Best and worst RPG battle systems?

[ptdebate1]

Hi all.

Since a big part of RPGs are combat, I was wondering what some of your favorite battle systems were.

My favorite: Final Fantasy IV

FF4 is widely considered to be the Final Fantasy game that really codified a lot of the series' standards. One aspect of 4 that hasn't been topped, though, is the sense of urgency and momentum to the battles. Many of the bosses are intricate puzzles that have a lot to do with timing and proper use of elemental magic, buffs, and debuffs. If you turn the battle speed all the way up and set it to "active" mode (as everyone should), you're in for a seriously fast-paced and challenging experience. For some reason, Square decided to gradually subtract from the 5-member team of FF4, paring it down to just a single combatant in the latest entry, Lightning Returns: FFXIII. In more recent FF games, I find myself yearning for the same speed and complexity offered by FF4's battles.

My least favorite: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

There's a reason why From Software departed from the first-person perspective for their latter-day successors to the King's Field and Shadow Tower series: third-person perspective simply works better for action RPGs. There's little else in gaming that's worse than the floaty, imprecise feeling of first-person melee combat. There are really only two exceptions to this rule: the sword in Halo games and the Punch Out series.

[Vexer1]

I didn't like Skyrim's battle system either, though I really enjoyed Alpha Protocol's battle system.

[Astrosmasher1]

[QUOTE=ptdebate]Hi all.

Since a big part of RPGs are combat, I was wondering what some of your favorite battle systems were.


My least favorite: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[/QUOTE]
Well Skyrim not have a battle system as such.  It is rather dated these days.  I played FF13 parts `1 and 2 and were amazed how dated they were.  Though that is because the the JRPGs which have gone down the battle system dead end in recent years.

[DaHeckIzDat1]

The best combat I've found in an RPG was in Kingdom Hearts 2. It was so fast paced and flashy, I loved every minute of it, even more than the first game. I've also learned to enjoy the semi-real time battles in the Tales series, but I wish I didn't have to go to a new screen for every fight. That was another thing I liked about KH. The heartless would appear, and you'd fight them right where you were, and you could run right past them if you wanted No random encounters stopping your journey, like in Final Fantasy.

[ptdebate1]

[QUOTE=DaHeckIzDat]The best combat I've found in an RPG was in Kingdom Hearts 2. It was so fast paced and flashy, I loved every minute of it, even more than the first game. I've also learned to enjoy the semi-real time battles in the Tales series, but I wish I didn't have to go to a new screen for every fight. That was another thing I liked about KH. The heartless would appear, and you'd fight them right where you were, and you could run right past them if you wanted No random encounters stopping your journey, like in Final Fantasy. [/QUOTE]

Interestingly, there's one Final Fantasy game where you can, at a certain point early in the game, avoid all subsequent random encounters (meaning you only fight bosses).

It's Final Fantasy 8. This is one of the reasons why I love 8 so much.

You get the Diablos guardian force (summon) and have him learn the Enc-None ability. This means that you never--and I mean never--encounter regular mobs again. You can get Diablos as early as right before the very first mission. This doesn't pose any issues for leveling because all monsters, including bosses, scale with Squall's level (or the party's average level--I can't remember). 

[Rev1]

Since I spend more time with strategy RPG's then traditional ones I don't have a wealth of knowledge on the subject matter but I got a couple that really stood out to me-

Panzer Dragoon Saga (Saturn)- The battle system in this game is unlike anything I have played before. It is very action focused and is sort of like a hybrid of the rail shooter prequels and a traditional RPG. The defining aspect of the battle system is the placement of your dragon while you are attacking, plus you can attack with your gun or the dragon itself. I didn't think it was very deep at first but as I played more of the game, it really stood out and helped differentiate the game from other RPGs.

Chrono Trigger- I really liked the battle system of this game. The combo attacks were neat and there were some pretty solid boss battles (especially against Magus).

[ptdebate1]

[QUOTE=Rev]Since I spend more time with strategy RPG's then traditional ones I don't have a wealth of knowledge on the subject matter but I got a couple that really stood out to me-

Panzer Dragoon Saga (Saturn)- The battle system in this game is unlike anything I have played before. It is very action focused and is sort of like a hybrid of the rail shooter prequels and a traditional RPG. The defining aspect of the battle system is the placement of your dragon while you are attacking, plus you can attack with your gun or the dragon itself. I didn't think it was very deep at first but as I played more of the game, it really stood out and helped differentiate the game from other RPGs.

Chrono Trigger- I really liked the battle system of this game. The combo attacks were neat and there were some pretty solid boss battles (especially against Magus).[/QUOTE]

What's your favorite SRPG? I just started playing Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together and I've been really liking it so far.

Chrono Trigger's battles are a nice spin on the ATB system. I love the fact that battles aren't on a separate screen and that enemies have unique, creative sprites.

[Rev1]

Well there are several SRPGs that I enjoy but the ones that stand out the most to me are-

1. Fire Emblem series- Really love this series and the battles are crazy on the harder difficulties. I really love Awakening, Path of Radiance, and the original gba one (just called Fire Emblem in the U.S.).
2. Tactics Ogre the Knight of Lodis- not the deepest SRPG but I really loved the branching story paths, the Snapdragon scrolls you could obtain, and the emblem system which allowed you to boost the stats of your characters after you achieved certain criteria. I like several of the other Tactics Ogre games but this one is my favorite.
3. Disgaea 2 (PS2)- A huge SRPG with amazing depth although the storyline was kind of "eh". Definitely one with better battles as far as the genre goes but the storyline was overall very weak so it's far from my favorite.

[nesfan1]

Best: The ATB system from Final Fantasy IV-IX. It's the old tried and true RPG formula but with a little more urgency. The enemies won't wait for you to think about what move you want to make so you have to be quick and strategic. It's a lot of fun.

Worst: The travesty from Final Fantasy XII. "Hey, I got an idea. Let's take everything that made the gameplay from past Final Fantasy games so much fun and completely throw it out the window in favor of a battle system where you can't even control your entire party unless you constantly pause the game to choose attacks and spells but since no one in their right mind would ever want to do that, let's just have the players pre-select moves that they'll use for every battle in the game, because having the game play itself is actually somehow preferable. Oh, and those summon monsters that were so popular. Let's incorporate them but make them completely useless and uncool and have them use up all of a single character's MP. Oh, and let's incorporate limit breaks. But this time instead of having a limit meter fill up or making them more likely to show up when a character has low HP, let's just have characters use their MP for it. All of their MP, in fact. And let's let the whole party chain together their limit breaks so that the entire party can use up all of their MP in the middle of every boss fight in the game and leave them with no MP to use curative magic which they will definitely need because all of the bosses in this game take forever to kill. Oh, and of course let's make the players slog through over 100 hours of this backward battle system." Yeah. Square Enix actually thought this was a good idea back in 2006.

[Verm1]

I have to give prop's to the judgement ring from the Shadow Heart's series.

It made a change from just pressing attack or defend in a menu.