Advertisement

Register for free to remove this ad

I was thinking about this over the weekend, while playing Wild Arms 3 and feeling pretty bored by the combat system.

Which RPG has the best combat system? The worst?

Right now I have very fond memories of Parasite Eve's combat system, and also Disgaea and Final Fantasy: Tactics have great turn-based combat.

The worst RPG combat system I've played recently has got to be Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. It was just very flat and uninspired feeling to me and pretty much ruined the game, IMO.

What are your opinions?

i love he battle system for paper mario and MLSS. i know its simple, but its so damn fun. it can get pretty deep too with the addition on badges.

Call me boring, but I enjoy the more traditional turn-based combat systems the best. I don't mind slight variations, but when games start trying to be revolutionary, I lose interest. That's why I despise the combat system in FF7-9.

But I also found the combat in FF X excruciating. It was like playing "rock-paper-scissors" when you can see your opponents hand.

"Okay, a flier. That means I need wakka."

"A blobby thing, call in Lulu."

"A quick thing, bring in the blond whiny guy."

Repeat for fifty hours. Ugh.

I like the system for FFX, but it does seem rather easy. To be able to switch out at will makes levelling evenly much easier, but seems somewhat cheap. Takes away any party-formation strategy. Even in FFVII, which I also liked, the materia seemed somewhat cheap--I could swap materia at will and make any character a tank, or a master mage, etc, with no penalty. I wished that there was some sort of counter to that.
FFX's ironically made the battles longer, because for a while, I wanted everyone to get some experience, so I'd want everyone in there to do at least one thing. Then I started focusing on the girls, to get their skills up since my guys are mainly physical attacks/defense. Then, of course, I tweaked one char's weapon for insta-kill on many fiends, which cheapened it even more.
All that said, I do enjoy the mechanics of battle in general.
I did enjoy Parasite Eve's also, it combined the excitement of an action/adventure with the ability to plan of a turnbased.
And I spent over 200 hours battling in FFT, so I must have liked that one too, but I'm not sure what I especially liked about it, except for things like the bard and Dancer's skills which were continually cast, and continually affected the combat.
Not sure if this counts as an RPG, but I am currently playing Dynasty Tactics 2, and really into its battle system. Definitely makes me think and try to plan out combo attacks.

SW:Kotor and Neverwinter Nights real-time system is quite enjoyable.

I've always really enjoyed the combat in the Grandia series.

I agree with Machine, I love the Grandia system. Every battle never gets boring each time I play it.

Originally Posted by Machine I've always really enjoyed the combat in the Grandia series.

Yes, Grandia was good. I also liked Valkyrie Profile. It was sort of like a fighting game with the combos and whatnot.

Panzer Dragoon Saga. I would actually look for people to fight.

Cool. I just got Grandia. Glad to hear it has good combat.

What about the worst RPG battle system, any thoughts?

I really didn't like the Star Ocean system. At first I thought it was really good, but in the end it usually just ended up getting me hit more often than I would during a turn based battle.

Fallout 2 has always been my favorite; I love the true turn-based hex engine.

Some others that I've really enjoyed:

Phantasy Star IV
Skies of Arcadia Legends
Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits
Xenosaga


I really didn't like Final Fantasy X-2's combat system - I couldn't even stand to play the game because of it. I thought Final Fantasy X's was pretty good. Truly gorgeous monsters, at the very least. I'm a straight-up true turn -based combat fan in RPGs.

I dig Skies of Arcadia battle system, both encounter battles and ship battles are very well done. The SP system requires a lot of strategy, it makes you think twice before unleashing that devastating Crew S-move! Should I heal my party(Blue Rogues) or do the ultimate attack(Prophecy)?!! God that game was awesome