I certainly didn't. My comment is referring to the reviews that claim nearly all aspects that don't directly move the main story forward has been removed from this game. That means basically no towns, no games, and very little secondary story.

I always appreciated those things about the previous FF games... little areas where you could waste time or move around and have non-critical interactions. And man, did I enjoy Blitz Ball back in the day... nothing like that in this game.

I'm not indicating that I was expecting a sandbox game, a true open world sort of thing - that isn't FF - but it sounds like the game has been stripped of all the usual extras. That just made me a little less excited... note that I am still excited.