Finally, this is my kind of thread.
Alright, first of all... I originally thought (like, 6 months ago) that a beautiful map was the most important thing to make, and the aspect of playability had never occurred to me. Alright, (sorry Neti) but playing Legend of Fenju, which was a hack entirely based around beauty, with limited sense of playability, I thought to myself, 'is this really what I want to strive for?' Sure, looking at a map on a thread like the MRT, what we really enjoy seeing is a beautiful map... but people need to imagine how much it would really suck to be a person who is playing the hack. Now, if the map has a mixture, it may go nicely... but it is near impossible to have a nice map, with a good sense of playability, unless your mapping style is exactly like Rijon Adventures', and Liquid Ocean's. Those two hacks are the only ones I can name off the top of my head, that truely combine playability, and beauty.
(I know people will hate me for this) Nintendo had it right, we had it wrong. I'll say it right now, EVERY SINGLE MAP I MADE THAT I POSTED ON MRT IS BAD. Nintendo's style is really what we should strive for.
Honestly, I can say... Nintendo has made very beautiful maps, and very playable maps.