Final Fantasy 7 Remake (PC/PS4) - March 3rd, 2020

[TheDirtyHobo]

Except 7, and every world map FF, makes the world seem incredibly small and empty when you actually look at it. If random battles are off, you can walk a lap around most continents on foot in the time you could drive from one side of the city to the other in a GTA game.

It would be incredibly easy for them to make a single high-definition, fully explorable rendering if they kept the pathetically disproportionate scale.

[BWYuko]

...It's just that FFVII was built on a world map and removing it and replacing it with a different system just seems counter-intuitive and needlessly breaking and/or necessitating major changes to many of the ideas in the game.

This exactly. Foregoing the use of a world map in this remake would be a huge error. It would only serve to detract the very fans asking for the remake in the first place.

Plus world maps have already worked well for other JRPGs from the last decade. Mistwalker offered great world maps for both its XB360 games. Ni No Kuni was already mentioned and is also from the 7th console generation.

But I really like what SE is doing for upcoming Dragon Quest XI: a sort of transcribing of the big open PS4 environments the characters traverse into a world map analog on the 3DS build.

That being said, this likely isn't going to be something we have to worry about until at least Ep 2 of the remake. I still contend we'll barely be out of Midgar at the end of Ep 1.

[Sephiroth]

Part of the charm of the world map was finding optional places and hidden gems like that one island that wasn't on the map in VII that needed a gold chocobo reach or things like the Cactuar Island in VII and Island Closest to Hell & Island Closest to Heaven in VIII. I hope they at least manage something like that with the Open World map format if they go that route.

You can still have that. FFXII was open world and had areas you could only get to with a chocobo. You could still have oceans with hidden islands that require a gold chocobo to access.

The way I'd see it working is that each of the three main continents is an open area with different kinds of environments and dungeons, surrounded by water and the smaller land masses and islands that are closest to each.

The small towns can be part of the same map with no load screen while bigger ones like Midgar and Junon have their own maps that form their own areas.

Or maybe they could just have one giant area that contains all continents with dungeons/towns being separate areas like the original. Look how big GTAV's explorable area was and that was made for last gen consoles.

[Charismatic]

World maps mean world map themes and I'd trade anything for games to have those grand world map themes again.

[TheDirtyHobo]

I think a best feasible approach would be a blend of the two styles. Large Gran Pulse-esque connected areas to explore with entries to cities/caves/whatever in them. Airship that flies further overhead than normal and provides a view of miniaturized lower-poly models of these areas. Landing the airship takes you to the nearest fixed docking point in whatever map you land in/closest to and loads into the zone. Best of both worlds, in my opinion.

[Alkar]

World maps mean world map themes and I'd trade anything for games to have those grand world map themes again.

And a huge open world can't have that same theme? I'm glad we have ambitious devs at the wheel for this remake project.

[Charismatic]

And a huge open world can't have that same theme? I'm glad we have ambitious devs at the wheel for this remake project.

Nope

[Destinye]

And a huge open world can't have that same theme? I'm glad we have ambitious devs at the wheel for this remake project.

It's not the same honestly especially when your overworld normally has 2 themes depending on the story, especially VII. In an open world type setting you get accustomed to the one theme that plays, or if they get fancy, the proxy themes that plays based on if you're in open field/near a town/cave or whatever. How would that change similar to how VII's world has the Main theme then the depressing theme after Meteor is summoned? Would they stick with 1 theme for all proxy areas or created twice the amount of music?

I think FF is also typically known for their world themes, like in FFV having 2 similar ones even when the world combines. (Still the most awesome overworld.)

[Alkar]

You are assuming that there will be areas. They can create separate areas (like Midgar) and then a huge map to connect them all but seen from a different perspective.
You can also have your themes and probably even more. Each part or continent could have a different rearrangement of the main theme, maybe based on the locations nearby. There are lots of possibilities here.

[kuronosan]

No airship = bad remake, especially when so much of the story revolves around the Highwind.

[Waraji]

I get the novelty of flying around, I get it, fuck I get on Skyrim just to fly around on dragons sometimes. I also feel we should be a bit more realistic as far as open world flying coming so soon in this era of pseudo open world games. Again, I am painfully waiting to see what they do with FFXV that I can't help but reference it in my head every time I jump on this thread talking about world maps.

[Enkidu]

They can create separate areas (like Midgar) and then a huge map to connect them all but seen from a different perspective.

You do realize that's a good description of FFVII's world map, right?

What they did with VII is scale towns/encounters 1:1 while scaling the overall world to an absurd degree. There's no good way I see to 1:1 scale FFVII in general, and if you think it's possible please describe your idea more and any games that have done similarly on the same scale as VII's setting. I think it requires either a simple 'point and click' type map or an overworld and I think an overworld is the obvious choice as it keeps the originals setting/ideas intact.

There's more then enough 1:1 scale content from the original for the devs to expand upon and recreate anyways... Just seems like you're trying to reinvent the wheel for no specific reason.

[kuronosan]

I do have to agree that Esthar City was absurdly huge and was the first time I went "holy fuck I bet this city is huge" in a game.

To put it into scale, just the place where you enter Esthar after saving Edea is about 1/8th of its total size, and that's about how big Midgar is.

They would undoubtedly have to scale down some areas in the world map. Perhaps what they could do is show the world map when you're in large vehicles and then have it be an open world when you're on smaller ones such as chocobos and cars.

[Bardicrune]

I do have to agree that Esthar City was absurdly huge and was the first time I went "holy fuck I bet this city is huge" in a game.

To put it into scale, just the place where you enter Esthar after saving Edea is about 1/8th of its total size, and that's about how big Midgar is.

They would undoubtedly have to scale down some areas in the world map. Perhaps what they could do is show the world map when you're in large vehicles and then have it be an open world when you're on smaller ones such as chocobos and cars.

Or they could do it primarily as open world, but have a map item (Cartographer's Map) that shows where you've been. Which when looked at lets you fast travel to the location you specify. Have airship and chocobo all be through the open world.

[6souls]

[Waraji]

Well that was quick.

[Teknique]

Damn, those are looking amazing

[Silenka]

I like the world map too; running around a huge map finding stuff to explore was one of the main draws of JRPGs back in the day. Not to mention the great themes the overworlds usually had. VII is no different, and the airship travel is very important to the game's feel. Sadly, I can see them dispensing with the overworld, but if they're as serious about providing a good remake as they claim to be, they won't leave it out. A good compromise would be to allow fast travel between visited points while still allowing overworld travel to find new stuff, just like Skyrim etc.

Plus why the fuck would you need to raise a gold chocobo if there was no overworld map? C'monnnn.

[Waraji]

Plus why the fuck would you need to raise a gold chocobo if there was no overworld map? C'monnnn.

To fucking put that son of a bitch Teioh in his place.

[KuroTsuki]

I don't know. I look at games like Xenoblade Chronicles/X, Elder Scrolls and Fallout and I think that an open world would be just fine. Just like how Xenoblade Chronicles X did it, they could easily make areas accessible only by flying. Throw the theme in for flying just like XCX, bam. Throw an open world theme in, and maybe even some different themes for each continent (XCX), boom. It'll be fine. Stop freaking out.