Why is FFX looked upon favorably but FFXIII is trashed?

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how linear it is

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From what I remember FF13 takes it to a whole other level because it's literally walking down trenches for large portions of the game. I haven't played in several years, but that's what I remember.

ETA: I can see what you are saying about FF10 being similar, but maybe it's just the way it's presented it doesn't feel as claustrophobic as FF13. Would have to replay both again to confirm.

Both were linear AF.

Story was better in X.

That’s all.

Xlll has better combat and leveling system IMO.

Both were visually stunning for their time and both had amazing scores.

X just had the story and better characters.

From what I remember, FFX had better environments despite being linear. Thunderplains, deserts, snowy mountains, etc..

I don't recall any of that in XIII. But then again, it's been a long, long time since I've played XIII.

Because when FFXIII was released, we were being told it was open world.

And the only open part was the grind area.

Other than that one part, it was so linear it should have had rails.

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People are also a lot more cynical now and there's this weird conflation with linear and bad.

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This is true to a degree, but I would also say that there's a certain expectation that people have with certain genres or franchises.

FF has always been linear. There's always a set number of things that you have to do in a set order before you can beat the game, but previous games in the series did a much better job of at least giving you the illusion that you were free to explore the world. I would even say that FFXV is just as linear as XIII. They just put Gran Pulse at the beginning of the game instead of at the end.

FFXIII was linear to a ridiculous degree. There were almost no sidequests, and the story was a mess that was just thrown at you with no explanation. If you really wanted to know what's going on you had to read the codex.

FFX had a number of things going for it. First FF on PS2, first FF with voice actors. It was a long game with a traditional FF battle system, the story was paced very well and not hard to understand. And it had a ton of extra stuff to do outside of the story and battles.

FFXIII was the first HD game, and in an era where other developers were creating huge open worlds, lots of intersting new game concepts + awesome graphics, FFXIII felt like kind of a letdown.

I played it and enjoyed it, but it wasn't that great.

10s story was way better than 13. Along with the characters. Snow and Hope were abysmal.

I actually like linear games way more than open world. 13 just was not a great game. I don't think that is the only reason it is disliked.

Yeah having to look at logs for more detail and world building is the worst part.

I think it has a lot to do with the era in which each game was released. X was an early PS2 release, meaning it was compared more to PS1 and N64 games than those that came after, allowing if to stack up favorably against its peers. It was a couple years before a lot of big open world-ish games like WOW, KOTOR, GTA, and Morrowind, so it stood out at the time.

XIII, on the other hand, was released after open world action games had become the standard for RPGS. It simply doesn’t stack up against Skyrim, Mass Effect, Assassins Creed, and the GTA series.

I find FFXV was excellent in that respect, but was mostly held back by poor story-telling and mediocre sidequests. Skyrim and Witcher 3 really set the bar for the future, and for better or worse, games, even before their time, are judged by that standard. FFX mostly gets a pass these days due to nostalgia, imo.

FFX was always good, everyone else just loved VII more (sometimes VIII or IX, but they weren’t the majority).

I think the set turn order was probably what pushed people away initially (I for one actually loved it, and have hated the “be quick” selection method of older games.)

And pretty sure the entire modern series except the online games are Linear as frick.