Both. But I think I felt the lack of NPCs more. The nature of the story being told kept the characters very isolated. I thought was great for building a really strong core team and exploring the characters and the connections between them, but not good for exploring the rest of the world -- the people, the society, the history. And when I play a Final Fantasy game, I really want all three: an engaging story, a strong core of characters, and an interesting world. Two of those prongs stand up in FFXIII, but I found the third to be weaker.