Why wasn't X more open-ended?

[Demon]

There are definitely some pretty open environments and some freedom, but the game is a bit cinematic-driven at some points and occassionally forces you down set paths. Occassionally it achieves a higher linearity than XIII. I know it's an old game but it's like they didn't know whether to make the game (very) old school or not.

One of my gripes for example is having multiple choice questions that don't really matter how you answer. Another is kind of having a deep set of dilemmas in the story and seemingly trying to make you think about it, but then forcing you down a set path.

 

[Gaige]

I have noticed this at times, but at the end of the day, I think it was down to the game's designers having fun with the new improved graphics engine of the PS2, and not wanting to... I don't know. Stretch it? It's kinda backed up by the fact that what little "new" scenery that was received in FFX-2 was a little more open ended. These include the Gagazet Ruins, the Farplane, the Guadosalam Mansion's hidden area, and the secret areas in the Mi'hen Oldroad and the Thunder Plains.

As well as that, gameplay became significantly more open ended in FFXII with winding paths, more than one way in and out of most of the game's locations, and the battle system that actually had the monsters present on the field at all times, allowing you to move about freely as you thought.

That may also be the case with FFXIII, and I genuinely think they were more focussed on graphics, battle system and story using the new PS2 engines than actually making the locations such as Besaid, Kilika etc open ended. Style over substance. They were distracted by a shiny new toy, and they wanted to use it to its full on a limited budget. Or so I'd like to think rather than they were just lazy.

 

[DarkShadow]

Even though it was linear.......I wasn't really bothered as long as you had somewhere to just chill out and relax whether in a town or city I'd just do that. Sure it was a straight path at times, but unlike FFXIII you had somwhere to relax,play mini-games,take up quests,talk to people etc. But like XIII I think Square did also rely on the graphics (was amaing for those days) and the story........

 

[10th Doctor]

I still think the graphics are pretty amazing, lol. Honestly, I didn't ind so much. It wasn't too linear to annoy me, but it was kind of linear, yeah. I'm not sure there would have been room for the story or anything if they made it more open ended... I think...

 

[Seru_Kai]

Almost every one of the multiple choice answers reflect on the relationship levels between Tidus and the others. That comes into affect during certain scenes like

Spoiler

when they jump off the airship to assault Sin

or

Spoiler

Tidus' final overdrive

.

So while the choices don't affect gameplay elements or where you go in the story, they do affect cosmetic stuff in the game. It also gives you the power to decide if either

Spoiler

Luzzu or Gatta dies

.

It could also be due to the fact that FFX was the first on the Ps2, and they didn't have the ability to make the game as expansive as they would like to. They took care of that with FF12.

 

[Valvalis]

I have noticed this at times, but at the end of the day, I think it was down to the game's designers having fun with the new improved graphics engine of the PS2, and not wanting to... I don't know. Stretch it?

I think there's a lot of truth in this, it did really feel different from the rest of the series. Even though VI to VII was a significant system transition, I think the addition of voice acting in X probably had a big deal to do with it as well, because I imagine the more cinematic you get with something, the more of a tendency is there to keep a linear flow Whenever I've seen non-linear games such as Elder Scrolls: Oblivion with voice acting, it always feels kind of weird because you know that even though you're able to affect outcomes, the dialogue is still just a bunch of presets, so it's not always 100% malleable by the player anyway.

I don't have much of a problem with linear RPGs tbh because I like being told a more concrete story, rather than manipulating too many of the events myself; however, I didn't like how in X you sort of feel trapped by not having the regular overworld map where you can manually fly the airship. Even though towards the end you had a bit of freedom to travel to previous areas, you couldn't just fly around, look down and say "Oh, that's a nice green patch, I'll level up there" and then plop a landing. And that's the type of freedom that I much prefer with that sort of thing

 

[Rydrum2112]

As Seru said the options also have impact on

Spoiler

who you ride the jetski with which enables you learn different things [see different dialogues] also some of the options can create mini-scenes, as when you tell lulu she is your type of woman

.

I can handle X's linearity because as DarkShadow said there was some freedom (you can go back to every place you have visted before), as well as hang out in towns and almost all the NPCs had at least 2 things to say which changed after large story events.

 

[Ohri-Jin]

Almost every one of the multiple choice answers reflect on the relationship levels between Tidus and the others. That comes into affect during certain scenes like

Spoiler

when they jump off the airship to assault Sin

or

Spoiler

Tidus' final overdrive

.

So while the choices don't affect gameplay elements or where you go in the story, they do affect cosmetic stuff in the game. It also gives you the power to decide if either

Spoiler

Luzzu or Gatta dies

.

It could also be due to the fact that FFX was the first on the Ps2, and they didn't have the ability to make the game as expansive as they would like to. They took care of that with FF12.

Wait whut? I did not know that! In my runthrough

Spoiler

Luzzu died

.
In my secondrunthrough I only discovered that Gatta was lying in the grass near Ixion's temple...he was pretty good hidden..what he told me was like a dagger in my chest..

I wanted to off Sin so badly..like I was obligated to do so irl lol..

It was pretty linear, but thats what I like about it..I hate multiple choices and multiple endings...I always get frustrated on what the right answer is and I cant be bothered playing the game 3-4 times just to see those alternate endings...im not a zombie geez..

I liked the fact that half of the story is told by Tidus in the past..he is a good narrator.

 

[Jquestionmark]

To be honest, all of the FF series is incredibly linear. There's only one start and one end to any given game (hidden extra scenes aside). I've called them visual novels with leveling up a few times, and in X it was particularly obvious that it was just a visual novel - the path from start to finish was straight, with little in the way of extra wandering and optional areas.

I don't mind that the games are straight up stories that I have little to no effect on (depending on which FF), but entries prior to X at least did a great job of maintaining the illusion of freedom, if not freedom itself.

I don't have much of a problem with linear RPGs tbh because I like being told a more concrete story, rather than manipulating too many of the events myself; however, I didn't like how in X you sort of feel trapped by not having the regular overworld map where you can manually fly the airship. Even though towards the end you had a bit of freedom to travel to previous areas, you couldn't just fly around, look down and say "Oh, that's a nice green patch, I'll level up there" and then plop a landing. And that's the type of freedom that I much prefer with that sort of thing

This pretty much hits it right on the head. The loss of the airship and free flying about the world does a huge hit to the illusion of freedom in FFX. They fixed the problem in 12 by letting you wander through huge open areas with multiple paths and optional mini-quests throughout (but give you an airship early on and never, ever, EVER let you drive it. Come on!). For me, manually flying the airship defines FF. Its the point where I get my true freedom and get to have fun until it's time to buckle down and continue on again.

 

[Ayumi Hamasaki]

It didn't bother me. Some sort of path is needed for their to be a story at all and most more open ended games lack any sort of depth in terms of plot. FFX had a great story and like people said there was still stuff to discover and things to do even though it was linear.

In RPGs I think a lack of at least moderately straight path is a weakness because it's hard to make a story without one. Look at the Elder Scrolls series, they are fun and very open, but the plots are cliche and rarely fully realized because of the amount of openness.

 

[Prince Oberyn Martel]

Some of it may be down to the fact that originally X was planned to be IX and be a PSone game, but a spin-off in development became so popular with Squaresoft that it was pushed back and made as the tenth instalment and first on the new PS2 whilst the spin-off became the FF IX we all know. and ofcourse when it came to it the developers got a bit carried away and focused more on beautifully rendered environments to test the capabilitys of the new machine. I remember reading an interview that someone from the team was really excited about all the little touches they had done; e.g. trees and grass blowing in the wind.

The one thing that really annoyed me about the game was the option to change Tidus' name. They should of scrapped that idea as soon as it was written on the board, so that maybe the VA script wouldn't have suffered the way it did when characters talked too or referred to him. Oh and lack of flying the airship.

As for X-2 I felt abit ripped off with the new area's added. Many looked exactly the same to each other design-wise. No other PS-era game has done that, it's literally stepping back to the days of FFVI!

FFXII got it right with open-endedness, just a shame that again you couldn't freely fly the airship.

 

[Ayumi Hamasaki]

The one thing that really annoyed me about the game was the option to change Tidus' name. They should of scrapped that idea as soon as it was written on the board, so that maybe the VA script wouldn't have suffered the way it did when characters talked too or referred to him. Oh and lack of flying the airship.

I actually liked the fact you could do that. I remember when you could name every character in the party. I think they should have just continued on without adding voice acting. Most of it's pretty sub par in any game anyway. I really like naming my characters what I want to name them, but maybe that makes me odd. I think it lets you enhance your connection to them.

Not flying the airship didn't really bother me. At all. It's not really a necessary part of the game, because you mostly fly the airship to the places you want to go anyway, and the need for you to be able to land anywhere is minimal. Plus it made sense in the plot as well as they were using technology that I get the feeling they didn't completely understand.

 

[Han_Shinwoo]

well, yea, I dun really think that FFX will end that easily, too, at first. looking from its scene where Tidus is trying to swim to the surface, I knew something will come up after this story. Like

Spoiler

The Eternal Calm and then continued with

FFX-2.

but if you wanna know all of the story, it's quite complex and, I guess, interesting ^^

 

[Harlequin]

Occassionally it achieves a higher linearity than XIII.

I think that's quite a harsh comparison, but it's certainly similar to XIII in terms of linear maps and the absence of a world map. The decision to omit these features was undoubtedly made to compensate for the wider appeal of fanciful CGI cutscenes, but I can't help but feel it's more of a cost cutting measure rather than a shift in financial focus.

I don't really care for plot linearity as long as the plot is half decent, but ever since X we've been starved of the minigames and sidequests which made the monotony of the older games (because let's face it killing monsters in varying locales becomes monotonous) bareable. In X aside from fighting we had blitzball and that was it... then it was fighting all the way through XII and XIII.

X worked without a world map, but the vast majority of the extras were atrocious. Compare chocobo hot and cold from IX to chasing butterflies. Triple Triad from VIII to dodging thuderbolts. Chocobo racing in VII to finding cactuars in the desert...

These weren't breaks from the plot, if anything they were deterrents to keep you going.

Wait whut? I did not know that! In my runthrough

Spoiler

Luzzu died

.

Yeah mine too I didn't know shit about that

 

[Demon]

I think that's quite a harsh comparison

I actually like X better than XIII. Among Final Fantasy games, I think X is about 2 on my list and XIII would probably end up 8-10. So when I say it's linear, it's linear .

I don't really care for plot linearity as long as the plot is half decent, but ever since X we've been starved of the minigames and sidequests which made the monotony of the older games (because let's face it killing monsters in varying locales becomes monotonous) bareable. In X aside from fighting we had blitzball and that was it... then it was fighting all the way through XII and XIII.

I'll forgive the lack of minigames because they tried the "go with a lot of minigames" idea on X-2 and it didn't work.

Minigames just seem to outdate faster than storylines, characters, etc. There are just better things to do than play minigames - but not necessarily better things to do than play a Final Fantasy game, since you won't "always" get the same feel from another game.

X worked without a world map, but the vast majority of the extras were atrocious. Compare chocobo hot and cold from IX to chasing butterflies. Triple Triad from VIII to dodging thuderbolts. Chocobo racing in VII to finding cactuars in the desert...

Agreed.

 

[__Roger__]

X linearity annoyed me more than XIII for sure. It had Pulse,with lots of monsters to fight,some of them really hard. The biggest place on FFX was Calm Lands...

Even though XIII is divided in chapters and doesn't have minigames,never really liked then on X.Chocobo racing was just annoying,for me,as well the minigames and battle system.Never completed Wakka's legendary weapon, the stuff about enemie's weakness through out the game frustated me a lot too (Lulu uses fire/ra/ga on ice enemie=One hit Kill or Overkill, Wakka=flying enemies=1 Hit=Kill or Overkill, Auron=High Defense enemies=1 hit=Kill or Overkill) and it only changed in some bosses or the Monster Arena (if it was not true,it would be not so easy to make a No Grid game).

I already slept playing it =/

XIII annoyed me more in one thing though.The enemies were more repetitive than X,that was already repetitive.