i think it should be like ffX in level design where you run through the game in story mode and then can go back to where ever you want with some form of airship (this was what i disliked about FF13), as for characters i found the ones in VII and X easily believable they all had the same sort of goals and were focused. also a reasonably long challenging game and please ignore the massive online stuff or extra add ons, nobody wants to pay lots of money each month to waste time online final fantasy just isn't the same as single player final fantasy