Not sure if this is possible, but I think it may be an interesting project for a talented scripter. If it already exists somewhere I am sorry, but I could not find it or a similar setup.

In Breath of Fire 3 (Capcom, PSX) when you got into a fight, random or not, you did not transition to a "battle screen" but instead fought the battle on the same map. As the battle sprites and the area movement sprites were the same size this made for a visually appealing style of gameplay. I was hoping to be able to incorporate something similar in my project. I intend to use either an isometric mode or mode7 system for the in-area view (you know, areas not on the world map) and the Minkoff animated battlers system for combat.

Lemme recommend Mimi's Battleback Changer, which changes the background of your battlesystem including a system that can use the field map itself as a battleback. That should in turn give you the illusion of not leaving the map.

The demo in the thread also includes Mimi's Battle Music which features a system whereby the field map's music can remain playing throughout the battle.

Ah, thank you VVulf! Should do the trick just fine for me.