I just read an article that said that FF versus XIII will have an old school world map and a controlable airship. By old school world map, I mean like the maps from VII-IX. In my opinion, this is awesome. Ive really missed the giant map since IX. I thought this was one of the biggest problems with FFX. Whats ur opinion?

tits. i love the world map. my friend was telling me that they should bring that back, and i guess they did.

all I got to say is, YAY!!!

The World Map is kind of annoying. I kind of liked the lack of it. I didn't like the linearity of the FFX world, but the way FFXII did it was perfect. I thought we were evolving past things like world maps and random battles, but I guess people love the old crap so much.

Oh woo, I am bigger than the rest of the world, woo, random battles, woo. Please >_>.

^ how can you not like the world map? i know it gets anoyying when you walk a few steps and get into a battle, but suck it up and play.

I don't like precisely because it IS annoying. And I did suck up and play the previous games. But the games can be made so much better with much better environments. The world map is a way of cheaping out of making decent environments. All FFs since VII had graphics become worse on the world map to fit all the crap that the world had. It also had a way of making the world seem much bigger, but also much more empty, and much more barren, and much less scenic. It ruined immersion, and random battles are for games of two generations ago, which also ruin immersion.

I don't see how anyone can like the world map. I gave my reasons for disliking it, now someone explain to me what's so damned great about it?

and you say the world map is crap? how do you expect to go place to place? teleport? i know its a fantasy game but that would be retarded. and so what they they make the world map with bad graphics?

...I said that FFXII made transportation near perfect. Pay attention, please.

Okay since it was requested, heres my reason for liking the world map(since no one has, yet xD):

The cool thing about the World Map, at least to me, was the fact that it was a bit easier of transportation and made the world seem somewhat bigger, at least in my opinion. You could find secret places easier too(or at least when you found them it seemed like : O Or maybe thats just me) . It was like running around on a huge plain, and you could walk almost anywhere on it instead of running into invisible walls.. besides.. Nostalgia xD

I am not saying it is better than the system they had in FF12 though. I disliked how linear FFX was but FF12 made it pretty good. With the warp crystals and everything. Granted some of the enviroments were lacking but it was still pretty cool.

They could of made some of the dungeons look different than each other though, they looked the same just baout.. BUT THIS IS ABOUT WORLD MAPS!


The World map has Pros and Cons and the (Whats the name for the system?) The other way has pros and cons too.
It's all a matter of opinion : O

The only thing in particular I like about the "world map" deal is airships and chocobos and such. I don't dislike it, but it just doesn't really stand out to me much. As previously mentioned, FF XII did a great job, particularly when it came to making the world seem so much larger. (When it takes you only a few seconds to run across a few hundred/thousand miles/kilometers/whatever on a world map, I don't see how that makes the world seem so much "larger." )

I'm not entirely familiar with just how much a PS3 (or any other new system) can handle, but if they could somehow pull off something similar to FF XII, but add in an operable airship, that would be just about perfect, in my opinion. Maybe make a separate "map" for the airship to be controlled on. Make it just as vast as the usual maps, but make it slightly less detailed or something, so that you can fit it all in without load screen every couple seconds. Do a load-as-you-go deal, or something. Whatever might work. Hell, I personally wouldn't mind having to pop in a different disc to access that kind of world map, if it was needed. But I'm probably alone there.

Anyway, back to Versus XIII... In a way, I do like the sound of having a classic-style world map again. However, I'm hoping for it to be a few steps above what we're used to in the past titles. I'm quite certain the PS3 can handle a much more vast and more detailed world map, so I'm hoping for at least that much. (Also, more places you can actually visit.) If it's the exact same thing as in previous titles, then I'll be pretty disappointed. However, if they can make it anything close to what I'd like to see, then I'll be looking forward to it.

Now wait a second. The world is over run with monsters - have u not watched FF the spits within - how many people do you expect to now combat? I mean come on How many people in midgar of Deuling city could fight? Safty in numbers seems the most likly. What do you want, tiny little villages wating patiently for the next lunar cry to fall or reactor to spit more monsters? The world map makes it obvious that humanity doesn't have it so easy.

Then again it does seem a bit unpratical no matter how much I like it. FFX was way to liner but XII was alright. I would have liked it more if I did the game.

First it was Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, now we get Final Fantasy: Ace Combat.

No but it's going to kick ass, now if I can just actually fly into ##### to break it.

O_o. Did you just throw the movie, FFVII and FFVIII into one thing? The movie gets overrun with ghosts.

FFVII there's no mention of the world being overrun with anything - random battles there are a means for leveling up and for having the game be a GAME.

In FFVIII the world isn't overrun by monsters until Lunatic Pandora at the end of Disk 3, which is like 7/8 of the game.

The world's overrun by ##### when they SAY it's overrun by #####. Otherwise random battles are just the way of leveling up. The world map shows you that people suck at developing interconnected societies and good road systems, and don't like to live in houses.

The Lunar Cry happened several times before the events we play in FFVIII, so the planet always had many monster on it!

Agreed. It made the world ENORMOUS and was so much more realistic (just like its cities). I enjoyed that immensely, and I agree with Chalryn that I'd like them to put an airship into those kinds of settings.

I just thought of something that if they do it would be nice. If they got rid of random battles on the world map, and just let you see them roam. Think Final Fantasy meets Shadow of the Colossus, but instead of a horse you get an airship.

Wishful thinking, but I would play it forever.

old world maps....hmmm...well they were kinda nanoying if you really think about it. i dont really enjoy wasting time walking around to get to my destination or trying to find stuff like in final fatnasy 7 you had to get a gold chocobo to get the knight of the round materia or in fianl fatnasy 8 where you had to go and get bahamat in the...island. i forgot what it was called. lol anyways i liekd final fantasy 10 map where you used cid's airship to go aroudn then travel aroudn in that area. that's just my opinion

I think they should actually develope a system of travelling, which is like, playing a board game, with coloured squares etc. And it could be very random with no logic to it and actually , you could use the same system for all the dungeon, and locations in the game. And, you could use an extremely funky art system. And rebrand the series unlimited saga.

@ Shroom

LOL, Unlumited Saga. XDD

I haven't seem a classic world map too often on PS2 rpg's. Not sure how it's going to be on PS3. But Wild Arms 5 used it and it worked pretty well I tought.

what? You trying to say this wouldn't work?

lol i think she's saying that its like unlimited saga and it didnt work out to well...i think im not sure.

Just as a note.

I hate FinFish because of his name.

I agree that the old school world map is going to be in FFVXIII. It really is the missing piece to a good Final Fantasy Game. Also the character development has gone almost obsolete. Quite sad really. FF 12 had completely no back story or importance with the main character and all the characters acted more like they were "just there" if you know what i mean. In FF7 they had great character development. It's because each of the allies acted as a family. They would fight, and make up and they each have their own personalities and such. After FF8 I'd say, all character development had just gone away. (I haven't played FF9 yet so i wouldn't know..)

Um, while I agree there was a major problem in terms of character depth in FFXII, ts insane to say there hasn't been any since. First of all, you haven't played FFIX, so I don't even see how your comnig to such conclusions, and I'll go ahad and assume you've played X, one of the best (imo) FF's, and whether you like them or not, its hard to say the characters don't have depth. I'm actually pretty sure the japanese recently voted FFX as the best of the lot.

I mean, thats all opinion, but I find it hard to accept the view that there has been no character development in an FF since VIII, especially when you admit you haven't played IX. Just because FFXII burned you, no need to say crazy things.

Right. While I agree about FFVIII's char. development, because it was all too focused on one person, the rest is untrue. FFX's development didn't delve into pasts of anyone but Tidus/Auron/Jecht, but it did develop their characters in the present. It dealt with their loves, their hates, prejudices etc. How is that not development? FFIX development most of the cast rather well, if you exclude Amarant and Freya (and Quina but come on).

And I've already stated my beliefs on the character development of XII and how some people just don't understand subtlety.

World Map is not connected to character development at all. FFI-III each had a world map, and little to no development (I say little because II did have some characters who weren't archetypal or blanks).

haha XD I actually forgot that this topic was about world maps haha.

My opinion is that point and click maps and "auto-go to location" systems are lazy and make the game feel rushed. I like to explore regions I'm not supposed to be at yet(if I can get there by conventional means). FFVII, FFVIII(IX's wasn't as great) were well done. Should they bring it back - that's good news to me. Almost makes me want to take the series seriously again.

So out of interest, how d you feel about FFXII's method? Since it fits the criteria you listed that makes the old-school world maps good, perhaps more, since you can explore further afield earlier in FFXII. Just inerested

Oh thank God I was beginning to give up hope.

Been missin that thing since IX. Maybe I should actually buy FFXIII then...

I liked the world Map of FF VIII. It makes it looks good when you trigger a FMV at some point of time. The blended the airships into the main plot. Like "The crash of Balamb on fisherman's horizon" "Ragnarok's invasion of the Luna Pagoda" "Balamb and Galbadia's Crashing" "Missle Launching towards Balamb".

Yep, not to forget, with the huge world map, they tend to give you more freedom to explore. Like, "Island closest to heaven/hell" Mountain Peaks and ETC ETC.

In FF IX, the chocobo system is also being taken into the world map. Chocobo Forest, Chocobo Harbour.

But they should include more "safety walking paths" for example "Balamb Garden to Balamb" for player's choice to avoid battles if they want.

Last but not least, Both in FF VIII and FF IX, we can see the significant difficulty difference of the monster in the forest and the monster on wild land. Though in FF VIII's forests, their monsters are stronger instead on land "T-Rexsaur"

While FF IX's Rainbow bird thing in forest while Dragons on wild land lol.

Oh, not to forget, Both in FFVIII and FF IX has side quests in the world map.

FF VIII : Shadow Monkey and Pupu's spaceship
FF IX : Chocobo hunt

So yeah, I really missed the huge world map.

Thanks Dan for typing this post for me.

Lance.

I like the world map. It makes the game seem like it's less linear than it really is, makes it feel like you're discovering new things.

Some combination of what they did in FFXII and earlier games might be nice. Like, if you can see monsters running around the map, but maybe with less frequency than FFXII that would be good.