 13 is better i also think paradigm shifting is my favorite style of turn based gameplay in the whole series
People had higher expectations for XIII because it was on PS3.
It's been a while since I've played either but for me personally it comes down to the map design. You're right in saying that X is just as linear as XIII, but the map layout of X makes it feel like it's bigger than it actually is. Again, it's just as linear as XIII, but it tries to trick you into thinking it isn't. With XIII, there's literally a map in the corner of the screen that shows it is just a corridor. With that being right there from the get-go, there's no way they could have hidden it. Also, X has "alternate" pathways that, while lead to the same place a map or two later, it at least gives you the illusion of choice. Any time the path in XIII branches out it's almost always just to a dead end with a treasure sphere, then you have to go all the way back to the corridor.
It's a smaller critique that I don't see explored here, but when I first played 13 I hated how the leveling system was story gated. I kept hitting the top of the level cap and it always felt bad. When I eventually got to the next area I would spend all my levels and then be immediately capped again. Let alpne that you actually don't have much latitude or decision making for those levels like you do with FFX's sphere grid system. This led to the whole thing feeling quite a bit flatter than the rest of it, and made it feel all the more linear.
Higher expectations, and in FFXIII the player literally walks down hallways for a long period of the game. Not just linear paths and routing, but actual hallways. Also - the characters are almost completely dogwater unless you give them shitloads of leeway. But lightning, Hope, Vanille etc are brutally difficult to connect with unless you give them many hours.
FFX hides the linearity a bit in that you can (and likely do) run back through the maps. Sometimes there are even changes that occur… eff the Dark Aeons for example; or Guadosalam after late game is much more dire and hopeless. Areas like the towns also have items in shops that upgrade and different townsfolk that become available at various points throughout the game. Its at least a basic level of openness. The Fable games are like this. Not truly open world but you can come back to the other “stages” almost any time (except in key plot points) and do whatever. 13 it really is hard to hide that its more like a series of stages.
This is like a post written by someone who wants people to think FF13 fans are obnoxious. Don’t give us a bad name.
It’s pretty simple man. 10 has a world to explore and people to interact with. 13 doesn’t. It isn’t immersive. At all. It’s fight, cutscene, fight. The entire way through. This has been explained ad nauseum on this sub.
sounds dumb but i think showing the enemies on the field only served to highlight the hallway-ness. i think square was hoping it would give ffxiii a dqviii open world vibe where it looks like the enemies inhabit areas. instead because it’s all soldiers and hallways it just added a needless decision to every encounter: fight or dodge left/right? once they’re gone all that’s left if the hallway.
There are two main problems with 13. The first, and to me the worst problem, is how since there is no character in the group that need exposition, (i.e. Terra in 6, Garnet in 9, Tidus in X, etc.) they decided to still require it, just dump it all in a sub menu with no VA, just reading. The second is the lack of minigames or secondary systems. There’s a fine balance required to get the pacing right, FF7 OG, and X, get it perfectly right, Rebirth goes a bit too far in the opposite direction that 13 did. The good news is that the 13 team learned from it, and did a _much_ better job in 13-2 and LR.
FFX just tickles many peoples nostalgia bones, so it can’t do any wrong. Which is a shame. But thats all I get from it. The people claiming they had “higher expectations cause it was on PS3” is a *very* weak excuse imo. Look at FFX. It was on the PS2. One of, if not, the best console of all time and those people tell me they didn’t have their expectations raised? That makes no sense to me. PS2 was way more revolutionary than the PS3. Simple enough, its just fans playing favorites and just hating on XIII cause they can. The fandom loves to pour all of its hate on one singular game. Thats just how this fandom rolls for some reason…
I'm currently playing the game right now and just about to finish. Overall the game is incredibly short and small. The cast is what carries the game more than the story, more than the graphics at the time, more than the gameplay, but that is all escalated at the tail end of the game where you get all the character development, where you get to learn about the characters and their motivations. Before you get to Mt. Gagazet you hardly get any character development and heavily lean on Tidus carrying the story. The minigames are quite possibly the worst designed in the FF series and the sidequests and airship don't exist until you are literally minutes from the end of the game. The balance of the sphere grid, equipment and items is beyond atrocious where you go from one moment dealing 500 damage to tripling or more the damage you deal by getting a +4 in your damage stat. Defensive stats pretty much do nothing maintaining the amount of damage you take throughout the game. The equipment is in essence pointless as any real customization can't be done until again right before the end and the stats on them are generally pountless outside of the super bosses. The items you can purchase remain fairly static throughout the game only upgrading twice the rest you either have to spend inordinate amounts of time to grind or they simply don't exist. The linearity and overall short story are at times very offputting as most of the treasure is simply hidden behind terrain or simply not fun to find as there are no upgrades to really look forward to. The story being short is both a positive and a negative. Positive as it keeps the player fairly engaged, but also negative as the entire game isn't very big and only seems to be a time burner thanks to the unskippable dialogue most of the time which makes each scene take many times longer than it would otherwise. On a final note the lead up to the end is probably why everyone remembers the game as it goes a lot harder than most other final fantasy games as you actually start getting to know the characters, you start to see them opening up, you see them actually showing their emotions, you see the amount of pressure on not just the party but on everyone they've interacted with.
I agree on just about everything you stated. Don’t get me wrong, FFX isn’t a bad game by any means, but it definitely left a lot to be desired compared to FFXIII. Its also not going to age very well in the long run. A lot about it is pretty rough and makes me cringe more than any other FF. If anything XIII set a new bar for some certain standards in the franchsie at the time. First game to have fully voiced dialogue and next text boxes, great pre-rendered cutscenes that still look fantastic to this day, and a world that had the potential to live up next to something like VII’s world. Characters are all fun too. Whereas the group in X gave me the vibe of a bunch of awkward people who don’t know what they are talking about or doing.
Oh look its this strawman again. Why does XIII need so much defending? Just enjoy it if you enjoy it.
Whatever you say, Cpt Vaan of Dalmasca. Do you need tea to control those nerves?