/vr/ - Retro Games

[Exploration/Linearity in RPGs No.1781823]

So I was arguing with a friend yesterday over FFXIII, I said it was shit due to a crappy story/characters, boring combat, the hallway, basically all the crap you hear about XIII. Anyway, he said that XIII's linearity should be forgiven because all Final Fantasies are linear until the very end, and I said he was stupid and that there is a difference between having a small amount of map, yet be able to walk around and explore, and actual linearity.

Our argument aside, I was wondering what /vr/ thinks about linearity and exploration in FF, or any RPG in general. How much exploration and freedom do you think is too much? Can there be too much? Are linear RPGs bad? Do you like RPGs that are more linear or ones that start you off with a lot of freedom?

Personally I like RPGs to set up a plot and lore before opening up the world for the player to explore, as well as setting up clear destinations for players yet giving them the option to explore if they want to.

[Anonymous No.1781827]

>>1781823
He's right, up until a point all ffs are linear. Also the combat in 13 got legit in the postgame.

[Anonymous No.1781828]

The less hand-holding, the better. I really like freedom of choice.

[Anonymous No.1781862]

I have a lot of esteem for RPG's from the eighties for this reason. They are extremely minimalist and they are in fact way more open worlded than games from later periods. There have been better RPGs but in a sense Ultima IV was for me a height in RPG history. The world isn't exactly big but you can still sort of get lost on it the first time you play. And the game is really vague about where you should go initially. There arent things you really need to do first.

Theres also this game called Sentinel Worlds which takes place in a colonized star system. The planet's surfaces are random generated and sort of to scale in game world terms. The game doesn't entirely make use of that but it gives the game a really weird atmosphere because it seems out of place for the era.

[Anonymous No.1781863]

Freedom is nice, but good design is more important to me. I dislike endlessly big areas where there's nothing interesting, or some awesome treasure like a bunch of antidotes.

[Anonymous No.1781869]

>>1781827
No, they just give the player locations on the map to go to progress the plot, and open up more areas of the map as you gain better modes of transportation. The PSX and SNES Final Fantasies all give the player the option to explore continents the players are on, you can grind and walk from one end to another and take as much time as you want searching for stuff. The NES Final Fantasies throw the player in and keeps them on a path by adding stronger monsters in certain areas that tip the player off to the fact that they are going the wrong way. XIII is a literal hallway for 80% of the game that you can't escape from.

Small areas =/= linearity

[Anonymous No.1781875]

I've never noticed it, but the overworld for FFI was astoundingly well-done for its day.

[Anonymous No.1781916]

>>1781823
Your friend is right, almost all the Final Fantasies bar a few are 100% completely linear, with only a small amount of sidequests during the majority of the game, if any.

If you wanted to at its core you could eliminate the world map, but it would make the game less interesting over all because traversing the map and revisiting places can be cool at times.

[Anonymous No.1781991]

>>1781823
>I said he was stupid and that there is a difference between having a small amount of map, yet be able to walk around and explore, and actual linearity.

You're right, but I don't think you went far enough. To say FF13 is "linear" is a complete understatement. It's linear in almost a literal sense. Linearity in FF13 is a completely different concept from any other FF game. You walk down a corridor with nothing else to do, and you fight a predetermined set of monsters so you're the right level to fight the next boss. It's ridiculous. Hell, compare Midgar in FF7 to the whole of FF13. In that you can go to shops, go into people's houses and talk to NPCs. The Shinra building alone has more choice than almost the whole of FF13.

Still people say "well it opens up once you get to Gran Pulse". Gran Pulse is 20 fucking hours into the game. Never before have I heard people try and defend a game by saying "it gets better after the first 20 hours". What a joke.

Sorry for the rant. To answer your question, I pretty much agree with you. I like the world to open up gradually.

[Anonymous No.1781998]

>>1781991
> takes 20hours to get to gran pulse
> thinks his opinion matters if he's that bad

[Anonymous No.1782029]

>>1781998
Sorry, I didn't realize I was on /v/.

[Anonymous No.1782037]

>>1781998
No, you see, this is bullshit right there.
Why is it relevant how good someone is at an RPG like that? If it's relatively far into the game before it gets interesting, that's a flaw.
Seriously, why would you be competitive about games like FF?? So everyone has to play it on some one true cutting edge of pro gaming that a bunch of neckbeards have been researching? You know, so it becomes even more linear for that?

[Anonymous No.1782183]

>>1782037
No I just would expect you to hold say ff10 to the same criticism since it's also a straight wall until the calm lands.
i bet that's a 20 hour trek for you too faggot

[Anonymous No.1782192]

>>1782183
10 is really bad in hindsight. I gave it a no rose-color glasses run on the Vita, and despite fond memories of being a teenager and chilling out while my best friend and I played that game, it doesn't belong in the top tier pantheon with 4-7 (which I replay often). Too slow, too linear, too unskippable. And yeah, the VA is rough, though that's par for the course for its era.

[Anonymous No.1782282]

>>1781827
This. Thank you.

[Anonymous No.1782284]

>>1782192
Battle system is solid, though!

[Anonymous No.1782379]

>>1782029
no, your on vr, which is almost as bad, and you also suck bad at video games. your welcome the end....

[Anonymous No.1782595]

>>1781823
>all Final Fantasies are linear until the very end (excepting 12),
FF9 and later are super linear but everything before that gives you the option to explore at many points throughout the game rather than just jump to the next story point. Even the story heavy FF8 allows you to explore a large portion of the world on disc 1. So, he is full of shit.

>Can there be too much?
There cannot. You can never have too many options. There is no downside to having the option to do or to not do something.

[Anonymous No.1782596]

>>1782595
>(excepting 12)
That was meant to go in my own text, not the quote.

[Anonymous No.1783145]

>>1782379
>suck bad at video games. your welcome the end

Confirmed for underage.

[Anonymous No.1783158]

>>1782595
>VIII
But there's one thing that made me put it down: it penalizes you for exploring by docking your SeeD level if you screw around too long.

[Anonymous No.1783167]

There's more than just one degree of linearity. Sending you from explorable area to explorable area which usually have people to chat with, things to do and items to find is a lot different than the whole game literally being a chain of endless hallways leading to bosses and cutscenes. It's also a whole lot better than that.

[Anonymous No.1783171]

>>1782183
It's different with 13, since you can't grind and the game auto-saves every 10 minutes there isn't much you can do that would make it take less time than 20 hours. Unlike DMC or Zelda, JRPGs aren't based on player skill but resource management and strategy, so more or less it takes the same amount of time for some to complete an RPG as anyone else(if you exclude grinding, which XIII does). The game is literally so linear that you you can't even deviate from the set prediction of when you'll beat it. In fact, the only way you can beat XIII at a different time than whats given by other players is by spending massive amounts of time at the Casino?Amusement park.

And 10 is different because 10 has random encounters, which means a player can grind for hours and change the the time you finish the game. You are using a horrible /v/-tier shitposting argument.

[Anonymous No.1783176]

>>1783158
Yeah, but money in VIII is pretty useless anyway. The only things you really need it for is to upgrade your weapons and to buy items early in the game. Not saying it isn't bad they penalize you, but money in FFVIII isn't very important.

[Anonymous No.1783186]

>>1781823
That looks like a rip off of Lufia 2

[Anonymous No.1783385]

>>1783186
The picture or the synopsis of XIII? Because the picture is the map of FFI, which came out way before Lufia 2. And as for XIII being a rip-off of Lufia... Jesus I hope that isn't true.

[Anonymous No.1783402]

>>1781823
I agree with your friend to an extent. Most Final Fantasy games make you go from one point to another with very little shit to do in between besides talk with people about useless info like the weather or their feelings or go to new shops and make you upgrade your gear to the next stage, which gets kind of old when you do that from one city to the next.

FF13 really surprised me with its quality, and my favorite era of FF games was the PS1. I also enjoyed the characters more than most games, like for instance the whole portion between Sazh and Vanille was fantastic. I would rather have that story telling than ANOTHER fucking plot revolving around elemental crystals or "oh no an evil empire wants power" with a plot twist one can see coming from miles away.

Not to say I didn't miss meandering around new towns and checking it out, but FF truly is a poor example of a non-linear rpg series. After playing games like TES series, I realized FF should NOT be used as a series to showcase freedom, 12 is probably the closest you're going to get to open world.

13 did it right with Gran Pulse just like how 6 did it right when it came to gathering up your party during RoR. Whether or not the story from the start to those two points was good is a matter of opinion, and whats the big debate in these games IMO.

[Anonymous No.1783430]

>>1783158
If you aren't a level A SeeD 5 seconds after they let you take the written tests then you fucked up.

[Anonymous No.1783713]

>>1783402
>>1783402
So correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you are saying you're happy that they got rid of exploration and made XIII into a hallway? Because if so, what the fuck is wrong with you. It's cool if RPGs are linear, and FF has always been more story-focused then other JRPG series and therefore puts more emphasis on plot progression than the freedom of the player, but to take it out entirely just so that they make the story better.

[Anonymous No.1783792]

>>1781823
>How much exploration and freedom do you think is too much? Can there be too much? Are linear RPGs bad? Do you like RPGs that are more linear or ones that start you off with a lot of freedom?

It all boils down to a matter of taste. Some people prefer as much exploration and freedom as possible while others want a straight forward corridor-type linear RPG.

Personally, I like open world RPGs with lots of exploration and non-linear plot advancement. It feels more like an RPG to me that way because I don't feel like I'm being forced by some unseen narrator to perform a specific sequence of actions like some sort of robot.

[Anonymous No.1783842]

>>1783713
>Not to say I didn't miss meandering around new towns and checking it out

I'm not going to say I liked everything FF13 brought to the table, but FF games are a terrible example for non-linear games was my point. I know I'm going to get shit for saying this, but in a game like Skyrim, you can pretty much do whatever the fuck you want after the opening segment, you don't need to do the main questline in order to do other content. THAT is a great example of an open-world, non-linear RPG. I can't leave the island Balamb is on after doing the SeeD mission to explore the rest of the world, and I cant take on a load of side quests after the wind shrine in FF5.

My whole point was the only "non-linearity" of most Final Fantasy games is overworld walking and talking to random people in towns. Did I miss that? Yes, of course I did. But most games don't open up until you get some sort of vehicle. (Ragnorak, Invincible, Setzers Ship, or the fire ship/air ship). The problem most people seem to have with 13, is that it took MUCH longer for the game to open up compared to the others. But in the series as a whole, the game is incredibly linear until that point.

I like FF13 like I like the rest of the games, they are different from each other and brought different things. Some areas it improved, others it didn't. I didn't like how FF13 was a giant "hallway" up unitle Gran Pulse, but I like how the story was different and unique. I played 6 before 13, and the game didn't live up to its hype IMO and that's probably why I liked 13's story more.

[Anonymous No.1784010]

>>1783842
>the game is incredibly linear up until that point

And that's the problem. I agree on your views about other games in the series not being open world, as I said before because the series places more emphasis on story rather than exploration, but it's the total lack of exploration or deviation from the set path until 20 hours in that completely kills XIII.

Other Final Fantasies have been extremely linear before, Midgar had extremely little exploration, and IX kept blocking off old areas entirely to progress the plot, but you could always roam around and take in the world. Listening to the world theme, going to tiny areas and dungeons that don't mean shit but give you items or build the world just adds to the wonder and adventure of the game. Sure, you won't be able to go back to those places for hours, but that doesn't mean that they were never there to begin with, you could have stayed in places like that forever if you chose to. With XIII, it restricts the player so much that any essence of mystery or intrigue about the world is forgotten until brought up again through the plot. In the other FFs wandering around and seeing these strange locales, meeting strange people, and constantly wondering when you'll run into a monster next is half the fun of the game. The last part in particular, having random encounters in large areas keeps you on your toes and reminds you to make sure your party is ready for action, while in XIII because you can always see the enemy standing in front of you you can just prepare before hand, it takes out a key element of startegy that makes the series, and turn-based RPGs in general, difficult. In XIII, you get the same sci-fi hallways with the same set number of enemies over and over again, it becomes mind-numbing and dull. It doesn't interest the player or draw them into the game, and if an RPG, especially one over 20 hours, can't make the world the player is in fun or interesting it's failed miserably.

[Anonymous No.1784240]

>>1783430
>giving a fuck about your SeeD rank at all

[Anonymous No.1785071]

>>1783842
>in a game like Skyrim, you can pretty much do whatever the fuck you want after the opening segment, you don't need to do the main questline in order to do other content. THAT is a great example of an open-world, non-linear RPG
It's also one of the biggest issues of the game. It wouldn't be if Bethesda had some competent writers who could make a compelling plot but no, every modern Elder Scrolls game has to have a boring and incredibly generic plot that no one actually cares about.

[Anonymous No.1785827]

I'm a fan of the "vague hints that point in a certain direction" style myself, it feels so real when you are searching for some long-lost tomb or ancient sanctuary and all anyone tells you is "I think old man Donovan in the east knows something" and you trek there and the dude is like "If you go north I think you'll find it. But you need some type of key. Go ask the king's wizard he probably knows." And you keep getting clues.

[Anonymous No.1788996]

Most FFs are pretty non-linear, the only one that really comes to mind that is pretty restrictive is IX.

How many FF games has your friend played OP? Because by the sound of it he hasn't played very many.

[Anonymous No.1789507]

>>1784010
I'm glad we have an understanding, and I agree about the going around and exploring little areas that don't really matter at all. My whole thing about the series is that each new installment tries something new. I absolutely loved the job system in 5, and paradigms in 13 where a breath of fresh air and if you spam auto-battle the whole game of course you're going to hate it and have trouble. And I hated 6's battle system where I for the most part had no difficulty what so ever, especially when the game hands you fucking ultima and I just curbstomped everything after, even kefka. 8's junction system was so easy to break and make the game into a visual novel.

I could go on and on about each games pros and cons, but that isn't what this thread is about haha. But I do agree, 13 deserves no praise in its adventuring department, and I don't think square made the right call there. It seems to me like they still have to make that game with a perfect balance of adventure, a decent original story, and exciting combat where the grind doesn't turn into a chore and bosses aren't gimmicky bullshit.

[Anonymous No.1789512]

>>1784240
>Being poor

[Anonymous No.1789542]

>>1781823

Final Fantasy (also Dragon Quest, which I like a lot more) is pretty linear. They just hilariously point it out these days by putting you in actual hallways. It's like satire.

13 is bad because of horrible writing and characters, endless, awful cutscenes in the most horrible sort of modern animu style imaginable, and combat in which the player is an inconvenience to the game at best.

Although there's nothing inherently wrong with linear RPGs. If you ask me, RPGs on anything other than the tabletop ought to be highly linear, down to managing and custom-designing encounters, sort of like in a platformer with turn-based combat.

[Anonymous No.1789568]

>>1789542
>Although there's nothing inherently wrong with linear RPGs.

Agreed. Two of my favorite FF games are pretty linear (V, X).

V doesn't really open up until the very end of the game, and we all know what X is like. But they designed the games well so that it doesn't matter that you're just going from place to place.

[Anonymous No.1789571]

>>1789507
>Not liking the battle system of VI
I heartily disagree with you on that anon, I greatly enjoyed the battle system of VI, but opinions are opinions, and I will agree that the system was done better in VII(I don't want to derail the thread).

[Anonymous No.1789574]

>>1783167
This.

[Anonymous No.1789587]

>>1781827
Makes me want to give XIII a shot.

I know Square can make things fun and challenging when they want

[Anonymous No.1790775]

>>1789587
Go in with an open mind. It helped me to only play 1 or 2 hours at a time, as the lack of other things to do besides go on with the story wears you down.

Gran Pulse was great, and if you want to really follow the story, have the wiki ready to make sense of some shit. I didn't fully understand it till the last cutscene, but after that I thought it was well done imo.

[Anonymous No.1791248]

>>1781823
I can only enjoy non-linear games if there's customization and party members to recruit. Things to actually *do*, I don't see the point in a big world if there's nothing to do but fight. Other than that, I don't mind linear games once they're good otherwise. He's right about most FFs being linear up until the end. I thought FFX were great and only found out afterwards that people were shitstorming over how linear it was when I barely "noticed" the linearity. In XIII's case, it only got on my nerves because you couldn't waste time in towns (extremely disappointing given the great setting) and the character pairings they forced onto you along with the closed battle system for the majority of the game were annoying when I really just wanted to play around with the roles and characters.

[Anonymous No.1791307]

>>1790775
>>1789587
basically that, don't be afraid to skip cutscenes. they're not that great and they are fucking long.

[Anonymous No.1791371]

serious question here but slightly off topic. are jrpgs actually rpgs or more action adventure games? playing 5 now and its just a little question thats bugging me

[Anonymous No.1791389]

>>1791371
The traditional JRPG has turn-based battles. Take away that and have you fighting directly on the map with no kind of transition and then you have an Action Adventure/RPG. IMO

[Anonymous No.1791485]

>>1781827
I agree with this. FF games really don't open up at all until you get the airship usually.

Sure, you get an over world to walk in all directions, but that doesn't necessarily make it not linear, especially since you're usually expected to go somewhere while locked into a small area.
Overworlds always felt lazy to me anyways. They're used as a way to basically sum up journeys rather than let your experience the whole trip. It's what I appreciated about FFX honestly, even though I didn't like the way the airship functioned in that game.

[Anonymous No.1791509]

>>1791485
Didn't you have to put in co-ordinates? Spira is surprisingly small now that I'm looking at it. A good chunk of the land is mountainous, too.

[Anonymous No.1791614]

>>1791509
you could just spam x while guessing instead of typing inthe coords.
you still needed passwords though

[Anonymous No.1791652]

Is linearity based SOLELY on the order each town and dungeon are unlocked in?
There are so many layers under that where the experience is still very open ended

I will always pick a game where the story is told by villagers you can choose to avoid, rather than being told in a cutscene you have to choose to skip all at once.

[Anonymous No.1791657]

bought XIII
played it for several hours over a few days
realised it was going nowhere
haven't played it since.

I'm told the game 'opens up' eventually but there's no way I am hitting the Accept button for hours at a time just to start playing a game

[Anonymous No.1791932]

>>1791652
>I will always pick a game where the story is told by villagers you can choose to avoid, rather than being told in a cutscene you have to choose to skip all at once.
That's plain poor design. Unless the story is entirely unimportant, turning finding it out into a side-goal for the player is a waste of the writers' efforts and it's gonna leave a lot of people unhappy because they might feel it's a chore.
Now, having villagers or random NPCs be the source of bits of lore or stuff that builds the game world and tone/atmosphere makes sense, because the player who's really invested in the game is going to want to see it and won't be angry that you're pouring hours of irrelevant shit into cutscenes that should be about the story

[Anonymous No.1791947]

>>1791485
>hey're used as a way to basically sum up journeys rather than let your experience the whole trip.
Well, no, the intent is the exact opposite. In the past they were used to get past technical limitations and make it feel like the world was actually big. To give the game a bigger sense of scale.
I still prefer the kind of world maps the earlier Tales games had, for example, to the giant empty rooms of Tales of Xillia or the long straight paths to everywhere in Tales of Graces.
It's better to not have an overworld if you're competent enough to make the world feel cohesive and connected (while keeping the same sense of scale) but for the most part I'd say overworld beats out hallways

[Anonymous No.1791996]

>>1781828
Thought it looked interesting but it doesn't play on 64-bit systems :\

Anyone try the remake on steam?

[Anonymous No.1792005]

>>1791485
>They're used as a way to basically sum up journeys rather than let your experience the whole trip.
Because experiencing the whole trip would be boring as fuck on any scale that even approaches realistic

which is why every game that does away with world maps ends up feeling tiny and compressed

[Anonymous No.1792296]

>>1790775
A game where you need a wiki to understand it's story NEVER means it's well done. It means it's convoluted and stupid. XIII wanted to do a "People fighting against their predetermined destiny and succeeding" story, but nothing made sense, any background info you wanted(and in some cases needed) you had to sift through hundreds of log entries to find, and nearly every character was either boring(Lightening, Fang) or just stupid(Snow, Hope, Vanille). Sazh was the only likeable character in the whole thing.

XIII's story is an example of a good idea done horribly, horribly wrong.

[Anonymous No.1792310]

You, your friend and almost everyone in this thread has an extremely limited understanding of what linear means. To put it bluntly both of you are wrong. You are wrong because FF(bar XII) isn't open world, it's a series that gradually opens up its games at certain intervals via vehicles, some games sooner than others(IX and X you literally don't get any real means of transportation until the end), and trek you along the plot until then, making them linear in some degree. Your friend is wrong because he is comparing the linearity in XIII to the linearity in every other Final Fantasy, which is retarded because although other Final Fantasies are linear in a sense, none of them are close to being the type of linear XIII was.

When someone says "Final Fantasy is a series that offers small amounts of exploration at given times before moving the player to the next area" I'll agree with that, it's linearity in a sense and nearly every Final Fantasy does it at some point, anyone who says otherwise hasn't played a Final Fantasy. However, when someone says that XIII's hallway is forgivable because "Every other Final Fantasy is linear too" it implies that you are saying that both have the same type of linearity. They don't, they are completely different. Now I won't sit here and say one is good and one is bad, everyone has their own tastes, but people saying that both types are the basically same and getting angry over it is completely retarded.

Also, many earlier Final Fantasies offer vehicles like airships very early on, opening up the worlds and allowing the player to explore them fully before moving on to a whole new world(IV's Underworld, V's First and Second World, and VI's World of Balance). Only the PS1 and onward Final Fantasies really open up at the end. It's still a type of linearity, but there are Final Fantasies that open up early.

[Anonymous No.1792607]

>>1792296
I needed the wiki because I had played V and VI before hand, and was expecting a simple plot that was very easy to pick up on. Up until XIII I never needed the wiki to help me understand the story, besides VIII's ending. V's story was nice, easy to get, and cozy while VI's was dogshit compared to the backstories of the characters that even kefkas presence didn't help with.

You're right though, pouring through logs isn't the best way to help tell a story. I realized I had no idea what was going when you first encountered Barthandelus.

Honestly though, nothing will be as bad as XII though, I played through it twice and still have no idea what the plot was. That game made me realize what happens when an open world final fantasy is made.

[Anonymous No.1792616]

>>1792607
>dogshit as VI's
And why was VI's dogshit anon? It was no Deus Ex, but the story was good enough for an FF title.

Especially since it's successor had the same exact story

Also, what happens when an open world FF is made? Was that a typo? Because XIII definitely isn't open world until the last few hours.

[Anonymous No.1792671]

>>1792616
Well it was dogshit compared to the stories of each cast member. I think I would have enjoyed the game much more if the whole "evil empire wanting to take over the world" with a plot twist one could see coming when they first introduced kefka was happening second to the characters figuring out there pasts or their future. after I rounded everyone up in the RoR, kefkas tower felt like a chore.

And XII was the open world one I was talking about, and my problem was whenever I got to a new area I spent so much time farming loot, taking on hunts, or finding summons, by the time I had to move on, I had no idea what the story was till that point. The game may as well not even have a story for me.

In fact, I've put well over 80 hours into the game both playthroughs, and I've never killed the last boss. I kill Yiazmat and consider myself done with the game.

[Anonymous No.1792828]

>>1792671
Oh shit, I read that as 13.