Quote Originally Posted by LunarWeaver View Post
I've never thought of Square as being renowned for the overworld =o. They weren't the first or last to do it. I mean, don't get me wrong, flying in an airship over the world is neat and all, and it makes me go "oh" and "ah" and say it's pretty, but it's not the reason I play RPGs and ultimately is the same thing as going to a destination immediately.

FFXII crafts a huge world that is insanely detailed, offers easily over a 100 hours in content, a gajillion monsters to slay and more, yet I've seen quite a few threads about how you can't fly an airship manually and that ruins it. If that's all anybody wants to do, then just play a flight simulator game . I never really understood why it's such a deal breaker for people.
I've not heard of an earlier game than Final Fantasy I that had overworld mapping, but I know it was one of the first and all the way through to IX it stayed that way. I know of PLENTY of other Final Fantasy fans who were aggravated by the fact they got rid of it in X. I never said Square were renowned for using the overworld, but the Final Fantasy series was loved for it. A lot of other developers took the idea from Square (obviously not all) *sigh*, regardless of where Square originally got it from.

What I mean is, a great deal of FF fans believe the overworld is part of what made the series so successful (it can be true for any other RPG, but FF has been the most successful RPG series of all time over the last twenty years). When that disappeared in X, many criticisms included quotes like "where's the overworld?" and "it's linear, why?" To me, and many others, FFX and X-2 felt more like platformers rather than traditional videogame RPGs.

FFXII seems to have a kind of overworld like, as I've said before, Guild Wars. I've heard Guild Wars is popular in Japan, and that Square liked how the game played and so adopted the idea - therefore giving XII that element to it. Please note that I said "I heard". If anyone here's played Guild Wars, you've noticed that they're very similar right?

Most of what I've said has come from things I have read online and been told - including IGN.com, and the rest is my personal opinion. I always loved being able to control my airship myself though.