Overworld/Town Images - Motavia

This is a collection of overworld and town images that I captured while on Motavia. Along with pointless commentary. I apologize for the scanline filter. I should have disabled it before taking screenshots. But parts of the game look rather garish and the filter helped to alleviate that a bit. It also made the game look a little better while scrolling. Sometimes.

This is the area outside of Piata. The lake to the east is where Soldiers' Temple is located. Krup does not exist in this game so things are shuffled around a bit. The Motavian overworld doesn't look too bad. The water is alright and Piata's map sprite is nice. The other town sprites on this planet look like brown lumps in a vague Motavian house style. But the palm trees are all green. But I think this is an issue with the limited palette. If they had brown trunks they'd blend in too much with the sand. The trees also tend to be cut off oddly in places. There are also round bushes along with trunkless palm trees that I guess they're also using as bushes. For some reason. Variety?

Overall it doesn't look too messy. But the tiles are kind of haphazard so everything tends to look pointy where terrains change. I don't think that many types of tiles were used here. I've seen NES games with better overworld graphics. And I just realised that I'm criticizing the quality of a pirate game. Albeit a pretty decent one.

The quicksand blocking access to Zio's Fort. Yes, that's Zio's fort. A bit strange. But you can see little spires. Plus two doors does make some sense. Even in the original the dungeon had multiple exits. This one has far more exits though.

As you can tell from the image, Mile isn't here. It does not exist in this game. The number of towns has been pared down. The quicksand doesn't move. Nor does the water. There are no overworld animations. And they put some trees in the ocean. That happens sometimes. Why they'd bother putting trees where they'd look like they were washing out to sea I don't know. Incidentally, The Edge opens up through that little pass between the mountains and ocean.

Tonoe is hands down the best looking town in the game. Whoever worked on this did a very good job. The only things missing are the scrap piles and street stalls.

Grandfather Dorin's house. The character sprites here are better than the generic Motavian townies, who don't look all that great. It's too bad that Gryz's overworld party sprite is a lumpy mess. Pana is in the cutscene where you meet Grandfather Dorin. But she is never shown in the house.

This is the Land Rover. It looks pretty good. That town to the west is Tonoe and that building to the east is the Machine Center. It's a singular version of Zio's Fort. Due to Krup not existing in this game, Alys is taken to Tonoe after being attacked by Zio. So that's where the Machine Center ends up being close to. That also means that you get the Land Rover in a mountain locked location where it is entirely useless. You appear outside aboard the vehicle and must immediately exit and telepipe to another town (there's no other way to leave the Tonoe area) in order to make any real use of it. That's just poor game design.

This is Kadary. That building at the top right is Zio's Church. I guess. When you go inside it just looks like a regular house. They did the shape of the town some justice. But the two townies there seem hellbent on constantly getting in your way. The three bushes in the northeast corner of town block your path to the equipment shop. So does that darn palm tree. So you are forced to take the little opening above the first set of bushes. And that guy... Oh that guy. You can get around him fairly easily going in. But he loves to prevent you from going back out. Plus he sometimes lingers near he path to the equipment shop. The guy in the northern part of town loves trapping you by the bushes or preventing you from getting to the church. Poor game design right there.

The Motavia Spaceport appears pretty close to its original location. It's a fair proximity of the original overworld sprite. But it looks like they may have messed up on the right side, using the wrong tile. It should be a mirrored version of vertical lines on the left side. If they meant it to be this way it sure looks weird.

I believe this is Termi sans the heroine statue. Although it looks more like Krup, it's situated between two oceans of quicksand and is the last town you pass before reaching the Ladea Tower. I think it's the second nicest looking town on Motavia. The water just adds some flair.

Soldiers' Temple. The lake is located east of Piata. In this game the Hydrofoil's only real use is to travel to the island. It's very similar to the original. But the island lacks a second cave opening at the top. Although that's just a cosmetic touch since you can't enter the top part of the cave on the overworld map. Due to the awkward positioning of the entrance here it looks like the temple is floating above or stacked on top of it.

Seth will not appear when you step onto the island. He does not exist in this version. Instead, in order to have a full party Kyra rejoins you when you enter the Dezolis Spaceport after the scene in the ruins of Gumbious Temple. Meaning that she pointlessly left the party only to come back minutes later.

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