First it was a full-time pause menu display, taking away the 'pause' from the 'menu.' Quite annoying after seeing it the entire time.
Then I decided to try it as a stat display area. But with nine stats, the quote, "That's one heck of a HUD!" was somewhat discouraging.
Next I thought about having it a simple blank space for NPC dialogue. That's right, a hideous empty half-screen.
Currently, I'm about to give up the idea of splitscreen for more maps. But with my overlap method, it's 4x more maps. I need that memory.

This is the big issue, right before I start asking about the battle system.
What do you think should be on the bottom of the screen? I have ~30 pixel rows to work with.

maybe as a scroll log, like in Ranman's Ultima, where it keeps track of stuff.

The NPC dialogue is a yes, but for normal walking... Random Mmrudan quotes is an interesting idea, but it would have to stop the walking engine to display the quotes with my current text routine, and the old way (If quotevar=1:Text(Y,X,"FIRST QUOTE) is too inefficiant. And then I have to make nice inspirational quotes.
I probably could mod the text-er to do one character per cycle, but still it isn't that fast.

Next suggestion was scroll log; I can't think of anything to put that down with Except that magic will be in spellbooks not scrolls, which leads me to the idea of a full-on status screen including equipped items and remaining life, etc.

If I missed any posts while typing I apoligize and will edit this soon!