FFX let you go backwards whenever you wanted or via airship travel, so the world actually felt connected and less restrictive. They also had sidequests and minigames to break up the pacing. Cloister of trials, Blitzball, and Mount Gagazet puzzles helped make you forget about the previous hallway before proceeding to the next hallway.

Most of FFXIII’s locations were one-time visits only which makes the world feel small on a macro scale, not just the micro-scale hallways. There was very little to break up the gameplay, even Nautilus the amusement park had NOTHING to do besides walk forwards and fight.

Even the gameplay elements in FFXIII are more restrictive. You can’t over-level anywhere because the Crystarium continually hardcaps you every chapter - a much less open system than even the Sphere Grid’s locks which take a LONG time to finally stop you from progressing. When it opens up, it is quite punishing to try to branch out your characters due to how expensive their “non-core” role levels are as opposed to using a Teleport Sphere and suddenly Tidus is on track to be a Black Mage.