Quote Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno View Post
I don't remember too many invisible walls in this game actually... Usually, something was in place to block you like a wall or a mountain or water, its not like X which had tall grass or Xenosaga... which had cutscenes... I felt the world design was near perfect considering its a console game on a system people thrash for being the technologically weakest of its generation.

I only miss classic world maps due to nostalgia but looking back on the late PS1 era it was becoming apparent that developers didn't want to deal with it anymore. Both VIII and IX seriously under utilized their world maps IMHO. Outside of a mini-game and a few extra draw points, both worlds were pretty barren and served as just another reason why you should not bother exploring and just move the plot along.

XII is the first RPG in years to bring back a strong level of exploration. To me, wandering around and discovering new places was half the game. I actually found it fun to wander into an area I wasn't prepared for and bust my ass trying to retreat out of their before I saw the Game Over screen again. Its heavy exploration may have hindered the story a bit but people need to learn to retain information for more than five minutes. :rolleyes2
The world maps hindered exploration? No, the "wall or a mountain or river" which was there "in place to block you" is what hinders exploration. There should never be a place that is physically blocked off when you have chocobos, flying machines, you'd hope the ability to walk across a stream, etc. The ability to climb! All these kind of things would have done wonders. The worlds didn't hinder exploration at all. There might not have been as many physical locations to visit but that's more than easily solved by just making the world larger. Imagine the FFVIII world. Now imagine something roughly ten times the size. Now that's what I'm talking about. I'd be happy with the FFVIII size world personally, but with today's technological advances there is no reason an entire world can't be walked upon. More caves, more underwater adventures, more towns, more hidden areas such as that ancient forgotten hidden forest type thing or the UFO area etc, all that stuff. If you had ten times the amount of space to search and ten to twenty times the amount of visitable areas, it would take ages for you to find everything, but you'd still not be blocked off by some stupid uncrossable river that, apparently, even your flying device can't figure out a way to get to the other side of.

And all that talk about allowing for sequels... when are we going to get the XII sequel again? How many are they hoping for? Is there any reason we shouldn't be able to see the entire world in the sequel? Or, wait, is there just not going to be one?