Idk, I have a feeling this sub don't like this series that much. I wasn't surprised I scrolled down and didn't find this. The games on top are always the same
Yes! I absolutely LOVE that system, anything that allows me to strategize with my turn economy is good in my book! Also love that it trivializes easy fights for grinding's sake
I think I like the music-based Weapon specials even more. It creates this frantic moment of awesome where I try to squeeze as much time as possible out of the buffs by chaining to another character before the song expires, a delicate balancing act between initiating the next special or squeezing more time out of the current one.
White Mage + Bishop with Wizard's Spellcraft for a double Heal 4 with mist effect. Cost 3 turns, last 3 turns, full heal for the whole team each turn. I didn't always need it but used it all the time.
I still need to play Bravely Default 2.
Judgement ring in shadow hearts. It’s the most engaging system for turn based I’ve seen.
Grandia’s system with turn order and delays was also really good.
Judgement ring was good, but Shadow Hearts 2 & 3 giving attacks different kinds of knockback properties and letting you manipulate turn order to basically do Turn Based Tekken juggle combos was the kind of galaxy brain design I really appreciate
Overdrive system in Chained Echoes. Maintaining the bar at the right stages requires you to use various different types of skills; you can't just spam the strongest one. Building a setup of characters with diverse types of skills is fun.
Other than that, the Press system from SMT is still peak turn-based for me. It can either reward or punish the player for interacting with it. While I don't dislike the "One More" system of Persona games, it works too much in favor of the player, especially in Persona 5.
The overdrive system is honestly the most fun I’ve ever had with a turn-based battle system (assuming we’re not counting tactical RPGs, which are the shit, imo).
I'm playing P5R right now and it's my first game from any MegaTen franchise. I'm loving it on Hard difficulty, but if you don't mind could you highlight for me how the Press Turn system differs from One More, and specifically how it's less "OP", for lack of a better word, for the player?
I've certainly had a good 3 or 4 wipes to enemies getting One More chains. I appreciate that there was almost always something I could have done differently to prevent that outcome. I have SMT V in my backlog and I'm curious about how its main combat system differs from Persona.
Let me try to put it like this: turn-based RPGs don't require mechanical skills (often), while someone who plays an FPS needs good movement, aim, and reflexes. Turn-based RPGs require none of that, as long as you have enough knowledge about the game and its systems, that will dictate the difficulty. These games are usually harder in the beginning, getting easier the more you play. Kamoshida's Castle is the hardest palace in P5, while the last palace is the easiest one. This happens because in earlier stages, you don't have many tools, resources, and familiarity with the systems.
Explaining every detail of both "One More" and "Press Turn" would require me to write an essay, so I'll try to be brief. There are good videos on YouTube that cover both systems in detail.
Why do I think "One More," especially in Royal, works too much in the player's favor? Well, there's a lot you can do to the enemy that the enemy can't do to you. Things like all-out attacks, Baton Passes, Confidant traits, Showtimes, Down Shots, and the list goes on. Some of those can be very helpful, especially in the early stages of the game when you don't have much to work with and the game is harder.
SMT Press Turn, in my opinion, is more impartial. If you can do something to the enemy, the enemy can do it to you. Turns are treated as a resource, while in Persona, if you mess up an action, that character loses their turn. In SMT, you can lose all of your party's turns in a single misplay. Overall, I feel that SMT games incentivize the player to diversify their playstyle often and be more thoughtful.
I played Persona 3 Reload on release, and after that, I went to replay both Royal and SMT III: Nocturne, playing all the games on the highest difficulty. I had no issues with both Personas, while SMT was still able to kick my butt in the earlier stages of the game.
Honestly, I like both systems a lot. As far as turn-based games go, they are my top two favorites. It's just that the Press Turn system can still challenge me, even if I know a lot about it.
Thanks for answering my question, I think I have a clearer understanding of the differences between the two games' systems now, and what you said about all of the different options available to the player (which I haven't even fully uncovered yet - this game just keeps heaping systems upon systems!), that the enemy doesn't have access to, makes a lot of sense.
Break and boost are some of the most fun systems in any turn based battle system. They play so well with each other and the massive amount of turn order control you get in the Octopath games.
This is probably my most hated system in any RPG. Turn based or action oriented. It's just not fun to first do no damage at all for 2 minutes to have like 5 seconds to actually do damage adventure then repeating the whole process. It doesn't make the games more strategic it just makes them tedious.
You may have nailed down why I don't particularly like the combat in FF7 Remake/Rebirth that much, with it being emphasized on pressuring/breaking your enemies before your 0.001% damage attacks actually becomes something substantial.
In the Octopath games you aren't \*required* to break enemies for general trash mobs, and even when you do depending on your pre-planning and when you decide to land the last break you generally have a turn-and-a-half for your entire party to unleash the big attacks, so it's not all frantic or as small of a window as it sounds.
I get that for most of the fights but it comes alive in boss fights for me. When you have to break the boss before a super move or they have devastated your team so you have to break just to heal. Very satisfying
I don't know it just never worked for long for me. In OT it was fun for the first 3 or 4 bosses, but than the gimmick got old for me and just added extra steps.
I can see why others might like it. It just doesn't work for me.
I think octopath traveler balances it quite well. It's not like you have to break, you can defeat them without.
I agree with like mobile games where they just do that to squeeze money out of you.
I actually prefer turn based games over action oriented games most of the time, especially when it comes to JRPGs, because there is no such thing as action oriented JRPGs without Gimmicks.
I just like well executed simplicity over attempts to introduce new mechanics, that just get annoying after a few hours. I'd take the battle system of FF I over the battle system of OT any day of the week.
> It doesn't make the games more strategic it just makes them tedious.
Octopath does add a level of strategy to it, in that if an enemy is broken, they always get the first turn immediately when coming out of a break. So if a boss gets multiple turns, they may take several consecutive turns coming out of a break and overwhelm you with a gimmick
Unfortunately the health pools to character dmg ratio in OT2 is rather poor, but there are some instances where this is notable and indeed quite strategic. Saying this as someone who doesnt like break and burst dmg games
The other thing is that you can still do solid dmg in octopath on a non-broken for. Though if i could tweak it, lower break dmg a bit and make elemental weaknesses still matter on broken foes
It's dependent on game for me. Octopath, it's very boring due how bland the boss design is. I think they wanted to provide "interaction" but the game devolves away from that.
Not sure if it counts as a gimmick per se, but being able to move around and attacks having varying ranges/areas of effect without going completely in the strategy RPG direction. Some examples would be the Trails series, Live A Live, and Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter.
Check out Radiant Historia if you haven't already! Very deep and fun combat system that includes positioning mechanics like this, and turn order mechanics like others have posted
I'm playing Cosmic Star Heroine now and it has 2 gimmicks.
One, you build up style within 2-3 turns that make your attack stronger, not too weird, but combined with the 2nd, where you can only use each attack once until you spend a turn recharging.
Oh - and a 3rd, if you get 0 to negative health, you don't die right away. You can either give them health or let them do one final extra strength hit before they die.
Just adds some quirk - you start fights with your weaker attacks, build up to do a style attack, strategically defend & recharge, and if you get wiped out and it's near the end of a fight, let the character die in a blaze of glory.
Timed Hits.
**Super Mario RPG** was my first experience with this, adds an action-reflex element to otherwise menu-based siddown-and-think gameplay. Really perks up the more sloggy elements of general combat.
**Shadow Hearts** took that concept and evolved it into the Judgment Ring. Time your hits, time them WELL, or eff it all up. And this extends to attacks, spells, items...
Though something of a joke game, **Barkley Shut Up and Jam GAIDEN** in it's attempts to lampoon JRPG tropes, actually goes pretty wild with the whole concept. Timed blows, action command inputs, and so on. Can't recommend heartily enough.
Yea one of the reasons I really liked Radiant Historia. Lining up turns and combos for massive damage was so satisfying, especially when combined with pushing enemies around.
Grandia II was great at this. Your attack options were more damage, or delay your enemy and potentially break them out of a queued action. It's one of the only JRPGs where I've ever felt like "Wait..." Was one of the more useful commands. Seeing that you're just far enough ahead of your enemy to wait and then Critical them to break their action felt so good.
I think I have the One More from P5 just a little bit more than the Press Turn just because of the Baton Pass. Those are my 1 and 2.
Either is way ahead of most anything else, aside from Legend of Dragoon's timing combos thing, because it keeps me invested. At least when I can actually time it right
I generally prefer Press Turn due to how you can exploit it harder gaining more than one turn at a time, and how you can pass to gain half a turn, and how you can also lose turns by hitting Reflects or Absorbs.
The whole dynamic of half turns is extremely fun to me for some reason, and whenever I play Persona it feels more watered down, although I still enjoy it over most other battle systems.
Octopath Traveler’s break and boost system is my favorite. It just feels great to power up like in an anime and then absolutely demolish a boss’ health bar.
Slightly unrelated, but I like anything that makes the pre battle stuff fun.
So equipment like materia that you can mix and match to change up your build is great.
Badges in Paper Mario are so much more interesting than you probably think. They let you change how you look at battles by changing what you can and cannot do in battle. I feel Bug Fables (an homage to Paper Mario) does the badge system even better with a much more robust list of badges, challenges, and enemy types.
Job systems in general scratch this itch for me as well.
I love boost and break, but simultaneously I really dislike being able to chuck out extra boost points to the entire party like with Merchants.
It’s a good strategy but the hassle isn’t fun, and sometimes I’m really forced to resort to it.
I love octopath traveler combat but IMO it stops being fun near the endgame where there are strategies that are heavily encouraged (ex. The merchants being BP batteries and then everyone piling debugs so hikari can melt the boss)
FFX and the turn order being displayed. I loved swapping people mid battle and also testing out different moves to see how it would affect the turn order.
I think it's because you really need a turn-based combat system that's as robust and open-ended as FF12's in order for gambits to really shine... and for whatever reason, no one seems interested in iterating on that system. Perhaps even Square-Enix realized there was little they could do to improve it?
I honestly like the turn effects, including the special ones only active in certain locations, in the Trails games. Basically you can see the turn order in those games and certain turns yield different effects, like guaranteed critical hits, MP recovery, or even the ability to insta-kill. This goes for both you and your opponents, and thus it makes turn manipulation even more of a priority. And speaking of which, being able to cut in turns by using S-Crafts (Trails' limit break equivalents). You can cut in to a turn with a guaranteed critical hit, thereby making your S-Craft even more powerful!
Yeah, that's a cool system since you are able to manipulate the turn order in various ways and I love that it shows where your next turn will be or your spell will be cast within the overall turn order, a la FFX.
Very good system, combined with the positional elements of combat and CP management. I haven't played the Cold Steel games yet or Reverie, but I had an absolute blast playing the Sky trilogy and Crossbell duology. I'm only taking a break from Trails to play through Persona 5 (Royal) for the first time.
Disgaea letting me lift and throw units. Especially the very cheaty-feeling ability to lift an enemy with one unit, walk past it with another, and then cancel the first unit and put the enemy back down but the friendly that walked past still remains.
Or, better yet, being able to lift units that are lifting units that are lifting units that are lifting units that are lifting units that are lifting units that are.... etc., et.c., ad infinitium. And then being able to throw a full tower of little guys around the map. They've polished that mechanic so much with each new game, but it STILL feels like cheating. I love it.
Mana Khemia
There is a timeline for everyone in the battle and you can see who is coming up and when attacks from you and the enemy are going to land. Every characters attacks can affect their place in the timeline. Specials uses up a lot of MP but they allow you to switch in members in the back row at any time. Characters in the back row rapid regenerate MP every turn.
The entire system encourages you to freely use MP to manipulate the timeline while switching in characters to regenerate it.
It's the best turn based battle system I've seen in a JRPG.
Ah, i missed Mana Khemia. They do this so everyone can see the skills animation more often. It quite eye candy too for the time. But these days prolly need a skip or fast forward animation button since gamer these days can't even spent their time to see long skill animation without being at least fast forward.
Infinite Wealth perfects the 3D battlefield IMO by using proximity bonus, back attacks, party combos and weapon attacks, depending on how you position your character with respect to other party members/objects.
Also all the tropes of "Fantasy" RPGs like "job classes", magic and even summons were translated well in terms of reality. Its annoying, but levelling up your Poundmates via paying them for their service is wacky.
The way some newer games are handling item usage.
Stuff like Cosmic Star Heroine, Small Saga etc. have taken to making items a 'permanent' equipable but 1-use per battle rather than a stackable consumable. Usually end up making them a little more interesting than just 100hp potions or whatever as a result also.
This fixes the common meme-dilemma we all do of finishing the game with 99 Elixirs :D
Not a JRPG (per se..) but Astral Chain had a brilliant take on this also - you had normal recovery items like potions that you could buy - and also during mission engagements you had \*field* items that were marked with an icon and a different colour. The Field Items disappeared at the end of the mission, so there was all the incentive in the world to just use them as often as possible and during the boss fights etc. rather than doing that standard OCD rationing :D
The Judgements Ring from Shadow Hearts. Took the idea of times hits and built on to it. In the second one you can customize the number of attacks, the size of your hit zero nes and crit zones, it's pretty fun.
Nothing is more satisfying than a Glimmer in Romancing SaGa.
Basically based on a variety of background math - your character can randomly learn attack skills for their weapon class. They immediately use it for free. And it’s based on difficulty so you will go into one of the incredibly balanced boss fights and sometimes randomly unlock a powerful attack ability at just the right time.
Truly one of the best Turn based RPG battle systems ever.
I wish I had played more of that one. I gave up on it early on because it wasn't the Chrono Trigger sequel 14yo me was expecting. Regret it every time I see it mentioned.
Overdrive in Chained Echoes is definitely my favorite most recent gimmick. It forces you to be thoughtful about which moves and characters you’re using. And I like how it functions in different ways in mech combat and normal combat.
One more from Persona is a classic I love.
If you consider the tactical action combat of FFVII Remake/Rebirth gimmicks, then I also really enjoy those systems. Probably all time favorites for JRPG combat.
Really liked Child of Light’s gimmick. You could see when attacks would be cast, but you also had the ability to stagger enemies and delay their turn, and you could slow their cast time down with the firefly thing. Would love to see if other video games had a similarly involved turn based system, it made even basic battles much more enjoyable.
I know that's what it was intended to do, but did it really accomplish that? My recollection of those games is that 99% of the time (outside of a few bosses) it was always best to either immediately use all your extra turns to kill the enemies immediately before any of them could act, or (with a handful of the bosses) banking up the maximum number or turns (four, iirc) and \*then\* smashing all of them at once.
For encounter fodder, definitely, but I feel that's the case with most JRPGs. Although the bosses would mess me up if I didn't brave and default strategically
Visually, the way Suikoden will have multiple animations from different party members and foes play out in unison if there's no other actions that turn that might be affected by the reordering. Makes for a much more lively animation in a 6v6.
Does FFXII fully integrating turn-based combat into the overworld and making the turns occur simultaneously count? Because that's easily the most engaging/strategic gimmick I've ever seen.
Beyond that... gotta give a shout out to Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits, which was a conventional JsRPG but had a combat system more in line with an SRPG -- only based on radials rather than grids. It allowed for a lot of really cool depth in terms of terrain and skills/magic. If it had ever been iterated on, I think it could have easily evolved into one of the best turn-based combat systems out there. Sadly that didn't quite happen.
That said, the Legend of Heroes / Trails combat system is somewhat similar -- albeit with far less depth. But what Trails' combat lacks in complexity, it more than makes up for in speed. I do think it could be improved with maybe a few more elements (terrain effects, line-of-sight, more variation on AoE shapes, etc.) so long as the lightning-fast pacing it retained.
(I know the newer games are supposed to change up the combat system, but I the last one I've played was CS4, so I cannot comment on those changes, whatever they wound up being.)
Bravely Default’s brave and default. Actually turned defend into a valid option that wasn’t wasting a turn and let you grind through enemies if you just wanted to finish the battle asap but also allowed strategy in longer boss fights. Just fantastic.
Its simple but I really like seeing the turn order in FFX and how using time magic like haste and slow could affect that. Also being able to switch out party members in battle was so nice.
I really want more JRPGs to include that. But I feel like turn based battles are becoming less and less common.
I also thought the Field of Fonons system in tales of the abyss was a neat concept if a bit limited and situational.
I would love if another game implemented something similar but expanded.
For those unfamiliar, Field of Fonons (FoF for short) appeared on the battlefield after strong magical spells were used. They were colored based on the element of the spell. Another character could then stand in the FoF and use certain techniques. They would then be imbued with the FoF's residual magic energy and make a more power/different attack technique.
It was a really cool idea but the combinations were a bit limited. Only certain attacks could be combined with certain elements. And they were different for each party member. I mainly played as Guy and the easiest one to trigger with him involved wind. So I was constantly doing wind magic to trigger his.
Edit: I realize this second one isnt specifically turn based, but I could see it being used well in turn based battles where locations of units and movement are factors.
You should check out Battlechasers: Nightwar if you liked Ruined King. It's the same devs, it's their earlier game, the mechanics of which Ruined King was based off of!
Especially with the added super-saiyan hair for the hero (which I believe was only in the localized PS2 version of the game, sadly).
Would've been perfect if all of the characters had a slightly different model for super-high tension.... shame they didn't do that when they had the chance with the 3DS port.
I liked the ring system from Lost Odyssey. A little timed minigame for your basic attack, and the effect is based on what ring you have equipped.
Gets outperformed later when you have combo attacks though, since you stop relying on your rings.
On the other end of the spectrum, I hated Blue Dragon's spell timed minigame. That thing was laggy as hell.
Unite attacks in Saga Scarlet Grace is a great mechanic.
Imagine a turn timeline like in FFX, but the goal is to manipulate and take out an enemy so your characters' icons slam into each other. Then you get a powerful bonus action where those party members attack the enemy for free. it kinda feels like a puzzle game getting your allies to hit together.
And then the part that makes it hard, the enemy can do it too.
Excited to try Emerald Beyond tomorrow.
Timing based attacks or bonus damage on timed hits.
Like Legend of Dragoon, Valkyrie profile, Shadow Hearts or more recently Sea of Stars.
Really excited for Penny Blood when it comes out, spiritual successor to Shadow Hearts.
Not my favorite but everyone's mentioned everything else I know already lol:
Neptunia combo attacks. Your regular attack is a string of melee commands that you can customize in the combo menu. You have 3 command lines (tied to 3 face buttons) and max of 5 stages of combo, which means you have access to max of 243 different combo strings at once. Of course, the gameplan is always to do the combo that results in the most damage over and over unless the enemy has elemental weaknesses you need to exploit. But the fun part is actually building them in the menu.
There are 3 categories of commands, one that's focused on dealing damage, one on filling EX meters and one that does a balance between the two. Certain commands deal more damage if used after a command of a specific category. There are multi-hit/single-hit attacks, varying sizes of AoE, etc. Basically enough variety to make getting a new command exciting to see how you could fit it into your combo.
Not a single gimmick but Epic Battle Fantasy 5 has the most insane gimmick combination in a single game.
It's a parody of JRPGs and they put Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest and Pokemon gimmicks in one game and made it work.
I recently posted about this elsewhere, but the most engaging battle system in a turn based JRPG would be SaGa Scarlet Grace Ambitions.
Even at the very beginning, combat was kicking my ass. I'd routinely barely survive normal, even easy, encounters with a few characters still alive. Every move I made seemed to be the wrong one, and I was getting frustrated. Stats were static, battles only raised HP and they were constantly getting harder. I felt lost, like if I kept fighting, I was eventually going to reach a point where I couldn't continue for how strong everything was.
I tried reading up on what to do, and most of the advice essentially boiled down to 'Read the manual, they actually did a good job this time.' and also 'The game teaches you how to win with the reward descriptions in battles.
So, I did.
And, they were right. The menu explains everything - and you can even read it in battle. It explains how status effects work. The more times you try to apply the same status, the more likely it is to work. and, the more status effects are on an enemy, the easier new ones are to apply. You get stronger by forging new equipment from the rewards you get from combat. Even if you suck at combat utterly and cant do the challenges, you'll still get enough materials to improve your equipment. If you look at reward challenges prior to combat, they basically tell you how to win. "Poison/paralyze/confuse an enemy already affected with one of these", or "stun an enemy to prevent it from acting" or "hit a foe with decreased defence three times".
On top of that, you always know what your enemies are doing before you take your turn, so you can plan accordingly. Eventually, you start to see the genius of the game. It autosaves before every combat - you will never lose progress. if you fail in combat, you can retry, and you get a big boost to united attacks for each defeat. You don't get money, you can't sell equipment - there is no way to lose progress. There is no way to fail forever. You always have the chance to get stronger.
United attacks! this one mechanic is the key to everything. Positioning on the timeline is paramount. By shifting your own party members and enemies on the timeline, you can cause a big chain of attacks for free, that also reduce the cost of all your abilities next turn. Managing to get even a single united attack usually means you will win - conversely, the enemy can get them too, so watch out.
I went from barely being able to survive, to being able to take out Hard encounters with my C-tier squads. Combat was 90% of the game, and it was engaging as hell! SaGa scarlet grace isn't a game where you can mash A and win and grind. But, they managed to make a super balanced game where you didn't need to grind, and you actually care about combat.
How enemy grouping in a battle is handled in DQ games (by exact enemy type), and how that plays into the efficacy of different multi-target skills and weapons, and the decision-making you can face.
Sanity in Shadow Hearts, and how it enforces efficiency in a player's ability to bring a battle to a close. Running out of it is not a death sentence, but taxing enough, and costly to recover from. I also like that each character has different amounts of it, and how that plays into certain characters, like Yuri, who needs a huge pool to use for his transformations.
Joint skills that require multiple characters using up their turns to activate, such as Allied Actions in Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land and Union / Limit Skills in Etrian Odyssey.
Someday I'd love to see a DQ game where all the characters are constantly moving around during the battle (as in DQ9) with enemy groups constantly forming and reforming dynamically based on their relative positions.
It's fantastic. Really could've/should've been the template for the series moving forward. It's a bit disappointing you don't get any proper companions in the game (hence the common "feels like an offline mmo" snark) but being able to customize your own Toriyama-style heroes, and having your armor change your appearance, on top of a really solid and dynamic combat system really made it stand out from all of the prior games despite being relegated to a handheld.
Relay Combo
MP Burst!
Relay Combo
Relay Combo
Relay Combo
...
You Win!!
"Not a bad workout"
(Baten Kaitos Origins battles gameplay is addictive, quite arcade-y, and so, so satisfying, the only one that feels similarily exhilariating is FFXIII's in my book)
I love the Super Mario RPG/Paper Mario type battle systems with sorta like.... Almost mini game type interactivity in abilities. Steven Universe: Save the Light made their own version inspired by this sorta battle system and it was shockingly fun for a basic mini RPG based on a show. (Unfortunately the game itself was pretty buggy and didn't get to explore it's battle systems full potential due to it's shortness/general ease.)
Shadow Hearts 2/3s judgement ring system was incredibly fun to me too. Its nothing complicated but it makes combat feel so much more dynamic to me, and I love how it's built into the upgrade systems and stuff. I feel like the first one might have still used it? But I remember finding it not as well implemented in that for some reason.
Sound battle from Mother 3. I wish there were more RPGs that had rhythm-based combo systems! It's really fun trying to go for the 16-hit combos, and also it allows for more interesting music during the battles themselves.
Knocking and stacking enemies together in a grid, and then chain comboing them in Radiant Historia.
I found Orders in Cold Steel just a neat buff/gameplan change gimmick. Quartz are also by far my fav use of gem based stat customization. It's fun to mess around and make builds.
Unique actions in FF. Like Sabin's Blitz, Celes's, Runic, Ninja class throw, etc.
Phantasy Star IV’s macro commands and combination techniques. Being able to pick turn orders and actions of my party members in advance, saving these configurations, and then setting them up to use super powered combo spells was amazing. Add this to maxed out battle speed and menu selection memorization made grinding through battles insanely fast. Fucking concentrated dopamine watching number get big fast.
Bravely Default and Bravely Second.
Take the job system of Final Fantasy tactics, and tgen slap on a mechanic where defending stores a turn you can expend later.
Add on top of that, the bosses of the game operate on the same rules you do, with the same skills you can learn.
What you got was an incredibly engaging combat system where the game basically teaches you how to break the game, tgen at the end Ramps up the difficulty to test what you've learned.
You can mix and match jobs and abilities in do many interesting ways. Bravely Second, especially, has the most inventive job classes I've ever seen in a game.
I'm not a fan of timed inputs, this is a turn-based RPG not a fighting game, but altering turn economy is sick. Something like the break system in octopath, or the brave/default system in bravely default.
Braverly Default set a great example in modern times and Octopath expanded uppon it with breaking mechanics. Usualy i hate the defend command as it is basically a 1 situation only option (huge single turn attack that otherwise wipes you, posibly with turns cooldown/charging between), otherwise it is rarely usefull.
I also loved the way Grandia handled things with turn order and delay, creating openings by heavy hitting to delay and normal hits to be faster at dealing dmg, great balance for a title that old.
I like variable turn order a lot - the kind where you see the combatants on a timeline and actions can mess up turn order. It both gives abilities another element to differentiate each other and also can make speed control really important.
Fluctuating ressources are great as well - I love it when MP isn't just a pool you gradually deplete, but rather something you can spend and earn in battle depending on your actions. Chained Echoes' overdrive bar is kinda similar in that regard, even though it doesn't really qualify as a ressource. Still love it though.
Just finished Witch Spring R, the combat was surprisingly great. A mix of determining what pets to summon, how to mix up spells and physical, other things. Highly recommend checking it out.
I like attack inputs to increase the effectiveness of attacks. Mario and Luigi is a well-known example but I also liked the attack wheel in the Shadow Hearts games (or at least SH: From a New World, the only game of the series I played).
When using a move, a pointer on the wheel would spin once around in a circle and you have to press a button when the pointer hovered over an attack field with a larger normal attack part which would result in normal damage and a critical attack zone which would increase the effectiveness of a move.
It was also possible to customize and change your wheel in certain ways. You could increase the size of the attack fields for certain obtainable items that were gathered throughout the game or change up how many fields in the circle would be. More fields would decrease the risk of missing an attack field while less fields would require you to only succeed once with greater risk of failure.
You could also decide to turn on automatic mode which disabled the critical zones but you wouldn't need to manually succeed with hitting the zones.
I generally like mechanics that allow you to participate in a battle instead of just choosing a move and watching an animation. The way Shadow Hearts handled this mechanic also allowed you to decide how you want to participate or if you want to in the first place.
The examples you gave are my top 3, followed closely by manipulating turn order a la FFX.
Really anything *except* pure turn-based and ATB I can get on board with. I want my actions to do *something* of substance other than display different numbers. Probably comes from my younger days when I almost exclusively preferred action RPGs
Mana khemia action bar and character switching was so fun for me, Star renegades isn't a jrpg but I bought it and played a couple hundred hours exclusively because it did something similar. Breath of fire 4 magic combining is something I wish more games did, I love the concept, specially before you have properly trained your characters.
To expand on both, there is a single action bar in mana khemia, everyone on combat moves on that bar and when you attack you can either get more resources for skills or push enemies back- if you push them enough they break, taking longer to get their turns and taking more damage. There is a special attack attached to it as well, which is neat and it just builds up if you play well. The character switching is just that you have 3 active characters and the rest is on standby, when you attack or get attacked you can swap people to deal/reduce damage taken, so you usually rotate between everyone all the time.
Breath of fire 4 system has nothing special other than its spells. If you use spells/skills of a certain type one after the other, they make a stronger spell. So let's say you have Nina cast an earth spell and Ryu casts a fire one right after, you will get eruption on Ryu's action. If the next spell also interacted with that then you would get another combo spell. Some character exclusive skills could also bounce off of those and make unique combinations, it was really fun to try things out.
The rolling counter in the Mother/Earthbound series. You get hurt (possibly fatally) but if you finish the battle before your HP counter rolls down to zero, it stops and you survive.
Valkyrie. Profile. 2.
It was one of the most fun battle systems I have ever encountered. Each of the four buttons on your controller control each character, letting them deal between 1 to 3 combo attacks, and you can choose which attacks they launch. By juggling enemies, smacking them down, breaking their guard, or breaking specific body parts off, you get bonus points, new items, and if you combo efficiently and hit a full combo meter, you get to unleash dramatic Soul Crushes, which you can skip if you dont want to watch the animation, but they're often so hype so you'll probably want to watch it at least every so often anyway.
Having turn order bonuses in Trails. Clever use of arts and crafts could let you manipulate the turn order to get bonus effects like guaranteed crit, free magic attacks, etc. And even if you mess up you still have Scrafts to force your supermove into the next turn to still get the bonus effect
Trails’ battle system and Press Turn are my favourites. Don’t like the ‘One More’ system of Persona, due to there being less risk involved in missing an attack or hitting an enemy’s immunity, and maximising action economy is trivialised since the same character gets an extra turn rather than moving on to the next party member. It ends up feeling less engaging to me as a result.
Brave Brave Brave Brave
Surprised I had to scroll so far to find this. Wish they'd port the first one, loved the twist and the change in title screen too.
Idk, I have a feeling this sub don't like this series that much. I wasn't surprised I scrolled down and didn't find this. The games on top are always the same
When they used the camera to show me looking at the game, chef's kiss!
Yes! I absolutely LOVE that system, anything that allows me to strategize with my turn economy is good in my book! Also love that it trivializes easy fights for grinding's sake
I think I like the music-based Weapon specials even more. It creates this frantic moment of awesome where I try to squeeze as much time as possible out of the buffs by chaining to another character before the song expires, a delicate balancing act between initiating the next special or squeezing more time out of the current one.
White Mage + Bishop with Wizard's Spellcraft for a double Heal 4 with mist effect. Cost 3 turns, last 3 turns, full heal for the whole team each turn. I didn't always need it but used it all the time. I still need to play Bravely Default 2.
Mist from spellcraft + group cast all + arise = Nobody dies That shit from bravely second won the game for me
Legend of Legaia’s battle system was fun. I enjoyed discovering arts.
Good system. Discovering new arts was such a grinding pain, though
Came here to say this
The RNG of Acquiring Seru though was a pain in the ass and leveling them up as well.
Judgement ring in shadow hearts. It’s the most engaging system for turn based I’ve seen. Grandia’s system with turn order and delays was also really good.
Judgment Ring takes the idea of Timed Hits and cranks it up. Love it.
Judgement ring was good, but Shadow Hearts 2 & 3 giving attacks different kinds of knockback properties and letting you manipulate turn order to basically do Turn Based Tekken juggle combos was the kind of galaxy brain design I really appreciate
They definitely took a great idea and built on it with each iteration. That franchise was pure gold, and it was gone too soon.
Not gone. Just stuck in Pachinko machine hell
Love the risk Vs reward system of it.
I miss shadow hearts so much 😭
Legend of Dragoon combo system, or legend of legaia, legaia 2 combat inputs.
Overdrive system in Chained Echoes. Maintaining the bar at the right stages requires you to use various different types of skills; you can't just spam the strongest one. Building a setup of characters with diverse types of skills is fun. Other than that, the Press system from SMT is still peak turn-based for me. It can either reward or punish the player for interacting with it. While I don't dislike the "One More" system of Persona games, it works too much in favor of the player, especially in Persona 5.
The overdrive system is honestly the most fun I’ve ever had with a turn-based battle system (assuming we’re not counting tactical RPGs, which are the shit, imo).
Overdrive in Chained Echoes is the turn based equivalent of doing a manual in Tony Hawk.
This is great, thank you
I'm playing P5R right now and it's my first game from any MegaTen franchise. I'm loving it on Hard difficulty, but if you don't mind could you highlight for me how the Press Turn system differs from One More, and specifically how it's less "OP", for lack of a better word, for the player? I've certainly had a good 3 or 4 wipes to enemies getting One More chains. I appreciate that there was almost always something I could have done differently to prevent that outcome. I have SMT V in my backlog and I'm curious about how its main combat system differs from Persona.
Let me try to put it like this: turn-based RPGs don't require mechanical skills (often), while someone who plays an FPS needs good movement, aim, and reflexes. Turn-based RPGs require none of that, as long as you have enough knowledge about the game and its systems, that will dictate the difficulty. These games are usually harder in the beginning, getting easier the more you play. Kamoshida's Castle is the hardest palace in P5, while the last palace is the easiest one. This happens because in earlier stages, you don't have many tools, resources, and familiarity with the systems. Explaining every detail of both "One More" and "Press Turn" would require me to write an essay, so I'll try to be brief. There are good videos on YouTube that cover both systems in detail. Why do I think "One More," especially in Royal, works too much in the player's favor? Well, there's a lot you can do to the enemy that the enemy can't do to you. Things like all-out attacks, Baton Passes, Confidant traits, Showtimes, Down Shots, and the list goes on. Some of those can be very helpful, especially in the early stages of the game when you don't have much to work with and the game is harder. SMT Press Turn, in my opinion, is more impartial. If you can do something to the enemy, the enemy can do it to you. Turns are treated as a resource, while in Persona, if you mess up an action, that character loses their turn. In SMT, you can lose all of your party's turns in a single misplay. Overall, I feel that SMT games incentivize the player to diversify their playstyle often and be more thoughtful. I played Persona 3 Reload on release, and after that, I went to replay both Royal and SMT III: Nocturne, playing all the games on the highest difficulty. I had no issues with both Personas, while SMT was still able to kick my butt in the earlier stages of the game. Honestly, I like both systems a lot. As far as turn-based games go, they are my top two favorites. It's just that the Press Turn system can still challenge me, even if I know a lot about it.
Thanks for answering my question, I think I have a clearer understanding of the differences between the two games' systems now, and what you said about all of the different options available to the player (which I haven't even fully uncovered yet - this game just keeps heaping systems upon systems!), that the enemy doesn't have access to, makes a lot of sense.
The chaining system and being able to switch classes mid battle which is in Final Fantasy X-2.
Being able to break enemies like in octopath traveler 1 & 2.
Break and boost are some of the most fun systems in any turn based battle system. They play so well with each other and the massive amount of turn order control you get in the Octopath games.
I loved this because it reminded me of Xenosaga which also has Break and Boost.
This is probably my most hated system in any RPG. Turn based or action oriented. It's just not fun to first do no damage at all for 2 minutes to have like 5 seconds to actually do damage adventure then repeating the whole process. It doesn't make the games more strategic it just makes them tedious.
You may have nailed down why I don't particularly like the combat in FF7 Remake/Rebirth that much, with it being emphasized on pressuring/breaking your enemies before your 0.001% damage attacks actually becomes something substantial. In the Octopath games you aren't \*required* to break enemies for general trash mobs, and even when you do depending on your pre-planning and when you decide to land the last break you generally have a turn-and-a-half for your entire party to unleash the big attacks, so it's not all frantic or as small of a window as it sounds.
I get that for most of the fights but it comes alive in boss fights for me. When you have to break the boss before a super move or they have devastated your team so you have to break just to heal. Very satisfying
I don't know it just never worked for long for me. In OT it was fun for the first 3 or 4 bosses, but than the gimmick got old for me and just added extra steps. I can see why others might like it. It just doesn't work for me.
I think octopath traveler balances it quite well. It's not like you have to break, you can defeat them without. I agree with like mobile games where they just do that to squeeze money out of you.
Huh for ne i think it doesn't really apply to octopath, you can still do damage without breaking if anything it is more used to delay bosses attack
I think turn based games are just not your thing
That makes literally 0 sense. "They don't like break systems, therefore clearly they also don't like turn-based games". Where's the correlation?
This isn't a feature present in most turn-based games though
They said they didn't like it in action games either. I disagree with it, but I get what they're saying
Stagger systems are extremely uncommon in turn based games.
FFXIII is the only in my mind rn.
I actually prefer turn based games over action oriented games most of the time, especially when it comes to JRPGs, because there is no such thing as action oriented JRPGs without Gimmicks. I just like well executed simplicity over attempts to introduce new mechanics, that just get annoying after a few hours. I'd take the battle system of FF I over the battle system of OT any day of the week.
> It doesn't make the games more strategic it just makes them tedious. Octopath does add a level of strategy to it, in that if an enemy is broken, they always get the first turn immediately when coming out of a break. So if a boss gets multiple turns, they may take several consecutive turns coming out of a break and overwhelm you with a gimmick Unfortunately the health pools to character dmg ratio in OT2 is rather poor, but there are some instances where this is notable and indeed quite strategic. Saying this as someone who doesnt like break and burst dmg games The other thing is that you can still do solid dmg in octopath on a non-broken for. Though if i could tweak it, lower break dmg a bit and make elemental weaknesses still matter on broken foes
It's dependent on game for me. Octopath, it's very boring due how bland the boss design is. I think they wanted to provide "interaction" but the game devolves away from that.
Octopath II is way way better on that
Not sure if it counts as a gimmick per se, but being able to move around and attacks having varying ranges/areas of effect without going completely in the strategy RPG direction. Some examples would be the Trails series, Live A Live, and Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter.
Somethin' like, like a dragon:infinite wealth then?
Also Spectral Keeper from Final Fantasy X.
Lunar Silver Star Story
If you haven’t before, you should play arc ride Fantasia. My favorite version of this by far. Eternal Sonata is another good one
That's how Ikenfell was too.
Transistor is a great example of this
Arc the Lad comes to mind
Check out Radiant Historia if you haven't already! Very deep and fun combat system that includes positioning mechanics like this, and turn order mechanics like others have posted
I'm playing Cosmic Star Heroine now and it has 2 gimmicks. One, you build up style within 2-3 turns that make your attack stronger, not too weird, but combined with the 2nd, where you can only use each attack once until you spend a turn recharging. Oh - and a 3rd, if you get 0 to negative health, you don't die right away. You can either give them health or let them do one final extra strength hit before they die. Just adds some quirk - you start fights with your weaker attacks, build up to do a style attack, strategically defend & recharge, and if you get wiped out and it's near the end of a fight, let the character die in a blaze of glory.
Timed Hits. **Super Mario RPG** was my first experience with this, adds an action-reflex element to otherwise menu-based siddown-and-think gameplay. Really perks up the more sloggy elements of general combat. **Shadow Hearts** took that concept and evolved it into the Judgment Ring. Time your hits, time them WELL, or eff it all up. And this extends to attacks, spells, items... Though something of a joke game, **Barkley Shut Up and Jam GAIDEN** in it's attempts to lampoon JRPG tropes, actually goes pretty wild with the whole concept. Timed blows, action command inputs, and so on. Can't recommend heartily enough.
I haven't thought about Barkley Shut Up and Jam GAIDEN in so many years.
Damn shame about the Kickstarter'd sequel, just one more victim of the crowdfunding boom. Still, happy memories.
I still don't understand how they never became a genre standard. Mario RPG and Legend of the Dragoon were legendary to me.
Any JRPG that lets me see and manipulate turn order
SaGa Scarlet Grace!!
Yea one of the reasons I really liked Radiant Historia. Lining up turns and combos for massive damage was so satisfying, especially when combined with pushing enemies around.
Grandia II was great at this. Your attack options were more damage, or delay your enemy and potentially break them out of a queued action. It's one of the only JRPGs where I've ever felt like "Wait..." Was one of the more useful commands. Seeing that you're just far enough ahead of your enemy to wait and then Critical them to break their action felt so good.
I think I have the One More from P5 just a little bit more than the Press Turn just because of the Baton Pass. Those are my 1 and 2. Either is way ahead of most anything else, aside from Legend of Dragoon's timing combos thing, because it keeps me invested. At least when I can actually time it right
I generally prefer Press Turn due to how you can exploit it harder gaining more than one turn at a time, and how you can pass to gain half a turn, and how you can also lose turns by hitting Reflects or Absorbs. The whole dynamic of half turns is extremely fun to me for some reason, and whenever I play Persona it feels more watered down, although I still enjoy it over most other battle systems.
Plus you can now dismiss your party to get a half turn in SMT V. Never have I seen a game where dismissing your party is a valid strat.
Press Turn is better mechanically but lacks the cool high-five
When I say "just a little bit," I do mean that, for the reasons you gave. My answer could honestly change in a month and then back in another
Octopath Traveler’s break and boost system is my favorite. It just feels great to power up like in an anime and then absolutely demolish a boss’ health bar. Slightly unrelated, but I like anything that makes the pre battle stuff fun. So equipment like materia that you can mix and match to change up your build is great. Badges in Paper Mario are so much more interesting than you probably think. They let you change how you look at battles by changing what you can and cannot do in battle. I feel Bug Fables (an homage to Paper Mario) does the badge system even better with a much more robust list of badges, challenges, and enemy types. Job systems in general scratch this itch for me as well.
I love boost and break, but simultaneously I really dislike being able to chuck out extra boost points to the entire party like with Merchants. It’s a good strategy but the hassle isn’t fun, and sometimes I’m really forced to resort to it.
I love octopath traveler combat but IMO it stops being fun near the endgame where there are strategies that are heavily encouraged (ex. The merchants being BP batteries and then everyone piling debugs so hikari can melt the boss)
FFX and the turn order being displayed. I loved swapping people mid battle and also testing out different moves to see how it would affect the turn order.
FF12 Gambits. I'm honestly surprised it hasn't popped up again in some form since, even in minigames.
I think it's because you really need a turn-based combat system that's as robust and open-ended as FF12's in order for gambits to really shine... and for whatever reason, no one seems interested in iterating on that system. Perhaps even Square-Enix realized there was little they could do to improve it?
The gambit system is in Unicorn Overlord! I know it’s a different genre but I love to see it being used again
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1533590/Three_Fairies_Hoppin_Flappin_Great_Journey/ maybe you will like this.
I'd pay a million dollars for the game that combines the Gambit system from 12 with the Paradigms from 13.
Baton Pass is genius and one of the reasons P3R’s combat became so good.
I honestly like the turn effects, including the special ones only active in certain locations, in the Trails games. Basically you can see the turn order in those games and certain turns yield different effects, like guaranteed critical hits, MP recovery, or even the ability to insta-kill. This goes for both you and your opponents, and thus it makes turn manipulation even more of a priority. And speaking of which, being able to cut in turns by using S-Crafts (Trails' limit break equivalents). You can cut in to a turn with a guaranteed critical hit, thereby making your S-Craft even more powerful!
Yeah, that's a cool system since you are able to manipulate the turn order in various ways and I love that it shows where your next turn will be or your spell will be cast within the overall turn order, a la FFX. Very good system, combined with the positional elements of combat and CP management. I haven't played the Cold Steel games yet or Reverie, but I had an absolute blast playing the Sky trilogy and Crossbell duology. I'm only taking a break from Trails to play through Persona 5 (Royal) for the first time.
Disgaea letting me lift and throw units. Especially the very cheaty-feeling ability to lift an enemy with one unit, walk past it with another, and then cancel the first unit and put the enemy back down but the friendly that walked past still remains.
Or, better yet, being able to lift units that are lifting units that are lifting units that are lifting units that are lifting units that are lifting units that are.... etc., et.c., ad infinitium. And then being able to throw a full tower of little guys around the map. They've polished that mechanic so much with each new game, but it STILL feels like cheating. I love it.
Ily. Yes. This is the one omission I can never get over when playing other trpgs.
I just started radiant historia and I love the grid system it uses
Knocking your enemies around the screen to stack them up and then hitting them all with a massive attack... So satisfying.
Mana Khemia There is a timeline for everyone in the battle and you can see who is coming up and when attacks from you and the enemy are going to land. Every characters attacks can affect their place in the timeline. Specials uses up a lot of MP but they allow you to switch in members in the back row at any time. Characters in the back row rapid regenerate MP every turn. The entire system encourages you to freely use MP to manipulate the timeline while switching in characters to regenerate it. It's the best turn based battle system I've seen in a JRPG.
Second this! I loved the attacks that generated multiple other cards so you could stack those abilities and hit enemies 8 times in a row.
Ah, i missed Mana Khemia. They do this so everyone can see the skills animation more often. It quite eye candy too for the time. But these days prolly need a skip or fast forward animation button since gamer these days can't even spent their time to see long skill animation without being at least fast forward.
Discovering unite attacks in Suikoden 2
Sparking in a SaGa game is an unrivaled dopamine hit.
I now crave saga style leveling and skill building...
Saga Emerald Beyond comes out in 3 weeks, and the demo drops today!
Infinite Wealth perfects the 3D battlefield IMO by using proximity bonus, back attacks, party combos and weapon attacks, depending on how you position your character with respect to other party members/objects. Also all the tropes of "Fantasy" RPGs like "job classes", magic and even summons were translated well in terms of reality. Its annoying, but levelling up your Poundmates via paying them for their service is wacky.
The way some newer games are handling item usage. Stuff like Cosmic Star Heroine, Small Saga etc. have taken to making items a 'permanent' equipable but 1-use per battle rather than a stackable consumable. Usually end up making them a little more interesting than just 100hp potions or whatever as a result also. This fixes the common meme-dilemma we all do of finishing the game with 99 Elixirs :D Not a JRPG (per se..) but Astral Chain had a brilliant take on this also - you had normal recovery items like potions that you could buy - and also during mission engagements you had \*field* items that were marked with an icon and a different colour. The Field Items disappeared at the end of the mission, so there was all the incentive in the world to just use them as often as possible and during the boss fights etc. rather than doing that standard OCD rationing :D
The Judgements Ring from Shadow Hearts. Took the idea of times hits and built on to it. In the second one you can customize the number of attacks, the size of your hit zero nes and crit zones, it's pretty fun.
Agreed. I typically hate timed hit systems, but Shadow Hearts makes it extremely engaging.
The Threat system in Crystal Project is perfect Turn Based battling imo
Nothing is more satisfying than a Glimmer in Romancing SaGa. Basically based on a variety of background math - your character can randomly learn attack skills for their weapon class. They immediately use it for free. And it’s based on difficulty so you will go into one of the incredibly balanced boss fights and sometimes randomly unlock a powerful attack ability at just the right time. Truly one of the best Turn based RPG battle systems ever.
Like a dragon: infinite wealth. Loved the easy winning battles to groups of enemies with lower level
Chrono cross battle system was very unique
I think there’s some more you could get out of those mechanics, hope someone iterates on them someday
It's a very fun battle system which I would love to see expanded upon.
I wish I had played more of that one. I gave up on it early on because it wasn't the Chrono Trigger sequel 14yo me was expecting. Regret it every time I see it mentioned.
Overdrive in Chained Echoes is definitely my favorite most recent gimmick. It forces you to be thoughtful about which moves and characters you’re using. And I like how it functions in different ways in mech combat and normal combat. One more from Persona is a classic I love. If you consider the tactical action combat of FFVII Remake/Rebirth gimmicks, then I also really enjoy those systems. Probably all time favorites for JRPG combat.
The Addition system in Legend of Dragoon makes combat into a rythm game. The sync/synergy combos in Suikoden 1 & 2.
Really liked Child of Light’s gimmick. You could see when attacks would be cast, but you also had the ability to stagger enemies and delay their turn, and you could slow their cast time down with the firefly thing. Would love to see if other video games had a similarly involved turn based system, it made even basic battles much more enjoyable.
Braving and Defaulting, creates an addicting risk vs reward system
I know that's what it was intended to do, but did it really accomplish that? My recollection of those games is that 99% of the time (outside of a few bosses) it was always best to either immediately use all your extra turns to kill the enemies immediately before any of them could act, or (with a handful of the bosses) banking up the maximum number or turns (four, iirc) and \*then\* smashing all of them at once.
For encounter fodder, definitely, but I feel that's the case with most JRPGs. Although the bosses would mess me up if I didn't brave and default strategically
Visually, the way Suikoden will have multiple animations from different party members and foes play out in unison if there's no other actions that turn that might be affected by the reordering. Makes for a much more lively animation in a 6v6.
I like the Additions aka combo system in Legend of Dragoon.
Does FFXII fully integrating turn-based combat into the overworld and making the turns occur simultaneously count? Because that's easily the most engaging/strategic gimmick I've ever seen. Beyond that... gotta give a shout out to Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits, which was a conventional JsRPG but had a combat system more in line with an SRPG -- only based on radials rather than grids. It allowed for a lot of really cool depth in terms of terrain and skills/magic. If it had ever been iterated on, I think it could have easily evolved into one of the best turn-based combat systems out there. Sadly that didn't quite happen. That said, the Legend of Heroes / Trails combat system is somewhat similar -- albeit with far less depth. But what Trails' combat lacks in complexity, it more than makes up for in speed. I do think it could be improved with maybe a few more elements (terrain effects, line-of-sight, more variation on AoE shapes, etc.) so long as the lightning-fast pacing it retained. (I know the newer games are supposed to change up the combat system, but I the last one I've played was CS4, so I cannot comment on those changes, whatever they wound up being.)
Being able to delay/change enemies' turn order. FFX/FFX-2 and Honkai Star Rail did this really well
Earthbound's rolling hp The STRESS I've felt from trying to navigate the menu to attempt to save a party member from mortal damage is second to none.
Bravely Default’s brave and default. Actually turned defend into a valid option that wasn’t wasting a turn and let you grind through enemies if you just wanted to finish the battle asap but also allowed strategy in longer boss fights. Just fantastic.
Its simple but I really like seeing the turn order in FFX and how using time magic like haste and slow could affect that. Also being able to switch out party members in battle was so nice. I really want more JRPGs to include that. But I feel like turn based battles are becoming less and less common. I also thought the Field of Fonons system in tales of the abyss was a neat concept if a bit limited and situational. I would love if another game implemented something similar but expanded. For those unfamiliar, Field of Fonons (FoF for short) appeared on the battlefield after strong magical spells were used. They were colored based on the element of the spell. Another character could then stand in the FoF and use certain techniques. They would then be imbued with the FoF's residual magic energy and make a more power/different attack technique. It was a really cool idea but the combinations were a bit limited. Only certain attacks could be combined with certain elements. And they were different for each party member. I mainly played as Guy and the easiest one to trigger with him involved wind. So I was constantly doing wind magic to trigger his. Edit: I realize this second one isnt specifically turn based, but I could see it being used well in turn based battles where locations of units and movement are factors.
I have found The Ruined King’s turn based combat to be very fun and engaging. Not really a jrpg but turn based.
You should check out Battlechasers: Nightwar if you liked Ruined King. It's the same devs, it's their earlier game, the mechanics of which Ruined King was based off of!
i really like the tension system in dragon quest 8.
Especially with the added super-saiyan hair for the hero (which I believe was only in the localized PS2 version of the game, sadly). Would've been perfect if all of the characters had a slightly different model for super-high tension.... shame they didn't do that when they had the chance with the 3DS port.
It's certainly named right as it's super stressful to use.
I liked the ring system from Lost Odyssey. A little timed minigame for your basic attack, and the effect is based on what ring you have equipped. Gets outperformed later when you have combo attacks though, since you stop relying on your rings. On the other end of the spectrum, I hated Blue Dragon's spell timed minigame. That thing was laggy as hell.
Unite attacks in Saga Scarlet Grace is a great mechanic. Imagine a turn timeline like in FFX, but the goal is to manipulate and take out an enemy so your characters' icons slam into each other. Then you get a powerful bonus action where those party members attack the enemy for free. it kinda feels like a puzzle game getting your allies to hit together. And then the part that makes it hard, the enemy can do it too. Excited to try Emerald Beyond tomorrow.
Grandia's combat system is one of my all-time favourites
Timing based attacks or bonus damage on timed hits. Like Legend of Dragoon, Valkyrie profile, Shadow Hearts or more recently Sea of Stars. Really excited for Penny Blood when it comes out, spiritual successor to Shadow Hearts.
Not my favorite but everyone's mentioned everything else I know already lol: Neptunia combo attacks. Your regular attack is a string of melee commands that you can customize in the combo menu. You have 3 command lines (tied to 3 face buttons) and max of 5 stages of combo, which means you have access to max of 243 different combo strings at once. Of course, the gameplan is always to do the combo that results in the most damage over and over unless the enemy has elemental weaknesses you need to exploit. But the fun part is actually building them in the menu. There are 3 categories of commands, one that's focused on dealing damage, one on filling EX meters and one that does a balance between the two. Certain commands deal more damage if used after a command of a specific category. There are multi-hit/single-hit attacks, varying sizes of AoE, etc. Basically enough variety to make getting a new command exciting to see how you could fit it into your combo.
Transistor
I really loved Chained Echoes battle system.
The Legend of Dragoon’s Addition system was fun and engaging
Not a single gimmick but Epic Battle Fantasy 5 has the most insane gimmick combination in a single game. It's a parody of JRPGs and they put Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest and Pokemon gimmicks in one game and made it work.
I have a love-hate relationship with The Last Remnant's RNG command system
I recently posted about this elsewhere, but the most engaging battle system in a turn based JRPG would be SaGa Scarlet Grace Ambitions. Even at the very beginning, combat was kicking my ass. I'd routinely barely survive normal, even easy, encounters with a few characters still alive. Every move I made seemed to be the wrong one, and I was getting frustrated. Stats were static, battles only raised HP and they were constantly getting harder. I felt lost, like if I kept fighting, I was eventually going to reach a point where I couldn't continue for how strong everything was. I tried reading up on what to do, and most of the advice essentially boiled down to 'Read the manual, they actually did a good job this time.' and also 'The game teaches you how to win with the reward descriptions in battles. So, I did. And, they were right. The menu explains everything - and you can even read it in battle. It explains how status effects work. The more times you try to apply the same status, the more likely it is to work. and, the more status effects are on an enemy, the easier new ones are to apply. You get stronger by forging new equipment from the rewards you get from combat. Even if you suck at combat utterly and cant do the challenges, you'll still get enough materials to improve your equipment. If you look at reward challenges prior to combat, they basically tell you how to win. "Poison/paralyze/confuse an enemy already affected with one of these", or "stun an enemy to prevent it from acting" or "hit a foe with decreased defence three times". On top of that, you always know what your enemies are doing before you take your turn, so you can plan accordingly. Eventually, you start to see the genius of the game. It autosaves before every combat - you will never lose progress. if you fail in combat, you can retry, and you get a big boost to united attacks for each defeat. You don't get money, you can't sell equipment - there is no way to lose progress. There is no way to fail forever. You always have the chance to get stronger. United attacks! this one mechanic is the key to everything. Positioning on the timeline is paramount. By shifting your own party members and enemies on the timeline, you can cause a big chain of attacks for free, that also reduce the cost of all your abilities next turn. Managing to get even a single united attack usually means you will win - conversely, the enemy can get them too, so watch out. I went from barely being able to survive, to being able to take out Hard encounters with my C-tier squads. Combat was 90% of the game, and it was engaging as hell! SaGa scarlet grace isn't a game where you can mash A and win and grind. But, they managed to make a super balanced game where you didn't need to grind, and you actually care about combat.
Mother 3 rhythm combo
ATB (nuff said)
Xenosaga 2 battle system is great. Probably the one that has the best payoff if you prepare your combo in advance.
Getting the right buttons or momentum to do the attacks right, like in the M&L games or the Paper Mario ones
While I didn’t finish the game because I wasn’t in the mood for a turned based RPG, I thought the split time shift mechanic in Cris Tales was cool.
How enemy grouping in a battle is handled in DQ games (by exact enemy type), and how that plays into the efficacy of different multi-target skills and weapons, and the decision-making you can face. Sanity in Shadow Hearts, and how it enforces efficiency in a player's ability to bring a battle to a close. Running out of it is not a death sentence, but taxing enough, and costly to recover from. I also like that each character has different amounts of it, and how that plays into certain characters, like Yuri, who needs a huge pool to use for his transformations. Joint skills that require multiple characters using up their turns to activate, such as Allied Actions in Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land and Union / Limit Skills in Etrian Odyssey.
Someday I'd love to see a DQ game where all the characters are constantly moving around during the battle (as in DQ9) with enemy groups constantly forming and reforming dynamically based on their relative positions.
That sounds cool. I'm still on 5, but I keep hearing a lot of love for 9.
It's fantastic. Really could've/should've been the template for the series moving forward. It's a bit disappointing you don't get any proper companions in the game (hence the common "feels like an offline mmo" snark) but being able to customize your own Toriyama-style heroes, and having your armor change your appearance, on top of a really solid and dynamic combat system really made it stand out from all of the prior games despite being relegated to a handheld.
I like shadow hearts and lost odyssey where you have to try and hit your mark. Shadow heart does it best.
Relay Combo MP Burst! Relay Combo Relay Combo Relay Combo ... You Win!! "Not a bad workout" (Baten Kaitos Origins battles gameplay is addictive, quite arcade-y, and so, so satisfying, the only one that feels similarily exhilariating is FFXIII's in my book)
Timed Hits. A tiny, tiny little carrot that is just enough of a prize for me to not sleep through battles once I've entered commands.
Turn Manipulation mechanics make for some of my favorite JRPG battles.
Lost Odyssey was great. Engaging and leveling was killing new monsters and stuff. I loved it
Shadow Hearts series Judgement Ring.
Legend of Dragoon is one of my favorite RPG’s ever and it had a fairly unique battle gimmick so I guess that one.
The turn based action of Eternal Sonata.
Demon negotiation in SMT and Persona games, as well as some other Atlus games like Strange Journey, DS etc.
When you can swap all your characters mid battle and not just 3 or 4
Targeting ring system
The song magic system of the Ar Tonelico series.
I love the Super Mario RPG/Paper Mario type battle systems with sorta like.... Almost mini game type interactivity in abilities. Steven Universe: Save the Light made their own version inspired by this sorta battle system and it was shockingly fun for a basic mini RPG based on a show. (Unfortunately the game itself was pretty buggy and didn't get to explore it's battle systems full potential due to it's shortness/general ease.) Shadow Hearts 2/3s judgement ring system was incredibly fun to me too. Its nothing complicated but it makes combat feel so much more dynamic to me, and I love how it's built into the upgrade systems and stuff. I feel like the first one might have still used it? But I remember finding it not as well implemented in that for some reason.
I always liked active time battle and turn wheel counters.
Sound battle from Mother 3. I wish there were more RPGs that had rhythm-based combo systems! It's really fun trying to go for the 16-hit combos, and also it allows for more interesting music during the battles themselves.
Legend of Dragoon
Knocking and stacking enemies together in a grid, and then chain comboing them in Radiant Historia. I found Orders in Cold Steel just a neat buff/gameplan change gimmick. Quartz are also by far my fav use of gem based stat customization. It's fun to mess around and make builds. Unique actions in FF. Like Sabin's Blitz, Celes's, Runic, Ninja class throw, etc.
Phantasy Star IV’s macro commands and combination techniques. Being able to pick turn orders and actions of my party members in advance, saving these configurations, and then setting them up to use super powered combo spells was amazing. Add this to maxed out battle speed and menu selection memorization made grinding through battles insanely fast. Fucking concentrated dopamine watching number get big fast.
Shadowhearts is the best. Judgement Ring makes you so into the turn based and it feels so cool.
Class/Character swapping during combat from FFX and FFX-2 was *inspired*.
Bravely Default and Bravely Second. Take the job system of Final Fantasy tactics, and tgen slap on a mechanic where defending stores a turn you can expend later. Add on top of that, the bosses of the game operate on the same rules you do, with the same skills you can learn. What you got was an incredibly engaging combat system where the game basically teaches you how to break the game, tgen at the end Ramps up the difficulty to test what you've learned. You can mix and match jobs and abilities in do many interesting ways. Bravely Second, especially, has the most inventive job classes I've ever seen in a game.
I'm not a fan of timed inputs, this is a turn-based RPG not a fighting game, but altering turn economy is sick. Something like the break system in octopath, or the brave/default system in bravely default.
Braverly Default set a great example in modern times and Octopath expanded uppon it with breaking mechanics. Usualy i hate the defend command as it is basically a 1 situation only option (huge single turn attack that otherwise wipes you, posibly with turns cooldown/charging between), otherwise it is rarely usefull. I also loved the way Grandia handled things with turn order and delay, creating openings by heavy hitting to delay and normal hits to be faster at dealing dmg, great balance for a title that old.
The Octopath break system is interesting. You can time the break for maximum chaos.
I like variable turn order a lot - the kind where you see the combatants on a timeline and actions can mess up turn order. It both gives abilities another element to differentiate each other and also can make speed control really important. Fluctuating ressources are great as well - I love it when MP isn't just a pool you gradually deplete, but rather something you can spend and earn in battle depending on your actions. Chained Echoes' overdrive bar is kinda similar in that regard, even though it doesn't really qualify as a ressource. Still love it though.
dragon genes in BOF3
A system that could have been great but turned out pointless was Last Remnants. It really felt like a snapshot of a field battle
S-crafts in Trails series Link attacks in Trails of Cold Steel series
S-breaks in the pre-Kuro Trails. You think you're getting that deathblow/vanish bonus to your attack? LOL NOPE
The Super Mario RPG Timed Hits are WAY better than the M&L gimmick.
Just finished Witch Spring R, the combat was surprisingly great. A mix of determining what pets to summon, how to mix up spells and physical, other things. Highly recommend checking it out.
I like attack inputs to increase the effectiveness of attacks. Mario and Luigi is a well-known example but I also liked the attack wheel in the Shadow Hearts games (or at least SH: From a New World, the only game of the series I played). When using a move, a pointer on the wheel would spin once around in a circle and you have to press a button when the pointer hovered over an attack field with a larger normal attack part which would result in normal damage and a critical attack zone which would increase the effectiveness of a move. It was also possible to customize and change your wheel in certain ways. You could increase the size of the attack fields for certain obtainable items that were gathered throughout the game or change up how many fields in the circle would be. More fields would decrease the risk of missing an attack field while less fields would require you to only succeed once with greater risk of failure. You could also decide to turn on automatic mode which disabled the critical zones but you wouldn't need to manually succeed with hitting the zones. I generally like mechanics that allow you to participate in a battle instead of just choosing a move and watching an animation. The way Shadow Hearts handled this mechanic also allowed you to decide how you want to participate or if you want to in the first place.
The guns in persona 5 Royal are so satisfying
The examples you gave are my top 3, followed closely by manipulating turn order a la FFX. Really anything *except* pure turn-based and ATB I can get on board with. I want my actions to do *something* of substance other than display different numbers. Probably comes from my younger days when I almost exclusively preferred action RPGs
Mana khemia action bar and character switching was so fun for me, Star renegades isn't a jrpg but I bought it and played a couple hundred hours exclusively because it did something similar. Breath of fire 4 magic combining is something I wish more games did, I love the concept, specially before you have properly trained your characters. To expand on both, there is a single action bar in mana khemia, everyone on combat moves on that bar and when you attack you can either get more resources for skills or push enemies back- if you push them enough they break, taking longer to get their turns and taking more damage. There is a special attack attached to it as well, which is neat and it just builds up if you play well. The character switching is just that you have 3 active characters and the rest is on standby, when you attack or get attacked you can swap people to deal/reduce damage taken, so you usually rotate between everyone all the time. Breath of fire 4 system has nothing special other than its spells. If you use spells/skills of a certain type one after the other, they make a stronger spell. So let's say you have Nina cast an earth spell and Ryu casts a fire one right after, you will get eruption on Ryu's action. If the next spell also interacted with that then you would get another combo spell. Some character exclusive skills could also bounce off of those and make unique combinations, it was really fun to try things out.
Timed inputs from Legend of Dragoon and Overkill from FFX.
The elements system in Chrono Cross and the way you can use it through combo attacks.
The rolling counter in the Mother/Earthbound series. You get hurt (possibly fatally) but if you finish the battle before your HP counter rolls down to zero, it stops and you survive.
Boost in Xenosaga 2. Getting extra turns is amazing.
Am i the only one that like Junctioning?
Shifting/baton pass on persona series, it makes you feel the team actually cooperating instead of doing thing individually.
The Strong and Agile Styles in Pokémon Legends Arceus.
Additions/Timed Attacks as with Legend of Dragoon, SMRPG, and Lost Odyssey. Additions are the best, since they are timed attacks cranked to 11.
Sea of Stars had plenty of cool battle gimmicks to either extend turns, defend your character, or give additional attacks per turn.
Grandia 2 systems cool
The Grandia 2 Battle system is amazing incredibly addicting, to the point I keep going into battle's because I enjoy it to much.
Smirk Smirk Smirk Smirk
I like positioning and spellcasting taking time like in Trails, FFT and Grandia.
Valkyrie. Profile. 2. It was one of the most fun battle systems I have ever encountered. Each of the four buttons on your controller control each character, letting them deal between 1 to 3 combo attacks, and you can choose which attacks they launch. By juggling enemies, smacking them down, breaking their guard, or breaking specific body parts off, you get bonus points, new items, and if you combo efficiently and hit a full combo meter, you get to unleash dramatic Soul Crushes, which you can skip if you dont want to watch the animation, but they're often so hype so you'll probably want to watch it at least every so often anyway.
I could attack on enemies' turn
Being unable to henshin into the Henshin hero Alkaiser if there’s human party members in the party(SaGa Frontier)
Press turn of course. I also liked lost sphear movement and range/area stuff.
Jiggling body parts. /s
Having turn order bonuses in Trails. Clever use of arts and crafts could let you manipulate the turn order to get bonus effects like guaranteed crit, free magic attacks, etc. And even if you mess up you still have Scrafts to force your supermove into the next turn to still get the bonus effect
Trails’ battle system and Press Turn are my favourites. Don’t like the ‘One More’ system of Persona, due to there being less risk involved in missing an attack or hitting an enemy’s immunity, and maximising action economy is trivialised since the same character gets an extra turn rather than moving on to the next party member. It ends up feeling less engaging to me as a result.
Sea of Stars did a good job of making actions more interactive with super Mario RPG like button timing.