[Stu]

That's the whole point though. To create the illusion of freedom. Virtually all games are linear to an extent, even older Final Fantasy games with world maps, but they successfully created a great sense of freedom and that's down to good old fashioned creative game development. Yoshinori Kitase and his team were obviously entirely unconcerned with this - they as much as admitted it when they said they wanted the first half of the game to play through like a FPS. Having to play through multiple discs just to get to the point where you can branch off and do your own thing - and that's only for a limited number of time - is just an absurd creative descicion and it's pissed a lot of people off.

Also, I remember the sphere grid being a lot more freeform than chrystalis. I'm still not a fan of it, and it's still also incredibly linear, but there were a lot more branching out opportunities. Not just the occasional dip to the side for 10 extra health points. I should know. I absoloutely sucked at which paths I took the first time around and blew it halfway through the game. Chrystalis simply won't let you do that. At least not until the very late stages of the game.

In my opinion this is certainly the worst Final Fantasy I have ever played. XII wasn't my cup of tea but it excelled at what it did. IMO III was fine for it's time, and miles better than II which was just full of overly bizarre conventions. I won't even bother comparing anything to XI. It sucked in it's own way and after eight hours of fighting bees to try and get somewhere I called it a day.

It's amazing to think that they are going back to give MMO's one more shot with XIV. Take the XIII engine and make an old school Final Fantasy for the fans who have felt disenfranchised by Square Enix's woes over the past few years, that's what I say. Give it to a seperate development team who will develop it alongside the next games in the series.

That, or just use the engine to remake VII. No more spin off's please. Just remake the finest game of all time or let it die a peaceful death in the hearts and minds of those who remembered a time when the name Squaresoft meant something.