The Age-old Treasure Chest, and its Location

I'm about 14 hours into Final Fantasy XIII, and I'm loving every aspect of the game except for one thing: placement of the chests. Chest placement is done in the same manner as it was in Darksiders, but that was a game I had a bunch of issues with. This game is almost perfect (so far) in my book, so why the lazy chest placement?

It breaks down like this: you're running along on your linear path, owning mobs left and right, having a grand old time, when you see either a little path branching off from the main road, or you come to a fork in the road. For the first, you know there is a chest down that little path. Walk down, defeat the mob guarding it, move on. The second is a bit more annoying. Which path do you take? One of them is going to lead to a chest and a dead end, the other to the next area. It's just an irritating situation when you start down a road and realize the chest was on the other one. Back track, kill, chest, continue.

The REALLY obnoxious chest location is right in that nook of path right behind where you start or at a T-cross section. You come to the end of a path that connects to a new one. From the mini-map, you can tell that this new path clearly going to head right, but you also notice that there is a little bit of room heading to the left. CHEST LOCATION! I mean come on, give me just a little bit of a challenge. And the worst part about this one is that it gets you searching random places that you know shouldn't have a chest, such as the location directly behind you right when you start up again after a cut-scene.

What ever happened to teasing you? What was the best part about some of the best games in the past? Chests. On a recent playthrough of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, I realized how well Nintendo motivated its players to get to that chest. You walk into the main room of a dungeon and what do you find? A chest, right in the middle of the room. But there is something keeping you from getting to it. Some chasm that must be crossed, some puzzle that must be solved. And you know there is something awesome in that chest, something that you'll be able to beat the boss of the dungeon with and use to your advantage for the rest of the game. Opening that chest was awesome! The sound bite and the animation of Link holding the treasure above his head gave you the greatest feeling of accomplishment. I can't name any of the items I've found in chests in FFXIII. They just don't matter to me, because Square Enix never showed me that they should matter.

With achievements such as "getting every weapon and accessory in the game", looking for these damn chests turns it into a game of "did I check every nook and cranny". I'd much rather there be fewer weapons and accessories sealed away in fewer chests that are accessible through the challenge of a hard fight or complex puzzle. I could go on for hours about the improvements in the battle system alone, yet they cant put one single improvement into the positioning of chests. To me, next-gen means innovation in all departments, treasure chests included!

/rant