4 hours in. Is the game linear?

[La Gourde de Gaara]

I'm starting to get a feel that it's extremely linear. Everything is as direct as it can be, there's no room to roam.

[NewMoonShadow]

Have you ever played the old 16-Bit RPG's that inspired it?

[merlinspromise]

Yes,it is linear.Just go with the game.It's modeled after games that used to be like this.

[Storm Reaver]

Yes. It's a classic style JRPG.

It's not a Western RPG like Skyrim.

[Xendhaius]

Originally posted by La Gourde de Gaara:

I'm starting to get a feel that it's extremely linear. Everything is as direct as it can be, there's no room to roam.

Yes, the game is a linear experience until it opens up a small bit after a major event and then opens up completely towards the end of the game. Which is, barring very few exceptions; pretty standard for this style of RPG.

[kerry.yakish]

Originally posted by NewMoonShadow:

Have you ever played the old 16-Bit RPG's that inspired it?

Have you? The SNES era SquareSoft games weren't anywhere near this linear. This game give FF13 a run for its money there.

[MangorushZ]

Originally posted by kerry.yakish:

Originally posted by NewMoonShadow:

Have you ever played the old 16-Bit RPG's that inspired it?

Have you? The SNES era SquareSoft games weren't anywhere near this linear. This game give FF13 a run for its money there.

lol?

[Melodia]

Originally posted by kerry.yakish:

Have you? The SNES era SquareSoft games weren't anywhere near this linear.

They absolutely were. They just hid it a little better with a lot more empty world map space. The game does open up into 'you can explore now' about halfway through.

[rckrz6]

yes the game has 1 path forward

[This PC]

Originally posted by kerry.yakish:

Originally posted by NewMoonShadow:

Have you ever played the old 16-Bit RPG's that inspired it?

Have you? The SNES era SquareSoft games weren't anywhere near this linear. This game give FF13 a run for its money there.

It's about as linear as Chrono Trigger and Mario RPG were, the two main inspirations behind this game. It's nowhere near as linear as FF13 was.

[Relative unit]

Originally posted by NewMoonShadow:

Have you ever played the old 16-Bit RPG's that inspired it?

You mean the game that gives you a space ship that allows time and overworld travel? Or that allows you to fight the final boss at like 4 or 5 different points of the game? I don't know why you people keep pretending that CT was linear.

[Watermill]

Originally posted by merlinspromise:

Yes,it is linear.Just go with the game.It's modeled after games that used to be like this.

so no stat maxing or superbosses on the side? just Beginning to End? What about Ultimate Weapons/Armor. no RPG is complete without at least ONE of these

[Weltall8000]

Originally posted by Relative unit:

Originally posted by NewMoonShadow:

Have you ever played the old 16-Bit RPG's that inspired it?

You mean the game that gives you a space ship that allows time and overworld travel? Or that allows you to fight the final boss at like 4 or 5 different points of the game? I don't know why you people keep pretending that CT was linear.

CT was, overall, fairly linear. It had a few points to skip to the final gauntlet (which were extremely impractical on a first run, NG+? go nuts) and it pretty much follows a straightforward plot until it opens up right before the intended end of the game, where several (neat) side quests pop up.

That's not a knock against it, this is what is generally expected out of this genre. But it is what it is.

In SoS, I'm not super far, but the dungeons feel like I have agency. I played Final Fantasy XVI earlier this summer and that felt very on the rails. SoS, the areas are interesting and feel like I am figuring things out and exploring. There are cleverly hidden things and they do a good job at feeling rewarding of putting in the effort to discover them. CT also did this, but that was more often tied to the time travel, rather than the level design. Thematically, it worked well there.

[Army of Optimists]

Originally posted by Relative unit:

Originally posted by NewMoonShadow:

Have you ever played the old 16-Bit RPG's that inspired it?

You mean the game that gives you a space ship that allows time and overworld travel? Or that allows you to fight the final boss at like 4 or 5 different points of the game? I don't know why you people keep pretending that CT was linear.

You don't get the Epoch until about 75% of the way through the game. Until then you're on a pretty set path. And you don't get the wings for it until after the Ocean Palace, at which point the only major plot items are getting Crono back and ending the game. It's very linear. Even if you can hop in a time gate and revisit old areas, there's not much to actually do there. Even less than there is in Sea of Stars, where you can at least backtrack to previous islands to get items you couldn't grab before.

The only mainstream and truly nonlinear RPG from the SNES era is FF6. The World of Ruin is very open once you get the Falcon.

[Xendhaius]

Originally posted by Army of Optimists:

Originally posted by Relative unit:

You mean the game that gives you a space ship that allows time and overworld travel? Or that allows you to fight the final boss at like 4 or 5 different points of the game? I don't know why you people keep pretending that CT was linear.

The only mainstream and truly nonlinear RPG from the SNES era is FF6. The World of Ruin is very open once you get the Falcon.

While relatively unheard of outside of Japan; Metal Max Returns and Metal Max 2 are the most non-linear RPGs on the SNES. Metal Max 2 especially. While not as mainstream as Final Fantasy it sold well enough to get a port to GBA and one of the best examples of how to remake a game with Metal Max 2: Reloaded for the Nintendo DS. It's an absolute tragedy that the series devolved into the complete dumpster fire that is Metal Max Xeno & Xeno Reborn.

[DoEFotGS]

A lot of classic jRPG was linear until game allow you to explore some optional content via some sort ships or flying vehicles. Even CT was about this.

And things about 'beat Lavos at different time points' it's not about route diversity - you always get end of the game by killing Lavos, no exeption. This feature is about endings and NG+ which was popularized by CT.

If you want mention route diversity - try appeal to Crono Cross, at least, where you has two points where you can chose route to progress and this affect something, like access to different characters.