For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to xyzbilliu's Tales Of Phantasia (J) (Super NES) maps.
There are many great 16-bit JRPGs. Unfortunately, many Japanese role-playing games remain just that - Japanese. This was almost the case with Tales Of Phantasia, as it is one of those games on the Super Famicom that didn't see an official Super NES release. It was even mentioned in a Nintendo Power feature about Japanese-only games, but it would be over a decade until it would be brought to western audiences by way of a Game Boy Advance rerelease.
Tales Of Phantasia is the first of Namco's long-running Tales series. It's an action-RPG series known for its "Linear Motion Battle System", in contrast to turn-based, menu-driven combat found in other games. Some would say the Tales series is underrated, never quite achieving the popular success of Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, despite having a comparable number of titles - over a dozen main games. This particular game is just as large as any other 16-bit epic, as you can see from the these maps by xyzbilliu. And you will need these maps. Just look at the Treant's Forest. You know you're going to get lost in that without xyzbilliu.
So to acknowledge the effort put into bringing us the original Tales, xyzbilliu's Tales Of Phantasia (J) (Super NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for September 2013.
