World maps versus choose your destination

By: Michael Carusi | November 30th, 2009

Travel has always been a quintessential part of world-spanning RPGs.  Traveling between key points always used to be achieved through an open world map, but lately we’ve been seeing the rise of a standard “choose your destination” map where you simply select your destination.  Some people have lauded the new system, others have spit bile over it.  So which one is more fun?  Let’s break down the system and do a point by point (literally) analysis.

Exploration: One thing you sacrifice with a choose your destination map is the potential for exploration.  In a lot of ways RPGs are the most satisfying when you stumble upon a new location and spend some time figuring out where you are, and maybe even picking up some extra quests.  This is represented especially well in a game like Fallout 3.  Even if some RPGs follow a fairly linear path, there’s usually a point where they open up and let the player have much more free roaming on the map.  This is one thing choose your destination systems will never have on the same level as world maps.

World Maps: 1  Choose your destination: 0

Convenience: As fun as exploration is, world maps have a serious risk of dragging out gameplay artifically.  A lot of games tend to pad the length by putting huge stretches of land in between objectives or relevant locations, either intentionally or otherwise.  Oblivion was notorious for this, and Final Fantasy IX had most players holding the analog stick down while they flipped through several pages of a book.  Choose your destination systems negate a lot of needless travel time, but in fairness a lot of games with world maps will feature fast travel options.  The point still goes to choose your destination since it essentially represents the notion of convenient travel.

World Maps: 1 Choose your destination: 1

Immersion: World maps definitely take this one because a world is only as good as the sum of its parts.  The joy that comes from certain RPGs comes from trekking across the open world and being able to suck up at the atmosphere, while maybe fast traveling if you need to get somewhere quickly.  Imagine if Fallout 3 or Dragon Quest VIII didn’t let you explore the vibrant, dynamic worlds.  It wouldn’t be the same without listening to the ambient orchestral as you meandered past beautiful woodlands of DQVIII or observed Fallout 3’s desolate, lifeless wastes.

World Maps: 2 Choose your destination: 1

Fun Factor: This might sound like a strange category, but the idea behind this is to examine what a world map or a choose your destination system does for the game.  Does either one actually contribute to the game?  Certain choose your destination games integrate elements of explorative cartography like Final Fantasy X, while the benefits of world map games are explorative in nature letting you find new places and quests for yourself.  These are both fine and dandy, but unfortunately choose your destination maps seem to be used as a method of cutting time and money from games.  For every Mass Effect there are two situations like Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, where the developer actually admitted the world map was cut in order to save money.  World maps just contribute more to the overall fun factor than most choose your destination systems do.

World Maps: 3 Choose your destination: 1

With a final tally of 3-1 and choose your destination maps barely taking one point (since a lot of world maps have fast travel options) there’s a clear winner.  We seem to be moving into an era where games are much more defined by their worlds rather than existing solely to connect one objective to another.  We’ve gone from the days of Final Fantasy IX to vastly more detailed open worlds, such as Dragon Quest VIII.  Better technology certainly factors into this, but I like to think developers have developed an understanding that a more authentic world effectively brings a game to life.  All developers need to remember is to include an efficient fast travel system so we don’t get bored.