Topic: FlyingArmor's Map Projects Present and Future

[FlyingArmor]

An update on Final Fantasy VII. I'm about 30 hours in so far, and have made it to the Temple of the Ancients (is that how it's said in the English version? I'm just translating from 古代種の神殿).

I have been piecing together maps of areas I've already visited, although I haven't been doing it consistently. The latest one I did that with was the Shinra Mansion. There are some areas that, without actually taking screen shots of them for reference, I wouldn't know how bright the light sources/mist should be (since it's possible to adjust that in 7mimic), so I'm just gonna hold off on putting maps together for the time being.

So I'll just continue to enjoy playing through FF7! わぁ～　なつかしいな～

[FlyingArmor]

Long time no post!

I'm just about finished playing through Final Fantasy VII. Although I said I would map this in the fall, that certainly didn't pan out, did it? But I'm certainly at the stage where I can begin blazing through the English version to get all the item labels and whatnot if I wish. Now, whether to use the in-game graphics for treasure chests/materia/potions/etc. or use stylized icons for them instead, I'm still mulling over.

I've also made a bit more progress with mapping GD Leen. Although there isn't that many areas in the game, the dungeons can end up being quite large, spanning four or more floors each (each floor being 768x768 or 1024x1024 in size). Most of the maps won't be done until I'm near the end of the game since to defeat the final boss, I need to search for a number of special weapons and equipment that are hidden behind locked doors which are scattered throughout all the previous areas I've been to. Some are remarkably easy to find, while others are prohibitively difficult to.

[vorpal86]

Welcome back!

I'd suggest using custom stylized icons for the treasure. That puts a personal spin on the maps. Just try and keep the color scheme and such near the same. But hey... you are THE RPG mapper around here so keep um' comin'!

Good Day/Night!

[FlyingArmor]

I have the first three areas mapped out and fully labelled for Final Fantasy VII (up to the "Last Train from Midgar"). These few maps will give some indication into how I'll be treating the rest of the maps.

I have attached an image showcasing the various icons and how they'd work on a map. A few of the icons (the materia and save point) I took from the fourth disc of the International version. Because of the screen disortion when viewing that disc, I had to edit or completely redraw those icons, since I don't think squished egg-shaped materia spheres would look all that great for labelling maps with. Might as well include a screen shot from disc 4 to illustrate this point. The other icons I came up with myself.

For some things, such as picking up/receiving an item from someone, or revisiting an earlier area that has new items, I will include a small description above the item label to indicate who it is from or when that item becomes available to get. One good example is the Chocobo Lure materia that becomes available at the Chocobo Farm after Sephiroth casts Meteo during Disc 2.

There's probably a few more icons I'll have to make as I progress through the game, but this should be enough for the time being.

@vorpal86: Thanks for the kind words!

[vorpal86]

That looks nice enough. It's a bit more difficult to map this FF game than the normal 2d ones. The icons looks good and descriptive.

As you mention as you go through the game I'm sure things will change a bit about the way you're mapping. So far the current maps you have on the main site are fair enough. There is a lot of stuff in this game!

Carry on and fly high!

[FlyingArmor]

Glad you approve!

I'm not sure if I'd say it's harder to map than the previous 2D ones. If I didn't have 7mimic to help with ripping the backgrounds, then I'd agree it'd be more difficult.

The only difficult part I'd say is adding in all the sprites that aren't part of the backgrounds. Since the video plug-in (P.E.Op.S. Soft Driver 1.15) in ePSXe which allows me to attain pixel perfect screen shots uses a slightly shifted colour palette than what 7mimic gives me, cutting away the excess pixels is going to be a chore (unless there's a plug-in out there where that problem doesn't occur).

おう、頑張ります！

[FlyingArmor]

I finally have something to show for GD Leen. The first six maps are up at the moment, which will be followed by more in due time.

Since there doesn't seem to be a fan translation of this game (that is completed anyway), I did my best with translating the names of locations and items myself. There were some instances where I took a liberty or two with the translation to keep the names from getting too long. ディガンのませき would normally be "Digan Magic Gem", but I went with "Digan Gem" to keep it simple.

This game has some fairly strange sounding items when translated into English though... "Yummy Food", "Growling Head", "Signpost Midget" to name a few.

One thing I'm happy about is not having to make things up for the out-of-reach areas of maps. Good job game designers for actually filling in those out-of-reach areas with scenery!

Jon, the copyright information for this game should read "© 1991 Seta / Yuto Ramon". I didn't realize the title screen doesn't have that info on it. You only see it when you decide to stop playing the game for the day (it is displayed on a screen which also tells you to hold the reset button when turning the power off... as if that was necessary to do anyway). Sorry about that!

[vorpal86]

Good to see those maps. I never heard of this game GD Leen. AGTP has about 5% of the game translated and needs some more text decpompression.

I actually like the color style and design of the game. Some sources say since this was the very first SNES/SFC game it wasn't very good. BUT... to each his own or HER own. Nice work though on the maps. Hopefully we'll have a working full translation of it in the future.

BTW I just ordered and received the RPG Trifecta pack released by Super Fighter Team. Since those were originally Genesis games I might map those. Beggar Prince is really the only one I need to use the working Trifecta pack release of to map, since emulating it doesn't work right. It actually crashes a short time into the game when getting the healing spell in the first town.

Only problem is playing it as a PC boxed emulated release it's scaled 2x and I can't for the life of me figure out how to disable my ATI filtering. I could resize the game window after capturing the screen with PSP but it doesn't look as it should due to the filtering.. GRRR..

At any rate, nice stuff. We'll see ya around.

[FlyingArmor]

I'd say it was a fairly good game. Yes, it has its flaws, but I found it to be pretty fun to play through regardless. And NPCs seem to talk a whole lot more than in most other RPGs. They can often speak three or four windows of text before they decide to shut up.

Good luck with mapping those games! I did a little searching and found out that two of those three RPGs are Chinese in origin, which I found interesting. Doesn't help with someone learning Japanese though, haha.


On an unrelated note, I began playing through Final Fantasy II (the original NES version) a few days ago. It's great to finally play through this game and find out how the story progresses. I did play it many years ago, but somehow got stuck someplace without knowing what to do next (and I was playing the Neo Demiforce version at that time, so there wouldn't have been any language barrier to account for that).

I decided not to "cheat" by attacking my own party members to boost their HP, nor by casting spells unnecessarily to boost their MP. I wanted to see how well the characters would improve just by playing through the game naturally, and it seems to be working quite well:

Frionel - HP: 367 MP: 36
Maria - HP: 454 MP: 49
Guy - HP: 696 MP: 16

So far so good!

[FlyingArmor]

I had been working tirelessly for the past few months on new artwork and merchandise for Anime North. But now that that convention has come and gone, I can get back to mapping!

I only have two new maps for Final Fantasy VII to speak of right now: Sector 5 Slum and Aeris's House. But of course there will be more on the way some time soon.

[FlyingArmor]

Yesterday, I put out a much more substantial update for Final Fantasy VII, which takes things up to Sector 6. I only have about eight maps left of areas in Midgar. The Shinra Building will be the one map I will have to leave until later since there are a number of items that can be accessed at the end of Disc 2, and I would prefer to have only one map of that area.

I made a small change in how I point to items that people have or other things in the maps. I now simply use a glowing circle instead of the person icon I had used before. This also works great with the Turtles Paradise News flyers that are scattered about the world.

Another thing I finally figured out is how to expand the backgrounds of some areas where the given background doesn't cover the entire space the area takes up. You can see the results in the "Lower Sector 4 Plate" map. The only down side is that the illuminated bits that seep into the black that would normally be filled in with the background aren't as bright as the bits that illuminate the foreground only. But the effect is close enough to what is seen in-game that I'm not worried about it.

Hard at work on the rest of the maps in Disc 1!

[JonLeung]

With the reveal at E3 yesterday of a Final Fantasy VII remake, do you think you'll have the original Final Fantasy VII done before then?  Though at the rate you're going, and considering the remake probably won't be out soon, I'm guessing it should be easy...

[FlyingArmor]

Oh! Have they finally decided to go ahead with that? Wow, that's quite the surprise! I'll have to look into that.

I actually have my sights on getting everything mapped and labelled (except for the overworld) by the end of June. I have most of the rest of Disc 1 already laid out (which I think is somewhere around 25 maps), all ready for me to go through the game and label 'em up. So I'm confident I'll be able to complete this project long before the remake comes out.

As far as the overworld is concerned, I am planning on drawing and painting that myself, which would be far easier for me to do than try and figure out how to rip the data from the disc itself. I have no idea how long that would take though, but that is the plan.

Just in case you were wondering why no maps have been coming in the last few days, I've been taking a little break away from it, mainly playing Wild Arms in its stead.

[JonLeung]

I read somewhere that the Final Fantasy VII remake is indeed a remake, i.e., more than just an HD remaster.  When you consider that Final Fantasy VII is one of the most loved FF games of all time, and that almost everyone has played it, I suppose it's a good thing if they are going to change a few things so it's not just the same experience, only prettier.  But then again, it's eighteen years old already, probably will be nineteen or twenty by the time the remake comes out, so perhaps it's too broad an assumption to think that everyone has played it, since there's probably a generation of gamers now who were too young with the initial release.  At the same time though, Square-Enix could probably get away with it even if they went the HD remaster route and nothing more because it has been so long...  In any case, the first six games have been remade, really not surprising that they eventually got to VII.  The reveal trailer didn't blow me away, presentation-wise, but I suppose it's really just a teaser.

It'll be exciting to see the original when it is all mapped!  Between FlyingArmor's Final Fantasy VII maps, Peardian's The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time maps, and Revned's Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night maps, I don't know which fifth-generation video game maps are my favourite!

[FlyingArmor]

I thought that teaser trailer was pretty impressive. It really makes Midgar look like this insanely gigantic city, which is not the impression I get when looking at the city in the original game, and especially not so when I was working on those maps. The sectors seem so small and dinky.

By the way, I noticed that the link for the Nibelheim map links to the Cave of the Gi map. All the other links look okay however.