So, today is the big day.  The game once touted as being one of the main reasons to own a PS3 is finally out today.  While I have not yet played Final Fantasy XIII at all, one cannot escape the hordes of reviewers coming out to point out how different and, specifically, how linear Final Fantasy XIII is.  I am not sure how I feel about this.  To be honest, I heard the same things about Final Fantasy X and when I played it and discovered that the overland map had been replaced with a bulleted list of locations to visit, I was pretty worried about the game.  Well, I shouldn’t have been.  Final Fantasy X ended up being one of my favorite games.  So I am going to give Final Fantasy XIII its due.  Linear or not, if I enjoy the game, then who cares if it is linear.

Another thing, somewhat related to the linearity thing, that people are complaining about is the lack of towns in this one.  Supposedly there are no towns and instead, you can shop at save points.  Am I alone in thinking that this might just be a good thing?  I have played SO many JRPGs and been utterly turned off when encountering a new town.  Towns in JRPGs are nothing but massive hubs of NPCs with pages and pages of text, usually boring and entirely irrelevant text at that.  However, I always feel obligated to explore the entire town and talk to everyone just in case they had some item or kicked off some side quest.  I can specifically remember one city in particular in Lost Odyssey being this huge sprawling place filled with NPCs and hidden, worthless, items.  I sat down to play and spent hours trying to make sure I found everything and talked to everyone.  Thats not fun.  In fact, I often find myself sitting down to cuddle up with a good JRPG and find myself wasting an entire night on dialog, unskippable movies, and running around towns trying to find the right NPC to talk to to forward the story.

So if Final Fantasy XIII has eliminated a lot of this bullshit, I might just love it.  Yes, please let me jump right into combat and actually DOING stuff in the game.  I don’t care if it is linear for the first 25 hours.  If it engages me and keeps me from falling asleep on the couch before the opening cinematic is done, then I will be happy.