I really miss world maps. They add such a sense of scale that's missing from modern RPGs. You could traverse the WHOLE WORLD. And the secrets. Finding that hidden dungeon or encountering that rare monster. There is something magical about it all.
Not technically a world map, but I was really blown away when I realised that both titans in Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii were actually the game world and that they were connected by that sword and that you could visit them both!
Its one of the best ff games. I have only played through it once and it was hard AF. Its also the hardest one to find and play through... guess I will have to raspberry or emulate it since I dont have my ps1 anymore.
HipsterImage Studios I would get the GBA version. The sound quality is slightly lower, but it has an extra postgame dungeon. The mobile/PC version also exists, but the controls are sloppy and the up-res’d graphics are mediocre at best. The only real benefit are the excellently drawn up-res’d monster models.
I love world maps in RPGs and wish they would make a comeback. Lots of games are doing the zone thing which is nice in it's own right, but an old fashioned world map provides a sense of Geography to the game's world that is hard to represent with the zone system.
Great video! I would add Skies of Arcadia. You spend hours flying around a fairly large world, then you learn of techniques that allow you to fly higher and lower than ever before and TWO entire new areas as large as the first are given to you. Purely fantastic.
Star Ocean TtEiT was my first in the series, and early on they really make you feel like youre gona visit different planets and then you dont. That was a particularly crushing realization for 16 year old me.
@@lnsflare1 FF Type-0 / Agito had one. I didn't realize how much I had missed them until I played that game. It's the first one in a while to have one, and the game was also unusually mature and gritty for an FF game.
I've been saying this for a while now (after playing through FFX on the ps2) : technology is killing the best features of RPGs. Since modern consoles/pc are able to display increasingly realistic graphics, graphics have become a marketing goal. People want to buy prettier graphics as time goes on. The problem though, is that better graphics mean more detailed graphics, so the scale devs focus on gets inevitably increasingly smaller. That's what we've been seeing starting with FFX. I love FFX and FFXII because they managed to still have large worlds, but there is no world map because a world map like the ones you had in FF1-FF9 wouldn't have worked with those detailed graphics & sounds. It would have looked out of place. Then, the even more detailed environments in FF13 turned it into a corridor simulator, and it's also the reason why the FF7 remake is divided into multiple games (I won't comment on FF15 because I didn't play it/have zero interest in it). The fact that they have to spend so long on tiny things on the characters & the environments, making sure everything looks & sounds realistic and detailed, prevents them from making games with much bigger scales and explorable world maps. It's also why there is only one world map in FF7, FF8 and FF9, while FF3, FF4, FF5 and FF6 had a few. I love that when I said this 20 years ago, people were telling me "nah, you're wrong, world maps will still be possible in the future" when those 20 years proved me right. I still have hope for FF16 but I don't hold my breath. If you ask me, video-game technology should have stopped in 1999 or so. There is sadly no way Square-Enix would work on another FF game created like FF7, 8 or 9 nowadays because, sadly, people buy graphics, not games. As a fan of jRPGs, I've been looking at the improvement to graphics with a very critical eye since FF7 was released (I felt FF7 was a downgrade from FF6 gameplay-wise, the first time I played through it). Since you can't work 20 years on a game, the more detailed you make it look, the smaller its scale. It's pure logic.
Another honorable mention is FF3. The whole concept of the first map being just a floating island above another much larger map was pretty awesome, and really quite insane for a NES game. It's also the first FF that started doing drastic world changing stuff like that.
Wow, I can't believe you included FF Legend III, here! Totally underrated and overlooked (I'd say even forgotten) game. It was great and its dimensional/time traveling worlds concept was pretty complex for a Gameboy game, though the game overall is pretty short. Glad it's on here!
I already included 5 and 6, I didn’t want to clog up the list with 4 as well. Also, kind of like what I said during Tales of the Abyss, the 3 worlds were very much “apart” whereas in Abyss they intermingled much more. That being said, it’s a great game and the first one I played that had an underworld and moon.
Might be late but I have always adored Lufia 2's map because it just feels, full. The amount of towns and locations in the game (63) feels unparalleled for it's time. Gives you the impression that in the world there are a lot of cities instead like where most games a planet could have like 10 towns or less, Chrono Trigger being a culprit to me of where the time travel and it's intricacies are amazing but the size of the world itself is so tiny.
Though not a JRPG, I remember this best from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The second world in that game really turned expectations upside down. The fact that it's optional (although good luck finding someone who skips it) but also that it presents fresh challenge also adds to the thrill upon reaching it.
There is a little known indie JRPG on the DS called Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled that had at least 3 world maps, and it was another tale of two world being fused together.
I love world maps SOOOOO much, too. It just made the journey feel so vast. I loved uncovering hidden corners of it, seeing what kinds of enemies awaited me in those far off and hard-to-get-to places. It just made the entire experience feel so much more interesting.
The world map of ffV is my favorite as well , I always figure it was purely because of nostalgic reasons. But I’m glad to see such an expert as yourself agree. FFV needs more love, hopefully it gets a remake soon.
Like this page and what I do here? Consider supporting me on patreon! www.patreon.com/davidvinc [0:46] - 10) Dragon Quest 6 [1:29] - 9) Phantasy Star 4 [2:12] - 8) Tales of the Abyss [2:50] - 7) Dragon Quest 7 [3:35] - 6) Chrono Trigger [4:16] - 5) Final Fantasy 6 [4:55] - 4) Final Fantasy Legend 3 [5:52] - 3) Tales of Symphonia [6:31] - 2) Dragon Quest 3 [7:16] - 1) Final Fantasy 5
This randomly showed up in my recommendations. You earned yourself a sub! Nice voice to listen to, good soundmixing and good backdrop video choices, as well as a solid topic. Right on!
I liked how it started with smaller maps for you to explore, starting with what is clearly meant to be the tutorial zone, and slowly expanding the map until by the time you get to the floating continent scale. You're convinced that it must be done because how big could the map of an NES game possibly be? Then you get the airship and you're flying around the continent just to pick up a few things, and you fly off into the sky on a whim to find that you aren't even close to done. Oh, and also the entire underwater section. FF3 may not have been the most creative iteration, but it pulled it off incredibly well in a time when that was still novel. Edit: I'm doing some searching, and it also might be the first to do it. It's at least the first between both Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Edit 2: Nvm, Phantasy Star came out 2 and a half years before it.
I was always partial to the Lunar world maps. From the floating city of Vane to the bustling city of Meribia, and seeing how certain locals change from one game to the next holds a special place for me.
I know you covered mainly JRPGs here, but I'd like to mention a WRPG: Might and Magic IV+V. The world of Xeen. Probably one of THE weirdest maps ever made up. Basically the World of Xeen is a flat slab floating in space. You have Side A which you start on in M&M4 and then when when you get to M&M5 (they originally shipped as two different games but if you had them both installed, the transition is seamless) you get to explore Side B which looks radically different. Assuming you have both games installed, you can seamlessly teleport between the two via ancient pyramids once you unlock the ability to do so. Then, at the end... they get fused together into a sphere.
Also there is additional content if you play World of Xeen compared to if you'd play MM4 and MM5 separately. It was a stroke of genius to have two games that could be played separately or become one bigger whole if fused together.
I was just about to post a recommendation for Tales of Eternia and Terranigma before I saw the Honorable Mentions section. Combined with the fact that you mentioned Tales of the Abyss, Tales of Symphonia, and Phantasy Star 4, I can only assume that one of us is a version of the other who fell into this world from an overlapping alternate universe. And, frankly speaking, I hope that it's me.
Phantasy star 3 had a really cool multi-world world-map concept that I haven't seen many times, and is definitely a more unique idea than many of the maps on the list, though these maps are all great too. That game is always underrated :)
IIRC, some of the biospheres on the world map could not be accessed, no matter which choices the main character made in subsequent generations. Being unable to explore those areas made it seem like the developers did not have enough time to complete the game.
4:58 There are a lot of games that have done the whole 'villain succeeds and destroys the world" thing, especially a recent one (SPOILERS): Dragon Quest XI
Also Final Fantasy 8. And X is basically what happens if there "villain" that destroyed the world centuries/millennia ago and civilization has to deal with it continuing to go around and destroy cities in an underlying cycle.
You can’t compare anything to VI. The villain destroying the world in such a hardcore manner where people die, the land being changed up, the sky is different, the soil and you actually get to interact in it. That has never been done in neither final fantasy 8, 9, 10 or 15. In 10 you are in one world for 20 minutes. In 15 you stand in a gas station and watch what could have been an amazing gameplay outside the fence. In 8 and 9? WHERE?? 😂😂😂
@@JaxieWorld Well I can kinda see 9. Kuja destroys Terra when he goes into Trance. But that is kind of a stretch, because the villain destroys a side quest world with barely any shit in it, and not the main world of the characters. Also Kuja, while cool, wasn't even the main villain. FF9 pulled the classic last boss swap on you. In FF8, I certainly don't remember the villain destroying the world. I do remember that the villain basically tries to turn time backwards because she's mad she doesn't have a "knight" to protect her "heart". So in other words, she a powerful sorceress who is a B who's pissed for not getting any D. Ultemicia is actually laughable when I think of it.
I really like the world map to Zelda II: Link's Adventure. The random cemeteries spread across give it a dark feel that makes you want to explore... unfortunately, there is nothing to most cemeteries in the game.
I will have to check some more of these games out as I really enjoyed the way Chrono Trigger did things with its world map. Also, I think Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and both Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons were probably some of my favorite Zelda worlds to explore specifically because of the mechanics to change the world map and needing to do so in order to further explore.
Nice picks. I also enjoyed Breath of Fire 2's map (best map in that series if you ask me) Skies of Arcadia's map and FF7's map. Probably some other great ones I'm not thinking of right now.
That old saying applies: “Back in my day we had to walk 5 miles in the snow!” How strange I now miss those times sooo much. With today’s rpgs it’s instant arrival at menu-selected town. But it was the travels of yesterday over a perilous world map, complete with endless random encounters that really gave a sense of the journey. And when you finally arrived at that next town and saved your game, you just took a few minutes, sat there and smiled. You’d made it.
On the contrary, it can be argued that there are too many open worlds and it takes forever to get anywhere. That encourages fast travel between places you've already been - which is something you used to need a spell (and consume MP) for in older games. And I'm definitely not nostalgic for random encounters every 5-10 steps. I like a good world map and actively traveling is more fun than a menu, but once you got past a certain point it was still a slog. Looking for a new place with new enemies has suspense. Walking back and forth to change party members or complete a fetch quest is awful.
Chrono Cross. The landscape itself, the richness of each part/city/dungeon/island. Look at the demographic of the first part of the world. Arni, Opassa Beach, the cliff, the waterfall, the marsh. On the second part, you have a huge city across the sea, a mansion. Forest/jungle. Using simple boat to take you to nowhere, now you visit a village on an island, ghost ship, deserted camp, water dragon island, earth dragon island, a huge dungeon with their own sea and land, Bermuda triangle, mysterious inhabitants island, a peaceful mountain... Wow
As the list went on, I was sure you were going to fail to mention Final Fantasy V. I was very happy to see it get number one on the list. Its world map interconnection is amazing, and it's a pretty good game overall (even if I haven't quite beaten it).
World of Xeen = M&M 4 + 5 = two sides of a colony ship. Swords of Twilight = 8 parallel worlds. And one of the early Ultima games did multiple planets in the Solar System.
I think Paladin's Quest was kinda neat. They gave you a world map... but they didn't tell you that it was only HALF of the World Map, now granted the other half is mostly a bunch of weird islands thrown together out in the sea, but dude, when you step into that boat for the first time and access the same map you've been accessing the whole game and suddenly it's twice the size as it was with all of those weird islands and places that look so mysterious, you're like "what the f...?"
My favorite of these was definitely Chrono. Putting that game and the experience one has in the mid 90s around the time of its release into words is impossible. I have not played a game since that I would say is truly on par with or interconnected in such a fun way as Chrono Trigger!
Glad to see Final Fantasy Legend III on here, as it had some concepts I've been dying to see explored in a more modern game. Not just time travel, but the chance to view the world as it's being slowly consumed by a flood. A flood of water that mutates people who drink too much of it into monsters, because it's from another dimension. Luckily, if you only get partly mutated you get magic powers but don't lose your mind, and your airship has a machine that can purify you. Does Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past count?
There’s actually a remake of it for the DS, it was released in Japan only but received an English translation. There’s a let’s play of it on my channel if you’re interested.
I know the focus here is on JRPGs, but I'd like to toss Ultima V into the mix -- it had a dangerous underworld map, the same size as the overworld map, that connected through various dungeons in complex ways.
I actually really like Final Fantasy IX's map, specifically because of the Chocographs. I don't feel like I ever really explored a world as much as I did that one on the back of a Chocobo, looking for the exact right angle to dig in the ground.
I would have gone with Terranigma over several of the titles here. There are a few too many from the same series here (two FF games, three DQ games, two Tales of games), and some more variety would have been nice. I'd also demerit games like DQ VI and VII for their overworlds' flaws; in DQ VI's case, traversing the two world's is incredibly confusing since they look far too similar and, in DQ VII's case, it's basically one world where you go through each area twice, so it becomes highly repetitive less than halfway through the game (or did for me). I think the only major example I can think of that isn't here is Star Ocean 2. I've had issues with the Star Ocean series not having enough worlds as the series' name would suggest, but Star Ocean 2 does have two major worlds that you go to.
My favorite world map in JRPGs is Skies of Arcadia. Spoilers! . > > . . . That moment when you reach the edge of the map and it ZOOMS OUT to show what was originally presented as the world is just one tiny patch of it... whew. One of my favorite moments in any game! And even that's not the whole world--there's upper and lower worlds as well! (Though they're a lot less realized.)
My personal pick are: DQ3 having enclosed DQ1-2 map in it and having kept the set pieces too; Gold/Silver pokemon for same reason as DQ3; The Elder Scroll series map for being one of the first absolutely massive and interactable although sometimes some games had randomly generated field Now as for unique worlds: Skies of (Eternal) Arcadia for doing verticality and secrets right; and SaGa 2/Final Fantasy Legend for the diverse and grand themes. A lot of MMORPG worlds are actually great if you want to just traverse: pre-Cata WoW; Flyff; Black Desert; Guild Wars 2; TERA, FF14 are my picks for not skimping out on setpieces.
Just imagine how they can innovate world maps with today's technology. FF XV is one such game well with many other glaring flaws, managed to reboot a traditional mechanic lost in the yesteryear's of the rpg genre, that is Over-world map exploration and even traversing that world by means of air travel. I think Lost Odyssey was one of the last games to keep this mechanic afloat before finally ceasing to exist and if lost oddysey was anything to look at, it evolved in a way that was very unique at the time, given its generation being on the xbox 360. To bad that was the end of its day. I hope many developers learn from this that this mechanic is not lost and forgotten and can be restored even with today's technological games.
Dragon Quest 6 is very special to me, nice to see it here. :D It's hard to beat the Final Fantasy Legend trilogy and Phantasy Star with exploring multiple worlds. Even as far back as the first Phantasy Star you had 3 worlds to deal with. My main disappointment with later games in the series was only being able to explore 2 instead of all 3. Rykros in Phantasy Star 4 was pretty small and didn't have much. I didn't like FF5 a lot but the map was great. :)
Man, next to Final Fantasy, the Dragon Quest series has such good overworld music alone... Aside from Final Fantasy VII's first theme, DQ VII's past theme is one of my favorites. :p Also, the Breath of Fire and Wild Arms series.
I really wanted to include Zemuria here, but I didn't feel that it fit the theme of the video, when I do a "singular world map" video I'll be sure to include it!
Little sad at the absence of more modern RPGs overall... I personally LOVED Dragon Quest 8's world map...possibly my favorite world map of all time. Fully 3d, no zoning, beautiful and vast. I had hoped FFXV would bring the same style...but it was different (vague to avoid spoiling), though also a great world map IMO.
Really not sure what you're talking about with Tales of the Abyss. Like, Yulia City is pretty much the sole location down there, and there's never any implication that the overworld hates Yulia City.
I would say no. In FF9 we never got to actually explore the planet of Terra itself via a world map as we could with the second planet in FF5 (that is before the two planets became one later on in the game to create a third world map). In FF9 only Bran Bal and Pandemonium are accessible within the confines of the story. So in the context of the video FF9 has a single world map i.e. that of Gaia. Again in terms of the story while it was Garland's plan to ultimately absorb Gaia in to Terra in order to restore the dying planet. Garland was not successful in his mission. Zidane defeats him and Kuja destroys Terra shortly after learning of his limited life span. Thus the two planets never merged. FF3 and FF4 I would say are better examples than 9 as they have more than one world map. In 3 the floating continent is merely one part of a bigger world map and in 4 we have the over world, under world and the moon to explore.
6:47 Maybe based on the real world, but *extremely* loosely! Only Africa and Iceland resemble their real life counterparts, and they're still not completely accurate. Terranigma does a better job, but that game isn't all that accurate either.
Australia and South America are even closer in shape than Africa. Besides that, they took the northern hemisphere and tilted it towards the equator at the Pacific. Greenland looks like the Mercator version, but sideways. The Aleutian islands are even mostly intact. Europe is a bit messy (or over simplified), but it's pretty easy to identify each land mass.
About Final Fantasy VI, though it was strangely minor, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time technically did this with Ganondorf and poor Hyrule Town, if not the Kokiri Village a bit with having more monsters in the town. :p (Even weirder is like the lack of Stal Children that were in the Child timeline though...) It would have been nice if like Kefka, Ganondorf's bad future was sort of like Aku from Samurai Jack and stuff... Also kind of random, but from a movie stand-point, all of these things that have to do with the land decaying reminds me of Scar from The Lion King too, who was also a horrible ruler. :p And from there, yeah, I don't remember seeing any worlds or areas get like this...
How could you ignore the Suikoden world map. You have to explore only parts of it over 5 different games. Or Might and Magic Worlds of Xeen? Two entire maps, two entire games, yet interconnected and can be played as one game experience? Both are superior to any of the square enix dribble you put on here.
Sad to see Terranigma as an Honorable mention and no Treasure Hunter G T_T. Otherwise great list, I would have put Golden Sun 1 and 2 in there too @_@ though.
I really miss world maps. They add such a sense of scale that's missing from modern RPGs. You could traverse the WHOLE WORLD. And the secrets. Finding that hidden dungeon or encountering that rare monster. There is something magical about it all.
Not technically a world map, but I was really blown away when I realised that both titans in Xenoblade Chronicles on the Wii were actually the game world and that they were connected by that sword and that you could visit them both!
Yeeyyyy final fantasy V
After decades there is someone who praise the glory of final fantasy V
Ff5 is fun as fuck. No playthrough is the same with all the combos you can choose from.
first final fantasy I've ever played
It took me three tries to get past the corny intro, but after that it quickly became my favorite Final Fantasy.
Its one of the best ff games. I have only played through it once and it was hard AF. Its also the hardest one to find and play through... guess I will have to raspberry or emulate it since I dont have my ps1 anymore.
HipsterImage Studios I would get the GBA version. The sound quality is slightly lower, but it has an extra postgame dungeon.
The mobile/PC version also exists, but the controls are sloppy and the up-res’d graphics are mediocre at best. The only real benefit are the excellently drawn up-res’d monster models.
I love world maps in RPGs and wish they would make a comeback. Lots of games are doing the zone thing which is nice in it's own right, but an old fashioned world map provides a sense of Geography to the game's world that is hard to represent with the zone system.
Great video! I would add Skies of Arcadia. You spend hours flying around a fairly large world, then you learn of techniques that allow you to fly higher and lower than ever before and TWO entire new areas as large as the first are given to you. Purely fantastic.
Golden Sun: The Lost Age also had a great and varied map!
I thought I had seen the world map of golden sun on the tab
Star Ocean TtEiT was my first in the series, and early on they really make you feel like youre gona visit different planets and then you dont.
That was a particularly crushing realization for 16 year old me.
I miss world maps
For real this was the best part of RPG but for some reason its been removed from RPG's for select and click instant teleportation its sad
I didn't realize how much I missed them until I played Tales of Hearts R (which had one) after Tales of Graces f and Tales of Xilia (which did not).
@@lnsflare1 FF Type-0 / Agito had one. I didn't realize how much I had missed them until I played that game. It's the first one in a while to have one, and the game was also unusually mature and gritty for an FF game.
I've been saying this for a while now (after playing through FFX on the ps2) : technology is killing the best features of RPGs. Since modern consoles/pc are able to display increasingly realistic graphics, graphics have become a marketing goal. People want to buy prettier graphics as time goes on. The problem though, is that better graphics mean more detailed graphics, so the scale devs focus on gets inevitably increasingly smaller. That's what we've been seeing starting with FFX. I love FFX and FFXII because they managed to still have large worlds, but there is no world map because a world map like the ones you had in FF1-FF9 wouldn't have worked with those detailed graphics & sounds. It would have looked out of place. Then, the even more detailed environments in FF13 turned it into a corridor simulator, and it's also the reason why the FF7 remake is divided into multiple games (I won't comment on FF15 because I didn't play it/have zero interest in it).
The fact that they have to spend so long on tiny things on the characters & the environments, making sure everything looks & sounds realistic and detailed, prevents them from making games with much bigger scales and explorable world maps. It's also why there is only one world map in FF7, FF8 and FF9, while FF3, FF4, FF5 and FF6 had a few. I love that when I said this 20 years ago, people were telling me "nah, you're wrong, world maps will still be possible in the future" when those 20 years proved me right. I still have hope for FF16 but I don't hold my breath. If you ask me, video-game technology should have stopped in 1999 or so. There is sadly no way Square-Enix would work on another FF game created like FF7, 8 or 9 nowadays because, sadly, people buy graphics, not games. As a fan of jRPGs, I've been looking at the improvement to graphics with a very critical eye since FF7 was released (I felt FF7 was a downgrade from FF6 gameplay-wise, the first time I played through it). Since you can't work 20 years on a game, the more detailed you make it look, the smaller its scale. It's pure logic.
Y'all clearly haven't played many RPGs
Another honorable mention is FF3. The whole concept of the first map being just a floating island above another much larger map was pretty awesome, and really quite insane for a NES game. It's also the first FF that started doing drastic world changing stuff like that.
Wow, I can't believe you included FF Legend III, here! Totally underrated and overlooked (I'd say even forgotten) game. It was great and its dimensional/time traveling worlds concept was pretty complex for a Gameboy game, though the game overall is pretty short. Glad it's on here!
I know FF5 was gonna be #1. But I was kinda surprised that FF4 wasn't featured with the underground and the moon and stuff.
I already included 5 and 6, I didn’t want to clog up the list with 4 as well. Also, kind of like what I said during Tales of the Abyss, the 3 worlds were very much “apart” whereas in Abyss they intermingled much more. That being said, it’s a great game and the first one I played that had an underworld and moon.
@@davidvinc I know what you mean. These RPG lists can be tricky because if you're not careful, Final Fantasy will take up 4 of your top 5 on any list.
Also, FF4 did not have an in-game accessible map, you just had the "Sight" spell that zoomed out a bit.
@@Dhalin Neither did Final Fantasy Legend III or Dragon Warrior III.
Might be late but I have always adored Lufia 2's map because it just feels, full. The amount of towns and locations in the game (63) feels unparalleled for it's time. Gives you the impression that in the world there are a lot of cities instead like where most games a planet could have like 10 towns or less, Chrono Trigger being a culprit to me of where the time travel and it's intricacies are amazing but the size of the world itself is so tiny.
Tales of Smyphonia was the first JRPG I played where that happend and I was blown away.
Though not a JRPG, I remember this best from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The second world in that game really turned expectations upside down. The fact that it's optional (although good luck finding someone who skips it) but also that it presents fresh challenge also adds to the thrill upon reaching it.
It technically is a JRPG, just not turn based.
@@lnsflare1 More of a action game.
@@jinkisaragi874 An Action (J)RPG, ala Ys or Kingdom Hearts, as opposed to pure Acton games like Doom or Devil May Cry.
There is a little known indie JRPG on the DS called Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled that had at least 3 world maps, and it was another tale of two world being fused together.
I love world maps SOOOOO much, too. It just made the journey feel so vast. I loved uncovering hidden corners of it, seeing what kinds of enemies awaited me in those far off and hard-to-get-to places. It just made the entire experience feel so much more interesting.
The world map of ffV is my favorite as well , I always figure it was purely because of nostalgic reasons. But I’m glad to see such an expert as yourself agree. FFV needs more love, hopefully it gets a remake soon.
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[0:46] - 10) Dragon Quest 6
[1:29] - 9) Phantasy Star 4
[2:12] - 8) Tales of the Abyss
[2:50] - 7) Dragon Quest 7
[3:35] - 6) Chrono Trigger
[4:16] - 5) Final Fantasy 6
[4:55] - 4) Final Fantasy Legend 3
[5:52] - 3) Tales of Symphonia
[6:31] - 2) Dragon Quest 3
[7:16] - 1) Final Fantasy 5
davidvinc I immediately thought of Final Fantasy 5. 👍
Thank you. Your manner of speaking is wonderful, calm yet exciting.
This randomly showed up in my recommendations. You earned yourself a sub! Nice voice to listen to, good soundmixing and good backdrop video choices, as well as a solid topic. Right on!
Final Fantasy 3. Spoilers ahead.
The time you realize you start in a flying continent, then meet with the actual world. I liked that.
I liked how it started with smaller maps for you to explore, starting with what is clearly meant to be the tutorial zone, and slowly expanding the map until by the time you get to the floating continent scale. You're convinced that it must be done because how big could the map of an NES game possibly be? Then you get the airship and you're flying around the continent just to pick up a few things, and you fly off into the sky on a whim to find that you aren't even close to done. Oh, and also the entire underwater section.
FF3 may not have been the most creative iteration, but it pulled it off incredibly well in a time when that was still novel.
Edit: I'm doing some searching, and it also might be the first to do it. It's at least the first between both Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.
Edit 2: Nvm, Phantasy Star came out 2 and a half years before it.
I was always partial to the Lunar world maps. From the floating city of Vane to the bustling city of Meribia, and seeing how certain locals change from one game to the next holds a special place for me.
Final Fantasy IV had the game end on the literal moon! But I guess there were enough FF games on this list already...
Just came across your channel last night when I couldn’t sleep and binge watched for hours. Love the content. Instant sub. Keep it up man!
Awesome! Thank you!
Great concept for a video and a great list. Thanks David.
I know you covered mainly JRPGs here, but I'd like to mention a WRPG: Might and Magic IV+V. The world of Xeen. Probably one of THE weirdest maps ever made up. Basically the World of Xeen is a flat slab floating in space. You have Side A which you start on in M&M4 and then when when you get to M&M5 (they originally shipped as two different games but if you had them both installed, the transition is seamless) you get to explore Side B which looks radically different. Assuming you have both games installed, you can seamlessly teleport between the two via ancient pyramids once you unlock the ability to do so. Then, at the end... they get fused together into a sphere.
Also there is additional content if you play World of Xeen compared to if you'd play MM4 and MM5 separately. It was a stroke of genius to have two games that could be played separately or become one bigger whole if fused together.
I was just about to post a recommendation for Tales of Eternia and Terranigma before I saw the Honorable Mentions section.
Combined with the fact that you mentioned Tales of the Abyss, Tales of Symphonia, and Phantasy Star 4, I can only assume that one of us is a version of the other who fell into this world from an overlapping alternate universe. And, frankly speaking, I hope that it's me.
Phantasy star 3 had a really cool multi-world world-map concept that I haven't seen many times, and is definitely a more unique idea than many of the maps on the list, though these maps are all great too. That game is always underrated :)
IIRC, some of the biospheres on the world map could not be accessed, no matter which choices the main character made in subsequent generations. Being unable to explore those areas made it seem like the developers did not have enough time to complete the game.
I agree that it's time for a Phantasy Star V
4:58 There are a lot of games that have done the whole 'villain succeeds and destroys the world" thing, especially a recent one (SPOILERS):
Dragon Quest XI
It should be iterated that the villain winning during the course of the story is what makes FF 5 and FF 6 shine.
Dont forget Xenogears. Not many had played it or noticed, but the villain actually succeeds.
Star Ocean is my favorite jrpg series, I love the world maps, the space travel, the equipment system, and even the stories
Phantasy Star 3. The revelation of the true nature of the worldmap blew my mind.
I was pretty impressed with the different worlds and parts of the skies in Skies of Arcadia.
Haha, I didn't even think about Skies of Arcadia. Weird considering it's one of my top 5 RPGs of all time.
Ah Chrono Trigger. It will remain my favorite game forever.
I really loved that we did actually see the consequences fusing two worlds
What a great video! I haven't played some of these games, but now I really want to play them. 😁
This TH-camr is my personal favorite!
The Game Critic he’s awesome right??
4:51 that is so untrue it hurts SPOILERS
Even other final fantasy games have done this ff9 and 15 for example
Also Final Fantasy 8. And X is basically what happens if there "villain" that destroyed the world centuries/millennia ago and civilization has to deal with it continuing to go around and destroy cities in an underlying cycle.
Come on in 15 you don't get to expirence it aside from what the street to the gas station and thats it.
You can’t compare anything to VI. The villain destroying the world in such a hardcore manner where people die, the land being changed up, the sky is different, the soil and you actually get to interact in it. That has never been done in neither final fantasy 8, 9, 10 or 15. In 10 you are in one world for 20 minutes. In 15 you stand in a gas station and watch what could have been an amazing gameplay outside the fence. In 8 and 9? WHERE?? 😂😂😂
@@JaxieWorld Well I can kinda see 9. Kuja destroys Terra when he goes into Trance. But that is kind of a stretch, because the villain destroys a side quest world with barely any shit in it, and not the main world of the characters. Also Kuja, while cool, wasn't even the main villain. FF9 pulled the classic last boss swap on you. In FF8, I certainly don't remember the villain destroying the world. I do remember that the villain basically tries to turn time backwards because she's mad she doesn't have a "knight" to protect her "heart". So in other words, she a powerful sorceress who is a B who's pissed for not getting any D. Ultemicia is actually laughable when I think of it.
James Russell omg the wording of this I like and relate to!!!! 😂😂😂
Stumbled upon this video and loved it to bits. I grew up playing lots of Breath of Fire. Im happy it made a cameo.
I really like the world map to Zelda II: Link's Adventure. The random cemeteries spread across give it a dark feel that makes you want to explore... unfortunately, there is nothing to most cemeteries in the game.
I live for your top 10 videos. Always looking forward to your next video.
I was waiting for Final Fantasy V. I think my profile picture makes it obvious in why that is. Haha.
I will have to check some more of these games out as I really enjoyed the way Chrono Trigger did things with its world map.
Also, I think Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and both Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons were probably some of my favorite Zelda worlds to explore specifically because of the mechanics to change the world map and needing to do so in order to further explore.
Would kill for a proper PS4 sequel, game was incredible for its time and still holds up.
It was so great to return to Alefgard in Dragon Quest III after seeing how she seemed like such a poor shadow of herself in Dragon Quest II.
Nice picks. I also enjoyed Breath of Fire 2's map (best map in that series if you ask me) Skies of Arcadia's map and FF7's map. Probably some other great ones I'm not thinking of right now.
Wow what an adventure ...! This great Davidvinc
great video as always!
That old saying applies: “Back in my day we had to walk 5 miles in the snow!” How strange I now miss those times sooo much. With today’s rpgs it’s instant arrival at menu-selected town. But it was the travels of yesterday over a perilous world map, complete with endless random encounters that really gave a sense of the journey. And when you finally arrived at that next town and saved your game, you just took a few minutes, sat there and smiled. You’d made it.
On the contrary, it can be argued that there are too many open worlds and it takes forever to get anywhere. That encourages fast travel between places you've already been - which is something you used to need a spell (and consume MP) for in older games.
And I'm definitely not nostalgic for random encounters every 5-10 steps. I like a good world map and actively traveling is more fun than a menu, but once you got past a certain point it was still a slog. Looking for a new place with new enemies has suspense. Walking back and forth to change party members or complete a fetch quest is awful.
Chrono Cross. The landscape itself, the richness of each part/city/dungeon/island. Look at the demographic of the first part of the world. Arni, Opassa Beach, the cliff, the waterfall, the marsh. On the second part, you have a huge city across the sea, a mansion. Forest/jungle. Using simple boat to take you to nowhere, now you visit a village on an island, ghost ship, deserted camp, water dragon island, earth dragon island, a huge dungeon with their own sea and land, Bermuda triangle, mysterious inhabitants island, a peaceful mountain... Wow
As the list went on, I was sure you were going to fail to mention Final Fantasy V. I was very happy to see it get number one on the list. Its world map interconnection is amazing, and it's a pretty good game overall (even if I haven't quite beaten it).
World of Xeen = M&M 4 + 5 = two sides of a colony ship. Swords of Twilight = 8 parallel worlds. And one of the early Ultima games did multiple planets in the Solar System.
I miss seeing world maps in modern JRPGs.
I think Paladin's Quest was kinda neat. They gave you a world map... but they didn't tell you that it was only HALF of the World Map, now granted the other half is mostly a bunch of weird islands thrown together out in the sea, but dude, when you step into that boat for the first time and access the same map you've been accessing the whole game and suddenly it's twice the size as it was with all of those weird islands and places that look so mysterious, you're like "what the f...?"
Dragon Quest 3 and Final Fantasy Legend 2 immediately shoots to mind for this description.
My favorite of these was definitely Chrono. Putting that game and the experience one has in the mid 90s around the time of its release into words is impossible. I have not played a game since that I would say is truly on par with or interconnected in such a fun way as Chrono Trigger!
Glad to see Final Fantasy Legend III on here, as it had some concepts I've been dying to see explored in a more modern game. Not just time travel, but the chance to view the world as it's being slowly consumed by a flood. A flood of water that mutates people who drink too much of it into monsters, because it's from another dimension. Luckily, if you only get partly mutated you get magic powers but don't lose your mind, and your airship has a machine that can purify you.
Does Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past count?
There’s actually a remake of it for the DS, it was released in Japan only but received an English translation. There’s a let’s play of it on my channel if you’re interested.
I know the focus here is on JRPGs, but I'd like to toss Ultima V into the mix -- it had a dangerous underworld map, the same size as the overworld map, that connected through various dungeons in complex ways.
You always do a solid job, thanks for the quality video! Merry Christmas/Happy holidays to you and yours.
Thank you, Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you as well!
I actually really like Final Fantasy IX's map, specifically because of the Chocographs. I don't feel like I ever really explored a world as much as I did that one on the back of a Chocobo, looking for the exact right angle to dig in the ground.
As it got closer to num 1 I kept thinking if ff5 isn't num 1 I'm gonna leave a comment....well what can I say. Totally agree
Cool! I just finished FFV
I enjoyed the maps as well.
I would have gone with Terranigma over several of the titles here. There are a few too many from the same series here (two FF games, three DQ games, two Tales of games), and some more variety would have been nice. I'd also demerit games like DQ VI and VII for their overworlds' flaws; in DQ VI's case, traversing the two world's is incredibly confusing since they look far too similar and, in DQ VII's case, it's basically one world where you go through each area twice, so it becomes highly repetitive less than halfway through the game (or did for me).
I think the only major example I can think of that isn't here is Star Ocean 2. I've had issues with the Star Ocean series not having enough worlds as the series' name would suggest, but Star Ocean 2 does have two major worlds that you go to.
My favorite world map in JRPGs is Skies of Arcadia. Spoilers!
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That moment when you reach the edge of the map and it ZOOMS OUT to show what was originally presented as the world is just one tiny patch of it... whew. One of my favorite moments in any game! And even that's not the whole world--there's upper and lower worlds as well! (Though they're a lot less realized.)
FFV is one in my top 5 favorite RPGs.
I think it's really underrated in the FF franchise.
What about Terranigma, where you first bring continents to the surface, then travel and evolve them as the story progresses?
Great choices!
Ughh... How could you miss Chrono Cross! :) Good video though. Happy holidays
Because it was awful?
Can't believe nobody has mentionned Chrono Cross yet!!
That's because Chrono Cross is not a great game, nor does it have a great world map.
Makes me happy when I see a lost like this and I own copies of all the games on the list. Well except Tales of Eternia. Gotta get that one still.
My personal pick are:
DQ3 having enclosed DQ1-2 map in it and having kept the set pieces too;
Gold/Silver pokemon for same reason as DQ3;
The Elder Scroll series map for being one of the first absolutely massive and interactable although sometimes some games had randomly generated field
Now as for unique worlds:
Skies of (Eternal) Arcadia for doing verticality and secrets right; and SaGa 2/Final Fantasy Legend for the diverse and grand themes.
A lot of MMORPG worlds are actually great if you want to just traverse: pre-Cata WoW; Flyff; Black Desert; Guild Wars 2; TERA, FF14 are my picks for not skimping out on setpieces.
Just imagine how they can innovate world maps with today's technology. FF XV is one such game well with many other glaring flaws, managed to reboot a traditional mechanic lost in the yesteryear's of the rpg genre, that is Over-world map exploration and even traversing that world by means of air travel. I think Lost Odyssey was one of the last games to keep this mechanic afloat before finally ceasing to exist and if lost oddysey was anything to look at, it evolved in a way that was very unique at the time, given its generation being on the xbox 360. To bad that was the end of its day. I hope many developers learn from this that this mechanic is not lost and forgotten and can be restored even with today's technological games.
What about ff3 not the SNES version
Dragon Quest 6 is very special to me, nice to see it here. :D
It's hard to beat the Final Fantasy Legend trilogy and Phantasy Star with exploring multiple worlds. Even as far back as the first Phantasy Star you had 3 worlds to deal with. My main disappointment with later games in the series was only being able to explore 2 instead of all 3. Rykros in Phantasy Star 4 was pretty small and didn't have much.
I didn't like FF5 a lot but the map was great. :)
Man, next to Final Fantasy, the Dragon Quest series has such good overworld music alone... Aside from Final Fantasy VII's first theme, DQ VII's past theme is one of my favorites. :p Also, the Breath of Fire and Wild Arms series.
Final Fantasy Dimensions for phones does this really well too.
I like Zemuria too much, probably because the world building makes me feel more connected with the locations on said map :p
I really wanted to include Zemuria here, but I didn't feel that it fit the theme of the video, when I do a "singular world map" video I'll be sure to include it!
@@davidvinc Haha, looking forward to it :D
Aaannddd.....subscribe!! Awesome videos! Keep up the good work!
Little sad at the absence of more modern RPGs overall...
I personally LOVED Dragon Quest 8's world map...possibly my favorite world map of all time. Fully 3d, no zoning, beautiful and vast. I had hoped FFXV would bring the same style...but it was different (vague to avoid spoiling), though also a great world map IMO.
Does dq xi count
Technically they are the same world that changes minorly with changes in history but it is there
I know you mostly do console RPGs but you should take a look at Septerra Core's map.
0:05 and 0:24...what games are these?
Omg i KNEWWWWWWWW FFV would be number 1....I LOVE FFV
Wow great video
I love world maps on RPGs, and ff6 being my favorite rpg I’m biased towards it
Maps are a thing of the past these days
Ffv is marvelous, I truly love that game
It's been many years since I played Tales of Eternia, but wouldn't it fall under this category?
I included it as an honorable mention at the end.
@@davidvinc ok thanks. I stopped watching at FFV.
What about Star Ocean 2?
what was that music during Dragon Warrior 3 ?
It's either the boat or flying music to the game, but it's a live orchestra instead of 8 bit music.
Really not sure what you're talking about with Tales of the Abyss. Like, Yulia City is pretty much the sole location down there, and there's never any implication that the overworld hates Yulia City.
Wondering, would Final Fantasy 9 work for this? Gaia and Terra, 2 planets trying to become 1.
I would say no. In FF9 we never got to actually explore the planet of Terra itself via a world map as we could with the second planet in FF5 (that is before the two planets became one later on in the game to create a third world map). In FF9 only Bran Bal and Pandemonium are accessible within the confines of the story. So in the context of the video FF9 has a single world map i.e. that of Gaia. Again in terms of the story while it was Garland's plan to ultimately absorb Gaia in to Terra in order to restore the dying planet. Garland was not successful in his mission. Zidane defeats him and Kuja destroys Terra shortly after learning of his limited life span. Thus the two planets never merged. FF3 and FF4 I would say are better examples than 9 as they have more than one world map. In 3 the floating continent is merely one part of a bigger world map and in 4 we have the over world, under world and the moon to explore.
6:47 Maybe based on the real world, but *extremely* loosely! Only Africa and Iceland resemble their real life counterparts, and they're still not completely accurate. Terranigma does a better job, but that game isn't all that accurate either.
Australia and South America are even closer in shape than Africa. Besides that, they took the northern hemisphere and tilted it towards the equator at the Pacific. Greenland looks like the Mercator version, but sideways. The Aleutian islands are even mostly intact.
Europe is a bit messy (or over simplified), but it's pretty easy to identify each land mass.
tecmo secret of the stars had a ground level map and an upper world map
About Final Fantasy VI, though it was strangely minor, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time technically did this with Ganondorf and poor Hyrule Town, if not the Kokiri Village a bit with having more monsters in the town. :p (Even weirder is like the lack of Stal Children that were in the Child timeline though...)
It would have been nice if like Kefka, Ganondorf's bad future was sort of like Aku from Samurai Jack and stuff...
Also kind of random, but from a movie stand-point, all of these things that have to do with the land decaying reminds me of Scar from The Lion King too, who was also a horrible ruler. :p
And from there, yeah, I don't remember seeing any worlds or areas get like this...
I was hoping the map of Weyard from GS would be on here
"What on earth are you?" -Random alien. What
How could you ignore the Suikoden world map. You have to explore only parts of it over 5 different games. Or Might and Magic Worlds of Xeen? Two entire maps, two entire games, yet interconnected and can be played as one game experience? Both are superior to any of the square enix dribble you put on here.
Im a game dev watching this to get ideas! My game is "Dwerve" its dope, come look.
ff5 has amazing world maps, and it's my favourite game ever with tales of the abyss
Sad to see Terranigma as an Honorable mention and no Treasure Hunter G T_T. Otherwise great list, I would have put Golden Sun 1 and 2 in there too @_@ though.
You should see The Legend of Zelda: Oracle games, those weren't half bad either. :p
The Legend of Zelda A link to the past, I don't think I need to say any more than that.