Final Fantasy XII arguably gave you the largest exploration aspect in the series, and you’re worried about a “World Map”. The entire game is the World Map. You’re going from place to place over massive regions of terrain, and you are able to find secret and optional areas by venturing away from your current destination at any given time. The only difference from the “World Map” that you are referring to is that it’s not scaled down to inaccurate magnitudes and proportions so that your character is the size of mountains; therefore reducing the graphical mapping and textures in addition to taking away from the lush feel of the game.

This is the 21st century. Videogames are far more advanced, and as a result there is no need to include a world map anymore. We have the capabilities of creating worlds that are so immense that we don’t need to scale down our environments to create the illusion of exploration. In terms of graphical engineering, reality is all the more possible in videogames. Sorry to disappoint you, but videogames will not scale down graphics to create a World Map anymore. This is the future of gaming. Also, when you’re dealing with a graphical powerhouse like Final Fantasy XII, it would just seem odd and out of place.

The only new generation game that I know of that has the most relevance to an old-school World Map would be Dragon Quest VIII. They were able to do this due to the nature of the game and its graphical components. They did not have to scale the graphics down because it was mostly one big field that connected to difference towns, and the graphics were already simplified (in a sense). You are able to fly in this map because of these reasons and for the fact that your means of transportation was a bird that is no larger than your own character. Again, due to the nature of the newer Final Fantasies this would be bizarre and out of place.

I wouldn't count on seeing a "traditional world map" system with the Final Fantasy games in the future.