I can't believe I forgot Sleepywood. Dark and tropical and beautiful. I henehoed there on GMS because of that aesthetic and because it had less traffic than most other towns.
I can't believe you forgot Phantom Forest On topic: I've pretty much lived there with my dark knight in GMS so having the opportunity to relive hunting down bigfoots in this server was a no-brainer for me. The soundtracks in those maps are very dark and fitting too. I was a bit disappointed at first to see that no ks wars took place since rushing bigfoots into ksers was damn fun (which is for the better) Spoiler and thats why u bring friends along to 'loot a toe' Edit: spelling
Favorite area of Maple is probably Showa. It's more or less unused, exception being people running Anego/Big Boss. I just love the aesthetic of Showa, the ridiculous look of some of the NPC's, and Boss Cat is best.
Kerning city ! I've always felt it's the hub of the world Close to any location ( Ellinia, NLC, Singapore ... )
Korean Folk Town. Love the night maps there and the music, and also the bunny, fox and tiger monsters. Omega Sector with its funky music theme and alien monsters. The Dead Mine area of El nath with all the zombies. The sky looks great. Herb Town has lovely music, a unique design, and nice monsters.
For me, I'd go with new leaf city. It holds some of my best memories in GMS. The epic ksing wars at jesters, the BF wars when the guild "BF Police controlled everything, the aliens, the free GFA scroll..So many fun memories that I just can't choose anything else.
Ludi Dungeon is my favorite, deep in the clocktower. It's like an endless dimension down there full of mystery, also grim phantom watch is the coolest monster imo
Ludibrium- it's that "ship horn" that plays at the start of the bgm when I login every morning, 10 years ago. Can never forget how that feels. What a great way to start the day
I usually base my favorites on the music first. Music-wise, my favorite map is the train to ludibrium. Too bad we don't have the boats between towns back yet. My second favorite after that is inside the giant trees around Ellinia. That music always made me feel nice.