#1 Question #1 : Should enemies be able to attack you on the World Map (similar to Final Fantasy) or only in Caves/Forests/etc. locations (like Chrono Trigger)? Answer: Because it was taken mildly and I'm putting in a lot of secret areas and such, random encounters will only take place in dungeon-like areas: Caves/Forests/etc.

I think having enemies on the screen would be better, but that`s my preference in games. It`s better to engage the enemy yourself vs random encounters, which can be annoying, but I`m fine with either. I am an RPG fan after all ; )

#1 Question #3: What's a line of dialogue you want in the game? I'll try to work it in.

Not sure on this, I`ll have to think on this. x ) Maybe something like... Glasses are cool, right? You should wear glasses too! It definitely make people look cooler, don`t you agree? ; ) (OBTAINED GLASSES)

You are using which kind of battle? Frontal with static monsters that displays big on the screen, or from the side with both the enemies and player chars on screen in a small form?

Because if you are using a frontal system you might have a problem with on map encounters.

To add them you need to add a battle sequence as an event, that's why it may be a problem to people who use frontal battle systems, you probably won't have images about your enemies or monsters that display them at a decent size and/or can create movement.

But let's get to the idea: you want a battle to happen with an enemie on map.

Create an event that will trigger a switch chain when in contact with the player character, so that when you enter in contact with it a switch active a battle script that leads to said battle with said enemie, so it'll start that battle when touched and finish ans go back to the map when finished, now, you probably will want to the enemie/monsters to display well on the map, so you'll need at least a static image of it to be auto-activated with it's event and display as imediately so when the player reach it he can see the monster there, now a static image would need to be static as well, 'cause if it wanders while static it would look sttange, so you'll probably want itto feels alive while it move, so you'll need some consecutive images that displays while it moves in said direction, which will be a huge problem if you don't have them, because you'll need to create them yourself, so you'll need to kniw or learn some pixelart and that would totally destroy any kind of hope to get the game done quickly. But let's consider you have them, so:

Create an event that auto initiate itself that also trigger imediatily a chain of events that'll happen when it move to any direction, displaying accordingly images that shows it moving that way, this'll need several conditions in each step of it's movement to be meeted, so after you choose the pattern it movement will loop, add said conditions and switches after each step, and that always have an additional switch in stand by waiting to be triggered by the encounter with the player, starting a battle sequence pre-created by the program or personalized by yourself if you want something more personal to them.

It'll be a hell of trial and error before you can build this event for the first time, but after done once you just need to re-use it changing some pieces here and there and the images for different enemies, some speech line if it has it, and the proper battle sequence.

When I was doing my game on XP I choose to only do on map battles to chars/enemies I already had enough sprites, and to them to happen mostly in a pre defined spot that would trigger the event and make it easy to make it work.

I don't know how different your program is to XP but if it don't have a simply way of doing that it'll take some good time from you.