Final Fantasy is a gaming franchise most people are aware of. At one point, it was considered the pinnacle of JRPGs and almost synonymous with the term. Nowadays, the franchise and its creators, Square-Enix, are not held in such high esteem. While the exact point that it began is incredibly debatable, recent Final Fantasy titles have not been as well received by their audience. In particular, Final Fantasy XIII was extremely divisive. Some really enjoyed the new combat system because it added a new strategic element to the game while others felt that the game was being played for them by the AI. Some enjoyed the story because the characters were well-developed and interesting and others hated the characters and how forced the ending appeared to be. However, there is one element that most people agree on and dislike: Final Fantasy XIII felt much more linear than its predecessors. This begs the question: Why does XIII feel so linear when compared to earlier titles? Most Final Fantasy titles are also very linear, as is the nature of JRPGs. What made XIII different? This week, I will try to figure it out.
The first, and most obvious, thing one must take note of is that the topography of Final Fantasy XIII is much more linear than its predecessors. Earlier entries in the series, up until Final Fantasy IX, had huge world maps to explore. While the player was often restricted from going very far off the beaten path until certain plot points were reached, the world maps always looked liked plausible worlds ripe for exploration. Final Fantasy XIII did not have this luxury for most of the game. For the vast majority of the game, XIII has players walk forward in an incredibly constricting, linear corridor. There are many diverse locals throughout the game with varying environments, but the player is only allowed to explore in one of them more than twenty hours into the game. The rest of the game cordons off most of the area, meaning the player only has one way to go. Even Final Fantasy X, which was almost as linear as Final Fantasy XIII, had places where the path branched off somewhat and the player was free to wander around the area to explore and look for items. In a game like Final Fantasy XIII, which thrives on immersion, this is horrible because the player takes notice of it and is immediately reminded that they are playing a very linear game, which added to the sense of linearity.
But this is something games do all the time. Many games, from Call of Duty to Half-Life 2 to the series’s own Final Fantasy X were essentially linear corridors when one goes in and analyzes them. Why is Final Fantasy XIII so different? One thing I found as I was pondering this was that Final Fantasy XIII’s areas are very sparsely populated. In most other games, the places the player explores, now matter how linear, have a population in them. There are people who are there for their own reasons and that have their own backstories. Even in shooters, where the people are usually the enemy, they help make the levels the player goes through feel more like a world instead of a corridor. Final Fantasy XIII only had a few areas with people in them at all. Most of the levels were completely devoid of sentient life (with the possible exception of monsters). It is difficult to be immersed in a world without people to interact with. That is something that people just do not encounter in everyday life. This is another reason why Final Fantasy X felt less linear. As the player traveled, he/she saw other people in cities and on the roads traveling as well. Initiating dialog with a few of these people would even show the player cutscenes that added both to the world and the characters. Before fans of XIII say that there is a good plot reason why the party encounters few people (being that they are fugitives on the run), I will preempt them by saying that while it makes sense from a plotstandpoint, it does not make sense from a designstandpoint. The design of the world and how the player interacts with it is just as important as the plot in any game because that is what is most obvious to the player.
There is one last reason why Final Fantasy XIII feels more linear than other Final Fantasy games. Simply put, there is not much for the player to doin the game. In most RPGs, there is more to do than just the main quest-line of the game. Designers of these games often have side-quests that player has the option of doing throughout the game. These quests allow the player to take a brief respite from the story and even allow his/her character(s) to grow stronger in preparation for battles ahead in the main story. They also allow to player to learn more about the world and begin to sympathize with the local populace by getting to know them and help them out. Final Fantasy XIII does not do that well at all. There is only one area that has any optional objectives whatsoever (which is the same area that allows for exploration). Furthermore, there is exactly one type of optional objective. Where other games have diverse side-quests where the player can find an item, kill a specific enemy, etc., Final Fantasy XIII also has one type of objective where the player finds the fossilized remains of someone who was cursed to have to kill a specific enemy and take up the quest for them. There are 60 of these fights and they are the only optional objective. They do not even add to the world like other side-quests in other games do since they do not give the player any information that they are not already aware of by going through the main storyline. Again, this is something Final Fantasy X did well. Throughout the game, there are a number of times where the party is allowed to just stop for a second and help out the local populace, giving the player the ability to play the game at his/her own pace and/or learn about the world and the people inhabiting it.
As I have said in prior articles, there is nothing inherently wrong with a linear game design philosophy. While it is not my preference, it can work so long as the player is immersed enough in the game that it no longer feels linear and that the game is railroading the player. This is ultimately the problem with Final Fantasy XIII: The game does not do enough to disguise its linear nature. The player feels like they are going through nothing but corridor after corridor completely absent of any form of sentient life. The player is not given enough incentive or context for this to work. Part of me wonders why so many little things went wrong in XIII. Square-Enix was much better at this before, as demonstrated by games created both before and slightly after the merging of Squaresoft and Enix. Hopefully they will be able to turn things around in the future, else I fear they might be another in a long line of corporations that have fallen by the wayside this console generation.
SougoXIII
June 8, 2012 at 4:06 amYep, totally agree with you there. I would also add that the reason why linearity is such a problem in FFXIII is that everything about it is linear. Your character level/progression is linear, you can't access certain roles until later on in the story, there's nothing to do except following from point A to B for 20 hours etc…
FFXIII-2 was a quick fix to all this problem but it also have a whole lot of problems of its own.
newdarkcloud
June 8, 2012 at 4:19 amI agree, everything felt linear and very streamlined to the point where there was no thought into what you were doing.
I'm not against linear progression. Many other JRPGs (even most early Final Fantasy games) have linear progression. Taken into context with everything else, that really worsen the feeling of linearity.
I will say that I was excited to get all the roles for all characters… until I saw how expensive those roles would be. The CP costs are so prohibitive that most players probably won't even use them until they beat the game. That was a really bad decision to the point where I can't even rationalize why they would do that. Why dangle it over the player's head for the entire second half of the game?
SougoXIII
June 8, 2012 at 5:02 amThe only logical explanation I could think of is to balance the game – since you can't access the highest level for the roles until you actually beat the final boss. That and I think they want artificially lengthen the game. At that point I kinda welcome the grind a little because it's the first time in the game that I got something else to do other than following the story.
Taking about difficulty and balancing, I found FXIII very interesting in a sense that it's by far the hardest FF I play. I actually die against normal mooks and not to some cheap tricks from super bosses and I did not feels any frustration – I can just retry, adjust my paradigms and go. Compare this to game like Demon's Souls where I given up after 3 hours because I got the impression that the developers wanted me to jump through hoops to enjoy their game.
newdarkcloud
June 8, 2012 at 5:12 amThat was one thing I appreciated in XIII. The fact that you didn't lose any progress thanks to Retry made it so much less frustrating than other games.
I did take note of the very steep difficulty curve at the beginning of Chapter 10. The game becomes much harder all of a sudden and I was unprepared for it. I didn't mind it, but the transition could have been much better to ease the player into it.
One thing I didn't like was the fact that the game capped your level. I know there are reasons behind it, but it still felt very cheap to me. In a RPG, you should be allowed to grind in order to strengthen yourself. It was hardly necessary, but not everyone is as skilled as people like you or me. On the flip side, that did encourage strategy. If you knew what you were doing, it would be absolutely trivial to kill a boss in 3-4 minutes.
SougoXIII
June 8, 2012 at 5:37 amThat's the problem with difficulties in RPG overall. How can you make a RPG challenge and encourage alternate approach/strategy without putting in one-shot kill enemies when your players can grind their way to infinity? Should you even try? I agree having level cap at certain points is very cheap and lazy but I don't think there's many other ways you can make RPGs difficult. One way I could think of is to follow FFX example where you can choose between a restricted or unrestricted sphere grid. (almost like a difficulty setting for FFXIII)
newdarkcloud
June 8, 2012 at 5:43 amThis is only my personal opinion, but I think that should be the player's choice. Those who are in it for the challenge can go in at lower levels, but those who want things easier are entitled to going in and grinding for awhile. This would be even easier with FF XIII, since the Crystarium only advances when the player tells it to advance.
This is something that FF XIII-2 did well in my opinion. The player who wanted to could easily grind, but a challenge-oriented player need only not spend points.