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[Noogai03]

Pikmins, and I don't want to know how much time I have spent just flying the rocket around amazed by the smooth animations

at least 45 minutes here

[gunswordfist]

symphony of the night.

[gunswordfist]

mgs3, devil may cry and the warriors.

[gimymblert]

secret of mana with flammy
/thread

[shellbot]

Chrono Trigger
Ni No Kuni
Final Fantasy 9
Final Fantasy Tactics (some straight up nostalgia-jerking from me)
Dark Souls
Metroid Prime

Tons of other shit, but that's what pops into my head first

[gunswordfist]

oh yeah, ff9.

[MrBones]

I always thought Legend of the Dragoon had a cool world map/overworld.

[gunswordfist]

i still need to play log.

[gunswordfist]

lod*

[デッアンソニー]

All of the pokemon maps
FF3 and FFXIV
The Tales series never disappoints with their vast world maps ( I love Vesperia's the most so far )
Terranigma
Chrono Trigger
Ni No Kuni

[shellbot]

I always thought Legend of the Dragoon had a cool world map/overworld.

I love Legend of Dragoon. But I was never able to beat it. Over the course of 20 years of gaming, and countless failed attempts, I have never beaten it. And not because I couldn't; there was always a reason. You name it, I experienced it with LoD:

- lost memory card
- broken memory card
- lost disk
- lost motivation
- accidentally overwriting save
- younger cousin intentionally overwriting save
- a fucking brood war that resulted in a smashed PS3 and broken dreams

Oh and the latest: yellow light of death on my PS3

But yes, the world map is pretty swell

[SirNiko]

I liked Wild Arms 3 a bit. It wasn't enough to simply wander across the map until you saw a tiny house to enter - you had to hit the "Explore" button when you thought you were in approximately the right spot. Unfortunately, in practice it just had you wandering around hitting explore periodically to see if there were hidden places, but I did like how it made asking for directions in town actually significant. I would love to see another game try to implement a similar (and better) system.

Dragon Quest 8's world map had some really brilliant design with carefully selected vistas so that you would follow a road and emerge on a lovely path overlooking a seaside highway, or crest a hill and be dazzled by the parapets of a looming castle. The realistic scale of the map sets it apart from your traditional JRPG.

[Razz]

I always liked the layout of FFIV's map, but mostly due to aesthetics. The huge desert in the beginning really stood out to me, and I love the score. It feels "elegantly minimalist" in how little there is to discover, but the score and visuals are what tie it together imo

[JWK5]

Dragon Quest/Warrior (NES), with Final Fantasy (NES) and Final Fantasy 6 (SNES) running a close second.

The thing about Dragon Quest's overworld is that they spaced everything just right so that getting from town to town is a perilous journey (especially early in the game). You could go to a lot of the towns right off the bat without restriction but getting to a town surrounded by high level monsters while you are at a low level is no easy feat (but doing so to get a weapon way stronger than your current enemies can handle was an awesome feeling).

It seems that, outside of "open world" games use a lot more RPGs are using gating these days to keep you set on a linear path. The origina Legend of Zelda and Ocarina of Time also had a similar kind of setup that Dragon Quest did, but with less of a sense of danger when you ventured further beyond where you should be.

The early Final Fantasy games were awesome because they kind of unraveled into a larger and larger world (they hand you the world in chunks and each chunk gives you more places to explore than the last).

Dragon Quest 8's world map had some really brilliant design with carefully selected vistas so that you would follow a road and emerge on a lovely path overlooking a seaside highway, or crest a hill and be dazzled by the parapets of a looming castle. The realistic scale of the map sets it apart from your traditional JRPG.

Yes.

I always liked the layout of FFIV's map, but mostly due to aesthetics. The huge desert in the beginning really stood out to me, and I love the score. It feels "elegantly minimalist" in how little there is to discover, but the score and visuals are what tie it together imo

Yessss.

[Müsta Klaki]

symphony of the night.

This has got my vote.

The fact that if you don't wear a specific item for the "final boss" then you don't get the see the other half of the game is insane game design in my opinion. The areas all flowed together well and the "real" game was when the game really started. No wonder Metroidvania caught on, it was hella tight.

[gunswordfist]

yes, yes it was. i want to replay the game.

[shellbot]

Confession time: I have not played SotN for more than 1 hour. I want to play and beat it, I just can't find a copy of it.

[baconman]

Gots to go digital, now. PSN and XBLA both have it for download, it's one of the top titles and has been for a long time.

[quan]

Dark Souls
Red Dead: Redemption
Morrowind

[knifeySpoonie]

Skyrim... with all the mods...

As for faveorite world map I've worked on... Total war Shogun 2 or Rome 2.. :D so lush and pretty if i do say so myself..