New Map: Yay or Nay?

[liquidpolicenaut]

I was just thinking what does everyone think of the new map in HSS? It seems from TSS to now, the maps just keep shrinking. Now, personally, I feel two ways about this map. First off, I like the map more than the map in SSS. The map in SSS sucked compared to TSS. Super tiny characters, no monsters (that wasn't THAT big of a deal though) and really no exploration. At least with the map in HSS you cant explore the map at all so at least it looks nice The second way I feel is that they could have made a map more akin to TSS. I just saw some footage of Ys 7 and they have a fully explorable map so there's no reason they couldn't have made one just like TSS but with this new graphics engine. *sigh* I dont know...what do you guys think?

[Silver Phoenix]

I say it's just sad that they took some really great things from TSS and decided they never existed, such as TSS itself.

[Aaron]

I'm gonna go with NAY on this.

When I powered up Dragon Song and saw that the map was not free roaming I shrugged and figured it was because of system limitations. But, I really really, hate not being able to explore Lunar. I loved doing that, it really enriches the lore if you get to run around discover the geography of Lunar. I remember looking around and seeing how certain mountain ranges block your path but in reality it presents unexplored terrain in Lunar. But when you remove this you get the whole planet down to a satelite pictures. There are no more discoveries there are no more wonderings.

So I totally agree with you, I hate removing the World Map. It loses something that only it can provide the player.

[Alunissage]

Given that there were no monsters to fight or secrets to find in SSS and everything was very easy to find, I don't find a point-and-click world map to be much different, really. It will speed things up before getting the Wings, that's all I can say.

[DevNall]

Given that there were no monsters to fight or secrets to find in SSS and everything was very easy to find, I don't find a point-and-click world map to be much different, really. It will speed things up before getting the Wings, that's all I can say.

I think it's too bad that the frontier section of the worldmap was changed so drastically in the remake; in the original, it was a vast continent you could explore. In the remake, it's the size of a couple screens.

[Shiva Indis]

The new map is more straightforward than SSS, which, now that we're discussing it, was pretty pointless. So I guess that's good. It's not as interesting as TSS of course, but it's becoming more and more evident that TSS was not part of the developers' equation. To approach the question from a perspective of user friendly design, it's not exactly a good thing to have a world map that's as easy to get lost in as the one in TSS.

When I powered up Dragon Song and saw that the map was not free roaming I shrugged and figured it was because of system limitations.

If it was done almost 20 years ago on less powerful hardware, why would there be a problem pulling it off 5 years ago on DS? The developers just wanted the map that way, that's all. And since Lunar DS was also developed by JAM, clearly they still want it that way.

[Quark]

A huge resounding NAY! Let me preface my statements by saying that I have not played the demo. That being said, I think it is an absolute crime when an RPG is made with a non-explorable world map. Half the fun of an RPG is the exploration. It is about battling your way to your next destination. It makes you feel that you have embarked on a great journey. Just think about the sense of accomplishment you feel when you just barely make it to a new town. It also makes you appreciate the new location much more than if you simply picked a town out of a list and teleported there. It is quite a shame that they went with that sort of design. Oh well.

[Aaron]

One thing that I just thought of when reading Quark's post was about the White Dragon Wings.

How useless are they now? I mean really, unless they change it to dungeon warping too then they're utterly useless.

[Silver Phoenix]

The music and the geography lend themselves to enriching the games, and the original TSS and EB showcase this the best. You really enjoy the music because of the visual exploration you get. One of the biggest song pieces I miss is the Althena Shrine music in TSS, because it was so enchanting and you could just mellow out while listening to it. These were the places you could stop during your map exploration and heal, or talk to a random NPC character. The Goddess Tower music was also more impactful.

It just baffles me how they disregarded such a phenomenal soundtrack and if anything it would be amazing remixed. I was listening to the tracks from TSS in my car tonight, and it makes me sad that I can't have the same feeling I did when I played when I was younger.

[Quark]

I have a comment and a question.

First of all, Aaron, you completely read my mind. Right after I wrote my last post, I thought to myself "What the hell is the point of the dragon wings in this remake!" I never minded games that gave you an item halfway through the game that allows for quicker travel. That doesn't bother me because at that point you had already done a significant amount of adventuring. A great example would be the "blinking mirror" in Suikoden. I don't know who here has played Suikoden, but if you haven't I highly suggest it. Probably one of my favorite RPGs after Lunar. But anyway, you called it Aaron.

Silver Phoenix, my question to you is, where can I find a collection of music from the original Silver Star? It is something that I have wanted for quite some time.

[Lunar Eclipse]

First of all, Aaron, you completely read my mind. Right after I wrote my last post, I thought to myself "What the hell is the point of the dragon wings in this remake!"

It's still possible that they'll make you travel through the Weird Woods to pass between the Burg region of Caldor and the Saith region of Caldor, for instance. Not sure if that's how the map is divided since I haven't seen the demo in action, but you catch my drift. In that case, the White Dragon Wings would still be quite useful.

But generally speaking, I honestly don't see the loss of a world map as being very devastating, especially if you have lots of go-between points to give you a sense of the world's geography. Particularly for a game like Lunar where the world map only ever was a sort of transitional area with nothing more than a smattering of random battles, it's not much of a loss. I guess I just don't get the same sense of adventure out of traversing a map that doesn't have much to discover. Now, I do understand people who dislike the downsizing of the Frontier civilization, but that could be fixed even in this format if they felt like it. They just don't feel like it, apparently.

[Justinzero]

I'm going to say nay on this one. I'm a huge fan of the SCD versions maps, especially the random battles. I guess the game will move much faster now, as from what I've played, the area's are much smaller, and the lack of walking distance on the overworld map really cuts the play time.




BTW, Liquidpolicenaut!!!! Great to see you here man, its always nice to find a familiar face (Er um.. name) on another board.

[Silver Phoenix]

The Dragon Wings will be useful in the sense of continental travel, because without them you can't travel from say Burg to Vane without traveling via ship back to Meribia first. So their purpose is still there. They just were the most useful in TSS because of travelling the world map otherwise.

As for getting the original Sega CD music, unfortunately I don't know how to rip the tracks from the game but you could either just use the game itself in a cd player or I could burn you a copy from the cd I have. A friend's boyfriend made it for me, and I'm not sure how he did it. He also included the Japanese opening theme song that plays right after the US version themesong of "Fighting Through the Darkness."

Alun or Kizyr, do you know if there was a soundtrack released for Sega CD version in Japan?

[GhaleonOne]

There is SP. Check the merchandise section on LN. I'd link but I'm on a mobile. I think there's a few samples even.

[DevNall]

As for getting the original Sega CD music, unfortunately I don't know how to rip the tracks from the game but you could either just use the game itself in a cd player or I could burn you a copy from the cd I have.

Almost all of the the original game's audio is in CDDA (CD Audio format), so if you have iTunes, just drop in the game CD and "import."

[liquidpolicenaut]

The Dragon Wings will be useful in the sense of continental travel, because without them you can't travel from say Burg to Vane without traveling via ship back to Meribia first. So their purpose is still there. They just were the most useful in TSS because of travelling the world map otherwise.

As for getting the original Sega CD music, unfortunately I don't know how to rip the tracks from the game but you could either just use the game itself in a cd player or I could burn you a copy from the cd I have. A friend's boyfriend made it for me, and I'm not sure how he did it. He also included the Japanese opening theme song that plays right after the US version themesong of "Fighting Through the Darkness."

Alun or Kizyr, do you know if there was a soundtrack released for Sega CD version in Japan?

The soundtrack can either be one of two things:

1) As mentioned before, it can be ripped straight from the actual Sega/Mega CD itself..
2) It could also be the soundtrack that Working Designs packaged with the release of Lunar:SSSC which is a combo of different tracks from SSSC and TSS. The tracks from TSS, however, are slight "remixes" and do sound a bit different than the tracks directly from the Sega/Mega CD game disc...

[Shiva Indis]

Or, as GhaleonOne said, it could be the 1992 Japanese soundtrack release which has bonus tracks, cutscene BGM without the dialog over it, and no weird pauses to facilitate looping.

[GhaleonOne]

I like the new avatar btw Shiva. I recognized it from the official site. There is a lot of new artwork incorporated into the official site that I'd love to get larger versions of.

[Alunissage]

Alun or Kizyr, do you know if there was a soundtrack released for Sega CD version in Japan?

The soundtrack can either be one of two things:

*facepalm*


The Lunar-Net page about the Japanese TSS OST is here:
http://lunar-net.com/merchandise/soundtracks-tssost.php

(Comments written by me right after I got it. I dunno why the formatting is so weird though. There should be blank lines before the tracklist names, not after them.)

[GhaleonOne]

Yeah, the formatting is weird. I'll have to look into that when I get a chance.