It occurs to me that perhaps instead of just reconstructing these world maps, it might do to analyze them in some detail. If you haven't guessed yet, the first one is the world map from the original Final Fantasy, and the second one (hereafter referred to as "Alefgard") is the world map from the very first Dragon Quest/Warrior game. It's not entirely fair to compare these two games side by side, as Final Fantasy came after Dragon Quest, and represents a slight evolution over the earlier game (and is more comparable to Dragon Quest II), but that doesn't mean I can't discuss their differences.
Firstly, the FF world map is twice as large as Alefgard (256 pixels square vs. 128). But this is forgivable because in DQ, you have to walk everywhere, and you have to start from the same central location every single time (it's the only place you can save your game). Final Fantasy, on the other hand, features a ship for sea travel, and also an airship. As a result, Alefgard is a lot more "landlocked" than the world of Final Fantasy, where you can fly around and sail the high seas.
This distinction is relevant to my own RPG, because I've been debating whether to make my world map more landlocked (which is my first instinct, given how I envision the world in my head - and is more like the world we live in, I think - or at least the part of it I'm familiar with), or to mimic the style of the Final Fantasy games I am most heavily inspired by, with lots of wispy peninsulas and the like. I think that ultimately the decision will come down to what works best for my game, and I think that it will most likely turn out to be more landlocked than the FF map I've reproduced, but not quite so landlocked as Alefgard, since sea and air travel are still major elements of my game.
This may be headed slightly into off-topic territory, but another distinction my game has from the Final Fantasies I am inspired by is the fact that in those games, typically the world map represents the whole world (albeit sometimes with room in the game for other worlds, like underworlds and alternate dimensions and such). In my game, I want to give the player the sense that they may only be exploring part of the world they're in - just the part they have access to - since the plot is about rediscovering the world after the collapse of civilization. Also, I've reserved a whole separate "continent" (though maybe more of a large island) for the final stages of the game, and I want to keep it hidden and off limits until the player gets to a certain point. As such, though I may grant them versions of sea and air travel earlier, I have to contain their voyaging to a point so as to prevent them from entirely getting the sensation, as you do in Final Fantasy games, of sailing around the world and coming back to where you started. Yet, I still want to maintain that sense of heading out to sea, getting disoriented, and not knowing where you are. I had a great idea for a "deep sea" zone that's actually separate from the main world map, but the loss of the instantaneous map transfer ability in RPG Maker MV would make it clunky and dispel the illusion of sailing in a world that's much bigger than the actual map you're exploring.
Sigh, I don't have a solution to this problem as of yet, and it's something I'll have to figure out before the game is done. Ah well. I think that's enough analysis for now. I've already gone into depth about how much I love the game flow (which relates, in part, to how the world is set up) in the original Final Fantasy. Until next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment