There were complaints that Final Fantasy XIII was a bit too linear, specifically at the beginning. The franchise might move away from this towards a more RPG based format for the fifteenth(XV) installment. The game director behind the most recent release has stated that it will be more like an RPG with narrative and more interactive elements.
In his words…
Personally, the Final Fantasy games that I have worked on have been very story-driven, so in terms of the development I wanted to, of course, use my personal strengths which where those… the next title that we will create will have those [RPG] elements, and the improvements to those elements that [fans] were mentioning.
Source: Animevice.com
