Is free flight possible?

Okay the thing I want to return to the FF series the most is the ability to fly freely through out the world. I always and always looked forward to the point in a Final Fantasy game when you gain access to every area and thus could take flight in your airship. The high point for me was definitely FF8 because I loved the Ragnarok and it's music so much.

But since the ps2 era the graphic detail has become more demanding so we lost world maps in favor of just traveling the world with a point and click map. Which was definitely not as interesting as taking to the skies.

I know that it would be too hard and too difficult to render a world from the ground to the sky and the world at most would be small and undetailed like in the superman return game but I'm suggesting the return of the world map, not for traveling on foot but just for taking to the skies. I believe if they took the time they could make a world map with beautiful scenery to allow you to fly.

What do you think?

Originally Posted by Fallen

Okay the thing I want to return to the FF series the most is the ability to fly freely through out the world. I always and always looked forward to the point in a Final Fantasy game when you gain access to every area and thus could take flight in your airship. The high point for me was definitely FF8 because I loved the Ragnarok and it's music so much.

But since the ps2 era the graphic detail has become more demanding so we lost world maps in favor of just traveling the world with a point and click map. Which was definitely not as interesting as taking to the skies.

I know that it would be too hard and too difficult to render a world from the ground to the sky and the world at most would be small and undetailed like in the superman return game but I'm suggesting the return of the world map, not for traveling on foot but just for taking to the skies. I believe if they took the time they could make a world map with beautiful scenery to allow you to fly.

What do you think?

Skies of Arcadia did it well. I don't know about this one though. I believe it is possible with Blu-Ray disks, but it all comes down to the amount of work. Doing something like that, especially with the graphics of today has to be very taxing on the developers. Hopefully we will get something like that but I won’t be surprised if it doesn’t happen.

Well i believe it will happen this time. I remember Kitase and Nomura stating that the airships would make a comeback in FFXIII. Seeing as there was never one without and airship since FFIX, i take this statement to mean that the manual piloting of the airships will be back. Looks like another implementation of the SIXAXIS controller.

I'm really hoping for the return of the flyable airship. Final Fantasy was not the same during the PS2 era when they took the feature out. Seeing Lair, I think the PS3 can handle a full real-time world map.

I think and hope it will be back. I don't even care if it means going back to multi disk games. In fact i would love to see the kind of story that would unfold on a 3 Blu-Ray Disc game.

The multi-disk games were always because of FMV, not because of actual game content. As for the lack of flight, I think it has less to do with graphical demands and more to do with Square's desire to stop creating a "shrunk down" world for you to fly across.

They want a city to be a huge city, not a huge city when you're in it and just a little illustration of one when you're in the world map. They probably could make a map like that using GTA-style streaming technology, but you'd have the problem of it taking ages to manually fly everywhere because the world is so huge.

It was confirmed that FFvXIII would have a world map and the ability to fly freely through it via an airship. However, nothing about that was confirmed for FFXIII, but we know that it will have several vehicles and, apparently, those are related with the summons. If you can ride Shiva both in and outside of battle in FFXIII, and ride an airship in FFvXIII, I guess it's safe to assume this feature will be present in the main game. Unless, of course, the developers decide not to for some design reaaon.

I think this depends on how much time you spend in cocoon and pulse.

Pulse is basicly the world below the floating city of cocoon, and is said to be 'infected'

I think this game will end up like FF7. You will start out in Midgar/Cocoon for the first few hours of the game but you will end up in pulse.

From looking at the trailer I can see that the game will featur linear paths ala FFX and FFXII. How much does that have to do with whether not there will be a world map I don't know.

But I'd really like an airship to fly around a world map in real time. BUT because the battle system is now seamless and requires no loading (you can see your enemies and walk up to them) that may represent a problem.

But it wouldn't bother me if on the world map the cities looked tiny and you looked big.

What they could do is make enemies walk around the world map as well. You should be able to see them and fight them if you wish. Once you fight them the game will load up a realisticly proportioned battle then return you to the large map when it is over

i don't know how they would do it Blu-Lightning had a good idea for how it could work but IMO, that would kind of interrupt the flow of the game and feel kind of like random battles all over again(but not exactly the same). it would be really cool if the world map was to scale and fully detailed, but that would take alot of work. also what they could do is have a world map Assassin's Creed Style where there are areas outside of the cities and then after reaching a certain point you fast travel to the next area outside of the next city. but i really hope that free flight returns to these games

I hope you will be able to fly freely too,I loved being able to do that.I love to explore different areas.but I don't like having to walk everywhere.so I hope you will be able to use the airship freely.

I agree totally with Fallen, although 10 and 12 were nice changes to a linear game title they still lack the basic features that many of us buy the games for. if and thing they should bring back the world map it was the best thing !

I love being able to fly on the world map.

My two favourite airships are Hilda Garde and Ragnorak. The music makes me high. XD.

It's possible, but with the graphics it must be a challenge.

i don't know how they would do it Blu-Lightning had a good idea for how it could work but IMO, that would kind of interrupt the flow of the game and feel kind of like random battles all over again(but not exactly the same).

I would think that enemies simply wouldn't appear while you're on the airship. As much as I like the free flight concept of the older games, wouldn't it be a bit odd in a 3-d game like FFXIII? I dunno, it would give the feeling of the world (I'm assuming Pulse rather than Cocoon) being much smaller than it is. I mean in the games where free-flight was an option, you had a world map w/the dungeons and towns spread out, but in the newer games it's more of getting from point A to point B.

I would love to see that again, perhaps make the scope bigger and with the futuristic technology, I can fly throughout the worldmap at sound breaking speed.

I dont think it would be too difficult to do really. I mean look at the games like warhawk. There is an immense amount of detail in the game and the maps are pretty massive, and so I would love to see a 'free flight' system implemented like many of the older FF games.