Carrion
Arcane
"Any action RPG with good combat" makes it seem like such games are common, when said description only really applies to a handful of games. Blade of Darkness has great combat, but calling it an action RPG is a bit of a stretch (yeah, it has levels and primitive character development, but even shooters like Jedi Knight and No One Lives Forever 2 have more involving RPG systems), and while the Souls games do have a satisfying combat system, they don't really blend player skill and character skill nearly as well as Gothic does.
Gothic's combat is pretty simple, but it really does everything it needs to do. It requires enough player skill so that mindless button mashing gets you nowhere, but you also feel your character growing in power more clearly than in almost any other game. Most (a)RPGs just tweak the numbers like weapon damage and accuracy as your character gets stronger, meaning that a low-level character doesn't feel that much different from a high-level one aside from the amount of damage he can deal, but in Gothic improving your skills completely changes the way your character behaves in combat, the different attacks that he can make and the way he moves around. For this thing alone the developers should be given a goddamn medal, and while the combat might arguably be more enjoyable with a different control scheme or some more encounter variety, there are hardly any real flaws to speak of — it's a simple but very functional system that manages to blend action combat with character development in an exemplary way.
All in all, the combat system is just another addition to the lengthy list of things that Gothic managed to get right but which other developers haven't understood to take inspiration from.
Gothic's combat is pretty simple, but it really does everything it needs to do. It requires enough player skill so that mindless button mashing gets you nowhere, but you also feel your character growing in power more clearly than in almost any other game. Most (a)RPGs just tweak the numbers like weapon damage and accuracy as your character gets stronger, meaning that a low-level character doesn't feel that much different from a high-level one aside from the amount of damage he can deal, but in Gothic improving your skills completely changes the way your character behaves in combat, the different attacks that he can make and the way he moves around. For this thing alone the developers should be given a goddamn medal, and while the combat might arguably be more enjoyable with a different control scheme or some more encounter variety, there are hardly any real flaws to speak of — it's a simple but very functional system that manages to blend action combat with character development in an exemplary way.
All in all, the combat system is just another addition to the lengthy list of things that Gothic managed to get right but which other developers haven't understood to take inspiration from.