I am a long-time Final Fantasy fan, and I think XIII is not only one of the best FFs, but an example

of absolutely brilliant game design. I'm with OP that all of the complaints about the game boiled
down to "I can't talk to pointless characters who have one line of looping dialogue and there are
no fetch quests." You know, the stuff that people have been complaining about in RPGs for
decades? But the reason for this is that everything about the design of this gameplay experience
is to the service of the themes of the story. The major themes of the game are "am I free?" and
"if I'm not, then what can I do?" The antagonists are truly brilliant characters: they set up an
interlocking, self-correcting system that railroads the heroes such that they literally cannot act
without fulfilling the antagonists' plans. So the heroes have one choice: do they simply refuse to
act and guarantee their own failure, or do they continue to gamble that if they look hard
enough, they will find a solution? I love how this turns the trope of destiny on its head. I also
love that the villains aren't doing this out of malice or greed or something that petty. Instead
they are willing to commit genocide by proxy because of their own existential need for a
meaningful life outside of how they have been constricted by their creator. They long to have the
ontological freedom that humans have, and they long to touch the transcendent in spite of their
being made and conditioned to for purely functional reasons in which they have no personal
stake. The villains' anxieties and hopes mirror the heroes. That's good writing. There is also a
consistent theme of alienation and abandonment in the game. Every playable character is some
sort of orphan: Lightning and Snow (and Hope eventually) literally, Sazh is separated from his son
whom he can't relate to as a father anymore, and Vanille and Fang are the relics of an extinct
civilization. Likewise, the Fal'Cie were abandoned by the gods to fulfill a purpose they don't
comprehend and literally cannot deviate from. Your characters end up rejected by their own
society out of engineered, self-centered fear and only find freedom by leaving their home for an
unknown wilderness (where, incidentally, they all come to terms with their exile and gain the
confidence to keep looking for a solution, even though all seems lost). They all dealt with their
being "orphaned" in different ways: Lightning by being closed-off and untrusting, Snow by being
gregarious yet naive, Hope by becoming obsessed with vengeance, Sazh by depression and
nihilism, Vanille by ignoring the problem and responsibility, and Fang by being ruthless and
willing to destroy anything that threatened the person she loved. But they all come to recognize
each other as family, and to see a brotherhood with all of the other people controlled and
victimized by the Fal'Cie. Their final confrontation is with a being called Orphan that longs to
meet its creator and escape the limits placed on it by this (as we learn in the sequels) utterly
capricious and uncaring parent. It chooses to die to escape the trap of destiny, the opposite of
what the heroes choose by continuing to strive. As Lightning says, "We don't think like that.
When there's no hope left, we keep looking until we find some." Also, I love how the
mythological aspects of the story--that is, the motivations and goals of the gods--are only hinted
at. This highlights the theme of uncertainty about how one should act because the characters
are merely players in a larger story they don't know the shape of. Thus they can only rely on their
own reason, instincts, values, relationships, and experience to make decisions because there are
no guarantees (kind of like real life!). Both the heroes and the villains are only guessing at
whether the gods' goals align with their own. OK, now to the design part: there are no towns
because your characters are fugitives for most of the game. You're meant to feel isolated and
alienated from the safe and familiar (towns, inns, shops, etc.) because for the characters, that
reality is gone. There is no safe zone. Likewise, the corridor-like environments are a sensory hint
that everything you the player do has been planned for and dictated by the villains. They are
directing you where they need you to go. Even the linearity of the crystarium is on purpose: you
are being shaped by your experience to be the exact person that Barthandalus wants you to be:
exactly as powerful and in precisely the way that will achieve his desired goal.

tl;dr the game is about finding freedom in spite of your life being scripted for you, rejecting
nihilism and choosing hope even when it looks like there is none.

and Orphan is shaped like the Door of Souls. Nice touch.