^Lolololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololol....olololololololololol....ololololol....ololol....ol!
But seriously though, WRPGs are not inherently superior to JRPGs. Both have their strengths and weaknesses and both have their excesses of phoned-in cash-grabs.
Agreed. I don't know why S-E can't look to full cast games like FF6 and FF9 for more inspiration, I felt that those had the best progressions of any games in the series. They had an ideal BALANCE of linear vs. branching. Everyone seems to be about extremes these days. It just kills me that I find large problems with FFXII and FFXIII but for opposite reasons. If S-E would just simmer down and create games with a nice balance of their existing traits, they'd be much better off.
To be fair to FFXIII-1, it also tried to have everyone in your party do their own thing, but it wound up conflicting with the battle system and ended up making players feel like they were in some sort of massive tutorial due to the overall lack of characters or options. Even FFIX gave you members of Zidane's bandit troupe or other stand-ins like Beatrix so you weren't constantly missing a full third of your options for the majority of the game.
And it really didn't help matters by making the entire party split business be completely overwrought with drama with such thrilling conclusions like "WE'RE ALL PETS!!!" :byodame:, "I'm no hero, because a real hero doesn't go round shouting "I'm a hero", which I won't do anymore because I'm a hero!" :downs:, "Operation Kill Snow: aborted" :saddowns:, or "You turned my son into a hideous lawn ornament I'll kill you!" :suicide:. But then neither did the complete lack of direction, goal, or plot structure help things.