I'd actually like to talk about "Too Linear" games for a moment. While for the most part this is a design choice and not a flaw, there are some games where this is most definitely counting against the game.
Take a look at FFXIII, a Final Fantasy game where it took 8 chapters before branching paths even really became open. The problem is that as an FF game, people expected a lot more exploration, however, I don't mean they just wanted a sandbox. Look at FFX, a game where you also had no world map and were often put on a path the same way. The difference is that with X, there were split off paths early on, several hubs which had hidden goodies scattered around, a lot more open areas rather than just a bunch of interconnected fields, the ability to choose my party members early on, and random encounters. Look, I don't like random encounters that much, but I must say that the touch-to-battle monsters were handled poorly in XIII. Most of them you HAD to fight, without being given a choice. Compare this to certain Tales games, which has a similar mechanic. Early on, when you're supposed to be fighting enemies to level, there isn't a lot of ways around enemies. However, as the game goes on, you're able to use your abilites to decide if you want to touch the monster, the whole point of having touch-to-battle fights in the first place.
Allow me to pull this all together, XIII made me feel more like I was walking through a huge tutorial in its set ups. I played as who it wanted me to play as (I know this was done so you would learn how to control said character when it came time to fight their summon, but why I wasn't allowed to change who I controlled in the party until halway through the game when there were still summons left made no sense to me). I fought all the battles it lead me around to, making each fight seem like it was scripted. Refusing to do so when you were finally given the chance meant that you would be underleveled after the massive difficulty spike to in the next chapter. The map exaggerated how small my world was, removing the carefully crafted illusions the very well done backgrounds tried to create. There were no "dungeons" only straight paths, with an occasional branch that gave you a single item at the end. Most of the game kept control over everything I did (due to the way the skill system was set up, you couldn't grind after a certain point to beat a difficult boss by sheer attrition, you had to use the tactics the game wanted you to in order to fight it, just as the fact that you COULD decide to have a character focus on another job in order to create a more well rounded character, but it would cost way too much points/time for any sane person who wants to beat the game in their lifetime while balancing their real life to do). Combat was cut down to very few attacks, meaning only mages really got to branch out.
All of this was the exact opposite of what Final Fantasies had always been, and worked to create a game that was either poor or just average depending on your outlook. This is a time when linearity really was a flaw, as it didn't work well when implemented, and in all fairness shouldn't have been put in a genre like the JRPG one to this degree. As I mentioned though, FFX was linear, and I loved the game and couldn't see that as a flaw, so it seems XIII was indeed "too" linear.
NOTE: Most of the claims of too linear are just stupid though, and are often just because there was no world map in a JRPG. There are ways to make a straight path interesting in games where it otherwise wouldn't be (Star Ocean:TtEoT, FFX, Xenosaga, etc.) so don't think linear=bad RPG. However, don't just assume that linear will always work on its own.
Take a look at FFXIII, a Final Fantasy game where it took 8 chapters before branching paths even really became open. The problem is that as an FF game, people expected a lot more exploration, however, I don't mean they just wanted a sandbox. Look at FFX, a game where you also had no world map and were often put on a path the same way. The difference is that with X, there were split off paths early on, several hubs which had hidden goodies scattered around, a lot more open areas rather than just a bunch of interconnected fields, the ability to choose my party members early on, and random encounters. Look, I don't like random encounters that much, but I must say that the touch-to-battle monsters were handled poorly in XIII. Most of them you HAD to fight, without being given a choice. Compare this to certain Tales games, which has a similar mechanic. Early on, when you're supposed to be fighting enemies to level, there isn't a lot of ways around enemies. However, as the game goes on, you're able to use your abilites to decide if you want to touch the monster, the whole point of having touch-to-battle fights in the first place.
Allow me to pull this all together, XIII made me feel more like I was walking through a huge tutorial in its set ups. I played as who it wanted me to play as (I know this was done so you would learn how to control said character when it came time to fight their summon, but why I wasn't allowed to change who I controlled in the party until halway through the game when there were still summons left made no sense to me). I fought all the battles it lead me around to, making each fight seem like it was scripted. Refusing to do so when you were finally given the chance meant that you would be underleveled after the massive difficulty spike to in the next chapter. The map exaggerated how small my world was, removing the carefully crafted illusions the very well done backgrounds tried to create. There were no "dungeons" only straight paths, with an occasional branch that gave you a single item at the end. Most of the game kept control over everything I did (due to the way the skill system was set up, you couldn't grind after a certain point to beat a difficult boss by sheer attrition, you had to use the tactics the game wanted you to in order to fight it, just as the fact that you COULD decide to have a character focus on another job in order to create a more well rounded character, but it would cost way too much points/time for any sane person who wants to beat the game in their lifetime while balancing their real life to do). Combat was cut down to very few attacks, meaning only mages really got to branch out.
All of this was the exact opposite of what Final Fantasies had always been, and worked to create a game that was either poor or just average depending on your outlook. This is a time when linearity really was a flaw, as it didn't work well when implemented, and in all fairness shouldn't have been put in a genre like the JRPG one to this degree. As I mentioned though, FFX was linear, and I loved the game and couldn't see that as a flaw, so it seems XIII was indeed "too" linear.
NOTE: Most of the claims of too linear are just stupid though, and are often just because there was no world map in a JRPG. There are ways to make a straight path interesting in games where it otherwise wouldn't be (Star Ocean:TtEoT, FFX, Xenosaga, etc.) so don't think linear=bad RPG. However, don't just assume that linear will always work on its own.
