Recent Posts

21

Map Requests / Re: List of unmapped NES games

« Last post by JonLeung on October 27, 2025, 09:56:35 pm »

Maybe I will talk more about that, actually...

If you are curious, I also made a wallpaper of the 35 games published by Nintendo themselves that are NOT in a black/silver/blue box.

Nintendo wanted to get North American gamers into RPGs, so they chose to publish Dragon Quest (and rename it to "Dragon Warrior"), Final Fantasy, and Faxanadu.  They also chose to publish Mega Man 6 when Capcom didn't seem to want to do it.

But it's interesting what we have here...
Consider the black/silver/blue-box games (seen on the wallpaper in my previous post) to be when Nintendo was starting out, that is, the early NES era.
Then the games with red banners on the top would be the latest phase (because the Super NES was on the horizon or already out, like Kirby's Adventure, Wario's Woods, and the Yoshi puzzle games).
Then everything else in between is what you'd think would be the "peak Nintendo era".

But if you filter out the Zapper and Power Pad games, since no one remembers those (sorry, Super Team Games and To The Earth), the games from franchises that are not dependent on Nintendo anymore (as mentioned earlier, like Final Fantasy and Mega Man 6), then what are you left with?

Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3, both Zelda games, Punch-Out!!, and... that's pretty much it?

(I mean, I like StarTropics, but sadly, that's not really remembered after the NES era... wasn't even released in Japan... not even any Super Smash Bros. references, if I recall correctly...)

Arguably, The Legend Of Zelda would almost be a "Black Box" game due to the timing and that it almost had a black box... but that just means one fewer game for the "peak era" that we are discussing here!

I mean, sure, the Mario sequels and Zelda (even if it's "just" Zelda II) are certainly nothing to scoff at, and Punch-Out!! was insanely popular too.  Though big, nay, HUGE, that's really not many games at all.  But they didn't need to make many more, clearly.  Maybe Nintendo didn't NEED to release more stuff, lest it distract from the well-selling Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3.  Looking at this really goes to show how the "peak NES era" was probably heavily supported by third-party games, that is, Mega Man, Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, even licensed stuff like Disney and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Certainly interesting to look at it this way, isn't it?

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Map Requests / Re: List of unmapped NES games

« Last post by JonLeung on October 27, 2025, 09:21:50 pm »

I made this wallpaper on the 40th anniversary of the NES (nine days ago, Oct. 18), and was kind of surprised to see that of the 72 NES games that Nintendo published themselves, 37 (JUST over half of them) are "Black/Silver/Blue-Box" games.  That is, if you count World Class Track Meet, the Action Set (Super Mario Bros.+ Duck Hunt) double Game Pak, and the Power Set (Super Mario Bros. + Duck Hunt + World Class Track Meet) triple Game Pak as truly belonging here despite not actually having individual boxes.  Plus, Donkey Kong Classics (being comprised of Donkey Kong + Donkey Kong Jr.) kind of feels like it belongs here.

I could talk a lot more about that, but I bring it up because I probably should have acknowledged that when zagato blackfist submitted maps for Mach Rider, Slalom, and Stack-Up the other day, we actually now have maps for all 37 of these "Black/Silver/Blue-Box" games!

Keep up the good work, zagato!   

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Maps Of The Month / Re: 2025/10: The Mummy Demastered (PC) - eishiya

« Last post by eishiya on October 27, 2025, 09:18:42 am »

Oh hey, thanks for the feature!

I like the London location of this one - it has the usual caves, forests, and catacombs too, but it was cool to see some real landmarks in video game form, and architecture that doesn't make the most characterful backgrounds made to work. Sadly the London Streets map that has most of that also has the sandstorm, which makes the backgrounds hard to see, and the most distant parallax layers are further distorted by the need to repeat them to fill the space.
That sandstorm was such a pain in the butt that for the larger maps that didn't fit in a single screenshot and didn't have any convenient points where I could cut the sandstorm effect without a noticeable seam, I had to rebuild the maps from the tiles, and then add the sandstorm. I posted one of the clean reconstructions in my WIP thread.

24

Gaming / Re: Open World Maps... Sizes and Comparisons

« Last post by Cyartog959 on October 27, 2025, 07:03:39 am »

I haven't played GTA V yet, but it having a world almost twice as big as Oblivion sounds insane to me.

HA!

You think that's insane? Wait 'till you see and explore GTA VI's map! Said terrain's spoken to cover about 125 sq kilometers, and about closely 3x bigger than GTA V's map. Don't know how it is compared to previous open world games, but, that'll hit the spot as the biggest open world map yet... unless another game says otherwise.

On the other hand, there were the well-known Batman: Arkham games and its follow-ups that had their maps bigger than the previous, but they've been behind in their sizes compared to GTA's games.

For Arkham City, it was made five times bigger than Arkham Asylum, which, is kinda like a confined world of its own, but technically holds the makings of one. Then, Arkham Knight, which arrived later, made it, well, five times bigger than City, as well, to better accommodate anyone being able to ride the Batmobile across it.

Small fact: There was a prototype Batmobile made to see how it would flow well driving into Arkham City's already existing map, but the city's size was claustrophobic for Batman to glide and using grapple didn't work well. Meaning, the city was too tight to drive the Batmobile in that map. So, the city was redone with wider streets and taller buildings to accommodate ejecting the vehicle.

Don't know how big Sunset Overdrive's map is, but some guessed it's about 8 square km, bit more than Arkham Knight's.

Later came Gotham Knights, said to be bigger than Arkham Knight's, but Suicide Squad, which got out later, too, also had its map bigger than that. Don't know if SS is bigger than GH, but I hope for a comparison to see which is bigger than the other.

And, last, uninvolved with the whole Arkham series, there is another next game in the LEGO game series from Traveller's Tales, Lego Batman: Legacy of Dark Knight. That game is primed to have its map much bigger than Arkham Knight, even quite moreso than SS's map.

Funny you should say that since moving around is how you increase some skills in Oblivion. Considering also how much inventory (weight) you can carry the player must get a real workout.

Makes us wonder how other heroes, or even villains, if they have no vehicles to go around, have felt they've done the same after running through all those more and more bigger landscapes in each of their adventures.

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Gaming / Re: Open World Maps... Sizes and Comparisons

« Last post by mechaskrom on October 26, 2025, 08:56:50 am »

Good. Not sure it surpasses GTA V's size, but, that does place it above San Andreas' size by a few miles.

I haven't played GTA V yet, but it having a world almost twice as big as Oblivion sounds insane to me.

I should say this, with all the bigger landmasses, any playable character's already bound to have their own physical workouts from all the running they've done without using vehicles... not that I've thought of such little outcomes before.

Funny you should say that since moving around is how you increase some skills in Oblivion. Considering also how much inventory (weight) you can carry the player must get a real workout.

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Gaming / Re: Open World Maps... Sizes and Comparisons

« Last post by Cyartog959 on October 22, 2025, 11:23:32 pm »

I've been playing Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion recently and its open world is huge. By far the largest world I've experienced in a game. According to the numbers I could find online, Oblivion's world (Cyrodiil) is roughly 41 square kilometers (about 16 square miles).

The Shivering Isles DLC adds another 10 square kilometers. It's a separate island that you can warp to from Cyrodiil so it doesn't really expand the borders of the original world though.

Good. Not sure it surpasses GTA V's size, but, that does place it above San Andreas' size by a few miles.

I should say this, with all the bigger landmasses, any playable character's already bound to have their own physical workouts from all the running they've done without using vehicles... not that I've thought of such little outcomes before.

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Gaming / Re: Open World Maps... Sizes and Comparisons

« Last post by mechaskrom on October 22, 2025, 10:22:20 am »

I've been playing Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion recently and its open world is huge. By far the largest world I've experienced in a game. According to the numbers I could find online, Oblivion's world (Cyrodiil) is roughly 41 square kilometers (about 16 square miles).

The Shivering Isles DLC adds another 10 square kilometers. It's a separate island that you can warp to from Cyrodiil so it doesn't really expand the borders of the original world though.

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Gaming / Open World Maps... Sizes and Comparisons

« Last post by Cyartog959 on October 21, 2025, 03:01:21 am »

Mappers of the VGMaps community, I got a good challenge in mind about keeping track of open world games' maps' sizes and comparing them, from smallest to the biggest maps yet.

In open-world games, mainly 3D, they comprise of singular, vast landscapes that are sort of like playgrounds, mere sandboxes for people to roam about and explore, but they provide loads of missions, secrets, and loads and loads of optional tasks to take on.

What people take in charting their maps, they calculate by square miles, or alternatively, square kilometers, and they center on how far they've explored, and how far can anyone go.

As far as many know, we had not many open world games, because many games were platformers, and others different, but we also had hardware that limited scope, size, and scale of said maps, mainly is that to those working on games, they didn't had much RAM memory and strong CPUs to work with. Time went on and we were able to have it. The question is, how would people utilize all the increased RAM and CPU processing power to create more massive maps in open world games?

The more prominent game series that propelled the open world genre to elevation is the Grand Theft Auto series, likely GTA III. Mature as they are, they do provide vast landscapes for freedom of exploration, though they do have stories to progress through in order to unlock particular methods of traveling, and later abilities to reach other places.

Later games gave out more bigger maps to explore and more missions to undertake, but other than that, people do have their fun ideas on experimenting with traveling to heights normally deemed impossible by normal means of playing these games. I also think others like to see how long their playable characters can fall from extreme heights before they go splat out of boredom.

Of course, there are many other games that follow the open world blueprint, including others that had the maturity toned down to broaden to slightly younger people, but how they make their maps' sizes can be less than those, but there are those trying to come close to matching them, or even surpassing them, even if its not a GTA game.

On top of all that, so far, there's no patch update and DLC that expands any existing open world game's maps by adding extra land mass outside of regular borders. I don't know of any game that did it, but until there's one, I don't think I can count them. Of course, it would be interesting to see any open world game to do it...

So, I simply issue our challenge to keep a collective track of any open-world game that have the biggest maps yet.

I do have a couple inputs in mind, in order from biggest to smallest...

1. - Grand Theft Auto V (75.84 sq km/29.28 sq miles)
2. - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (38.2 sq km/14.75 sq miles)
3. - Grand Theft Auto IV (16.14 sq km/6.23 sq miles)
4. - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (9.11 sq km/3.52 sq miles)
5. - Grand Theft Auto III (8.12 sq km/3.14 sq miles)

I can't place in GTA VI's map size, but I can say it's going to be bigger than GTA V's.

The many 3D Spider-Man games, on the other hand, all do tend to take place in New York, but how their differing sizes between them besides them sharing New York's layout is puzzling me.

If anyone has their own input, please go ahead. I welcome the effort. Show us what you can find as the biggest open world map yet.

ADVISORY: Flight simulations, sandbox only games, life simulation games, MMOs and such, cannot count to this.

29

Map Requests / Re: List of Looney Tunes Video Game Map Requests

« Last post by Cyartog959 on October 19, 2025, 10:37:18 pm »

A nice lowdown on mapping games, but many of them LTIan requested, albeit repeatedly, are 2D, the others are 3D.

I already knew there are tutorials about doing 3D maps before, but just for those that don't know, how do they do it?

And, to further add, there have been more 2D games made besides Looney Tunes games, despite not being mapped yet. While we do have other tools, I feel using Tiled, the level editor, is a more necessary choice in easing anyone's map ripping workflow.

The small matter of using Tiled for any past 2D game, even DS/DSi, is the low amount of custom-made tools needed to bridge particular gaps to rip their maps more efficiently. Meaning, how would anyone rip DS games easily without them, besides the regular procedure, of course?

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Map Requests / Re: List of unmapped NES games

« Last post by RetroidPrimeX on October 18, 2025, 10:45:57 pm »

Happy 40th Anniversary to the Nintendo Entertainment System!

Well, the day's over...

Shall we set a countdown clock?

1461 days until Oct. 18, 2029!

One game per week!  And... go!