One of the worst world maps in commercial RPGs

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JSH357
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Post by JSH357 »

Welcome to 1998

FF4 = FF2 US, but the US version is a dumbed-down easytype. If you want the full experience of this game, either play the fan translation or the PSX version.

FF5 = was never released on the SNES outside of Japan. Currently, the best version of this game is FF5 Advance for GBA.

FF6 = FF3 US

Mystic Quest is a game made by Square USA, and should not be considered part of the series. It was intended to be a JRPG with a distinctly American feel, but comes off as more of a DQ/FF hybrid.
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Post by The Wobbler »

JSH357 wrote:FF4 = FF2 US, but the US version is a dumbed-down easytype. If you want the full experience of this game, either play the fan translation or the PSX version..
I'd recommend the recent GBA version way before I'd recommend the PS1 port.
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Post by JSH357 »

Surlaw wrote:
JSH357 wrote:FF4 = FF2 US, but the US version is a dumbed-down easytype. If you want the full experience of this game, either play the fan translation or the PSX version..
I'd recommend the recent GBA version way before I'd recommend the PS1 port.
Well, really both are pretty shoddy compared to the fan translation. If you want bugs and dumb extra stuff, go for the GBA. If you want load times, go PSX.
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Post by msw188 »

Just a small disagreement to contribute - I really don't consider FF Mystic Quest anything like DQ at all (assuming DQ means Dragon Quest - if you meant Dairy Queen, then yes these are both subpar establishments in their own respects and it was a very good comparison). In fact it is a complete opposite in many ways. No random battles, and no world map to walk on, changes the dynamic so much. I don't really know another RPG like FF Mystic Quest, except Mario RPG I guess. But even though I'm not a huge fan of that game, I would consider it a lot better than Mystic Quest, if only for its sense of humor.
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Post by JSH357 »

I say Mystic Quest is DQ-ish because of its battle system. (Heroes facing enemies, less animations, the battle is narrated, hero can do everything)
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

In my opinion, Mystic Quest is really a SaGa game. MQ takes its Dungeon style and non-random enemies from Romancing Saga 1, and the battle-system bears strong resemblance to the Game-Boy Final Fantasy Legend games (which were actually SaGa games re-branded to Final Fantasy for U.S. audiences)
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Post by Newbie Newtype »

I think having difficult battles to make trips to other areas is a great thing, and I want it to return, but RPGs of late have done something different, by having caves and dungeons filled with said battles interlinking areas of the map instead of the map itself providing challenge. I think they do this because they don't have to worry about how large the map is, but they can make these caves/mountains/bridges/whatever however big they need to be for gameplay reasons. This is not a very classic method, but it shows that the world map doesn't have to be as necessary as you claim it is.
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Post by chill-e »

Despite me having wrote an article on making world maps, I prefer to not have an overworld (ala FFXI, FFXII, or DQVIII... not so much FFX). But nevertheless..

I feel overworlds are meant to give off a feel of exploration more than anything else. You can hide dungeons, secrets and secret monsters in small islands that no one would think to look, or even place them in plain sight but out of reach and let the players figure out how to reach it.

Directly below that, overworlds are just a quick-fire means to get from A to B without needing to stress on anything insignificant in between.

Battles aren't necessary here. Period.

But people will put battles because the distance between A and B might be a "long journey" in respect to the size of the world in actuality. And in a world filled with monsters and whatnot, such a distance traveled probably won't be without it's problems. Such is the purpose of the battles in overworlds.

And thinking realistically (that is, if fantasy worlds were real, heh) if regular people could travel from town to town without problems, then the monsters on the field shouldn't be difficult for the heroes at all. If anything, the monsters on the field should be evenly matched or less to the heroes. But regardless, how difficult one plans to make the monsters on the world is completely up to the designers. The monsters on the world map aren't meant to be challenging to the players, that's what a dungeon is for.

So, if you're gonna make monsters easy, I say: why put them at all?
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Post by msw188 »

If anything, the monsters on the field should be evenly matched or less to the heroes. But regardless, how difficult one plans to make the monsters on the world is completely up to the designers. The monsters on the world map aren't meant to be challenging to the players, that's what a dungeon is for. So, if you're gonna make monsters easy, I say: why put them at all?
I almost agree, except for the point that even if single monsters are easy, they can still add challenge in terms of resource management on the part of the player in the case of a long journey if the world map is big enough. This is the fundamental concept of most of the Dragon Warrior games, including VIII. For the record, I don't understand saying that DQVIII did not have a World Map. To me the 'outside' IS a World Map, clearly separated from both towns and dungeons, and entirely connected in the sense that you never leave the screen except for vehicles.
I feel overworlds are meant to give off a feel of exploration more than anything else ... Directly below that, overworlds are just a quick-fire means to get from A to B without needing to stress on anything insignificant in between.
I agree that overworlds should give a feeling of exploration, but I prefer dangerous exploration to 'free' exploration in a game. But to call World Maps a "quick-fire means to get from A to B without needing to stress" is, to me, rediculous. This would only be true if we wanted the world to feel small and relatively tame. I'm sure there are plenty of games that would benefit from such a situation, but not all. If we want to make a world feel large (not just look large, but feel large), we need to make the player feel the distance, most likely by making it a long trek to the next destination. If we want to make a world feel wild and dangerous, random battles are precisely what the doctor ordered, except that if we allow something like tents to be so readily available, all of the danger disappears and the random battles in question become entirely pointless. Both of these points are illustrated very well, in my opinion, by Dragon Quests VIII, so I am somewhat surprised to hear you say both what I quoted and that you prefer DQVIII's system.
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Post by chill-e »

msw188 wrote:I agree that overworlds should give a feeling of exploration, but I prefer dangerous exploration to 'free' exploration in a game. But to call World Maps a "quick-fire means to get from A to B without needing to stress" is, to me, rediculous. This would only be true if we wanted the world to feel small and relatively tame. I'm sure there are plenty of games that would benefit from such a situation, but not all. If we want to make a world feel large (not just look large, but feel large), we need to make the player feel the distance, most likely by making it a long trek to the next destination. If we want to make a world feel wild and dangerous, random battles are precisely what the doctor ordered, except that if we allow something like tents to be so readily available, all of the danger disappears and the random battles in question become entirely pointless. Both of these points are illustrated very well, in my opinion, by Dragon Quests VIII, so I am somewhat surprised to hear you say both what I quoted and that you prefer DQVIII's system.
I say "quick-fire means to get from A to B" only in regards to overworlds. For DQVIII, while there is technically an "overworld", it feels substantially larger than what every other RPG had as an overworld. Games like FFXII eliminated the overworld all together, but there still is a "world map".
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Post by JSH357 »

After reading several of these arguments I'm tempted to say that game designers should just say "slime all these conventions" and design the world map as it suits the game. Msw188 has good points, but that style of world map really only suits traditional JRPGs like Dragon Quest. In most RPGs, having constant random battles that kill your resources is more tedious than entertaining. FF6 is NOT a game about resource management (Healing items are nigh-useless until you get to the end of the game; curing is usually sufficient with an MT Cure spell or something), so the easy overworld battles suit it.
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Post by Mogri »

FF1 was a resource-management game. Brutally so, perhaps: for most of the game, if you lose a party member, you have to trudge back to town to get him resurrected. If you died, the king didn't bring you back to life, either.

But even then, the difficulty was the dungeons, not the map. There were a few nasties on the map, but nothing big. Compare Dragon Warrior, where you spend 95% of your time on the map.

The FF series has also always used the world map as a plot device. This really starts in earnest in FF3 (not FF6), where you start on a floating island and you discover the real world map several hours into the game. The SNES generation all featured multiple world maps, which were vital plot points.

There is also a long tradition in the series of hiding secrets in the enemies themselves; for example, learning blue magic or stealing/morphing important items. So the enemies might not present much of a threat, but they are also a form of exploration. Think also of the special event battles on FF9's world map, like the quizmaster or the friendly enemies.

Not every challenge in the game needs to threaten the player with a game over.
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Post by sorlok_reaves »

I think... the problem msw has is exactly the problem I have with Lufia II's world map: the dungeons are amazingly well-designed, but the world map seems "tacked on".

Dragon Warrior (sorry, never played Quest) made transportation a challenge. Nasty enemies kept you from going to such-and-such a town.

Terranigma/CT had the map to immerse you in the world and make it feel bigger. I felt cramped in FFX because they abstracted the map to one display screen.

The one thing I hate about the FF series is their insistence on combat. (Lufia is also guilty of this: combat on a ship? Give me a break.) It's just a golden hammer. "World map? Add combat. Falling down a waterfall? Add combat." In the latter, combat was a good choice. In the former, I never really enjoyed it. Plus I kept having to reset because Shadow would ditch me.
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Post by JSH357 »

sorlok_reaves wrote:I think... the problem msw has is exactly the problem I have with Lufia II's world map: the dungeons are amazingly well-designed, but the world map seems "tacked on".

Dragon Warrior (sorry, never played Quest) made transportation a challenge. Nasty enemies kept you from going to such-and-such a town.

Terranigma/CT had the map to immerse you in the world and make it feel bigger. I felt cramped in FFX because they abstracted the map to one display screen.

The one thing I hate about the FF series is their insistence on combat. (Lufia is also guilty of this: combat on a ship? Give me a break.) It's just a golden hammer. "World map? Add combat. Falling down a waterfall? Add combat." In the latter, combat was a good choice. In the former, I never really enjoyed it. Plus I kept having to reset because Shadow would ditch me.
Yeah, while we're at it, let's take out all of the battles in the game! It'll be like a movie, but you paid $50 for it and have to move a character to get from one scene to another.
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

JSH357 wrote:Yeah, while we're at it, let's take out all of the battles in the game! It'll be like a movie, but you paid $50 for it and have to move a character to get from one scene to another.
Xenosaga?
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