For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to FlyingArmor's Final Fantasy VI (Super NES) maps.
It's been quite a year of milestones for VGMaps.com (10 year anniversary, 20,000 maps), and so here we have another one. This is a special Maps Of The Month featurette, as it is the 100th! And so what game would be fitting for this momentous occasion? Why, Final Fantasy VI, of course.
(Yes, Final Fantasy VI is the proper title, as the game is now known worldwide. It has always been the case in Japan, but the rest of the world didn't initially get the "real" Final Fantasy II, III, or V localized, so IV and VI which did manage to cross the ocean were originally released as II and III to not confuse Western gamers. Square then decided they would go ahead and release VII and all future games onwards with consistent numbering regardless of region, and so the attempt to avoid confusion by renumbering IV/II and VI/III ironically created more confusion when Square rereleased those titles - and rerelease them they did, again and again...)
So what makes this map set of Final Fantasy VI worthy of being recognized in the 100th Maps Of The Month featurette? First off, the game itself is nothing short of amazing. The sixth instalment of Final Fantasy is probably universally recognized as the best 2D entry in the longest-running console RPG series which turns 25 years old this year, so if I wanted to honour a Final Fantasy game at all in 2012, why not the best? It's a huge game - around 70 maps, and many of them are quite large, with very beautifully detailed and intricate graphics. And it's no secret that I love console RPGs, and it's kind of a no-brainer that console RPGs are exactly the kind of games that almost require labelled maps - and labelled these are. FlyingArmor has clearly taken the effort to make sure these maps are accurate, mapping regions even slightly beyond where the screen can naturally scroll, and arranging the multiple areas within a map with care, as if the mostly-expected "chest and door labelling" wasn't already a fair bit of work for some of these areas! Despite my lamentations that Final Fantasy games still haven't been mapped very much considering the popularity of the series, I don't mind that it's taken almost two years for FlyingArmor to map this as thoroughly as he has. A shout-out to Osrevad and Reidrex for the overworld maps, as well! And these were finished very recently, and I clearly didn't want to wait longer than necessary to honour this! From the Lete River to the Phantom Train to the Floating Continent to Kefka's Tower, we now have one of the best-ever video games immortalized here on VGMaps.com. If you ever embark on an adventure with Terra and the Returners to defeat the evil empire led by the insane Kefka, whether it's the first time or the nth time, you'll certainly know the way.
So to recognize the effort put into mapping one of the greatest 2D console epics of all time, FlyingArmor's Final Fantasy VI (Super NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for August 2012.
