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Incline Best combat systems in JRPGs

Goi~Yaas~Dinn

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And which one keep story and character development to a minimum, focusing on combat design instead?
Admittedly, there's prolly more story there than suites your taste, but I would also keep in mind that it's not a strictly either-or proposition: there have been RPGs that had stellar combat and story (cue "Why not both?" taco girl here). Another thing to remember is that all RPGs are probably going to do more than the bare minimum story-wise. It's a defining part of the genre. The only other thing I could recommend off-hand fitting your requirements are mobile RPGs, but I don't feel right telling you to play something I would never touch myself.
 

Goi~Yaas~Dinn

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It's a crime against humanity there are no competently made Chrono Trigger ROM hacks.
Off-topic, I suppose, but I'm pretty sure you can blame Squeenix being cocks for that. Who wants to ROMhack something just to be sued into the ground if it gets too popular? Still, the cynical little voice inside me says it may be for the best no one does a lot of work on Trigger...You have an automatic 50/50 chance they'll attempt to bolt-plate on some of the fuck-awful canon from Cross, and you can't even call them on it because all they have to do is point silently at the DS re-issue of Trigger for precedent.
 

Expon

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Monster kingdom jewel summoner has a combat system very similar to smt's press turn with the only diffrence being if you attack the enemy's weakness to many times, there's a chance the enemy gose into a rage mode and attacks you for more damage they do otherwise.

Dx2 liberation changed the press turn system so you cant simply buff stack and wail on the enemy.

SaGa Scarlet grace has the best combat compared to any came in the SaGa franchise (you might hate the grace system)
 

orcinator

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Is Chrono Trigger too obvious? I think it's great - perhaps too few skills, but has a surprising amount of complexity (dual- and triple attacks, changing enemy positions, enemy attacks can alter party member positions (knock back, throw), multiple types of AoE effects, status effects elemental effects, objects in environment can be interacted during combat etc.)

Chrono Trigger is too easy for most of the mechanics to matter. Most are super shallow anyway, like the positioning which is completely irrelevant in 99% of fights.
 

Shaewaroz

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Is Chrono Trigger too obvious? I think it's great - perhaps too few skills, but has a surprising amount of complexity (dual- and triple attacks, changing enemy positions, enemy attacks can alter party member positions (knock back, throw), multiple types of AoE effects, status effects elemental effects, objects in environment can be interacted during combat etc.)

Chrono Trigger is too easy for most of the mechanics to matter. Most are super shallow anyway, like the positioning which is completely irrelevant in 99% of fights.

It's true the game is too easy, that's why ROMhacks would be so greatly appreciated. I don't agree about positioning though - enemy positioning plays an important role with regards to AoE attacks all the time. Ally positioning not so much.
 

Matador

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One not mentioned is FFXII combat. I vastly prefer turn based combat, but this game has the best implementation of RTWP. The gambits help with the repetitive boring non-brain actions like pre-fight buffing and healing, while you focus on the encounters and take control over actions that require thinking and improvisation. It also helps quickening trash mob killing.

The problem is the small party size. You are stuck with 3 characters most of the time, and in some parts you have a 4th one as a guest.
 

orcinator

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It's true the game is too easy, that's why ROMhacks would be so greatly appreciated. I don't agree about positioning though - enemy positioning plays an important role with regards to AoE attacks all the time. Ally positioning not so much.
It just gives you some extra damage every now and then if they do manage to line up but later on you'll just be spamming things that hit everything, so no it's not important.
And increasing the difficulty won't help when the game is super simplistic.
 

Damned Registrations

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Do the tactical ones count? FFT had some very good mechanics, including CT (essentially a proper way to work speed into turn order along with getting faster turns by not moving, not attacking, or both) increased damage vs charging enemies, good ol' flanking and height advantages (which even a lot of western tactical games don't bother with, having entirely flat terrain) and while silly, the zodiac alignment thing added another layer to things as well. Along with just a ton of cool individual ability mechanics like stealing, jumping, various status effects, geomancy, various reaction skills and movement abilities, being able to ride chocobos, dismount, and have them attack on their own... plenty of cool shit. The Faith/Brave mechanics were cool too, though abusing them led to some very OP shit.

Vanguard Bandits had some interesting rock/paper/scissors combat as well, with dodge vs counter vs defending various types of attacks, and a fatigue mechanic, so even weaker units could take on a powerful enemy by whaling on him till he's too exhausted to defend himself.

Brigandine is mostly bog standard combat mechanics as far as what abilities do and how damage is calculated and such, but the rune area each commander needed to keep monsters in was a nice touch, as was the option of taking down a commander to make his bodyguards disappear (doubly so vs a faction leader.)

FF10 actually had a good turn order system, with different abilities taking different amounts of time and fast characters getting multiple turns vs slow ones. The way stats scaled was interesting as well, I can't recall if it was quadratic or exponential but the difference between 50 str and 30 str was WAAAY more than 40% more damage, and a ~10 point difference between accuracy and evasion stats meant you were hitting air almost always.

The rage mechanic introduced in lufia 2 and copied by the FF series is a good one too. Was especially good in lufia 2 since you could customize what you used it for with equipment, making gear not just a matter of best stats in slot.

Ogre Battle's system of units getting multiple turns in each 'round' of combat and the potential to win without killing your opponent (or lose without dying) was interesting as well. Excellent campaign and character growth mechanics too.

Breath of Fire series has had some interesting mechanics over the years as well. 3 had a very cool dragon system that essentially let you make a custom character on the fly in combat ranging from glass cannons to tanks that replaced your party and a bunch of weird niche cases, assuming you had the right genes available. Pity you spend much of the game without much selection and they weren't balanced all that well, or needed since most fights were too easy. BoF 5: DQ is more noteworthy for it's out of combat mechanics I suppose, it certainly had unique combat but I found it pretty tedious for the most part.

Front Mission series (I really only played 3) with it's locational damage and pilot ejection (and mech capture!) mechanics was really cool as well. Actually the combat skills were pretty cool too. Watching your ace melee pilot walk up and just unload on some poor fuck with half a dozen swings (essentially a high tiered crit since multiple skills proccing gave multiple attacks, and was quite rare) always felt amazing. And the different weapon types all felt pretty unique due to the variations in range, the way they tended to deal locational damage, their elements, etc.

Star Ocean 2 had some cool combat mechanics in regards to different types of knockback, float (vertical juggling, basically), stun, blocking, etc. mechanics and varied enemy types. A heavy knight with a shield might need to be struck from behind (or with magic) while a lighter mage can be hit head on. But while you might one shot that mage, something like a ninja or berserker might get knocked back really far by certain attacks and thereby escape being caught in a combo, so you'd want to use attacks that knock them up rather than back, unless you wanted to keep them at a distance, in which case you could use the knockback defensively. All that kinda stuff along with the various randomly activating battle skills made things a lot more dynamic than you'd expect. Although the difficulty was lacking by default and on higher settings it turned into 'How do I cheese this game?'

Earthbound's rolling HP meter (essentially it took some real world time before a big hit would finish dealing the damage as the numbers ticked down, giving you a chance to heal or land a last desperate attack) was a neat quirk and much better implementation of adding real time to make combat intense than shit like timed hits or the botched ATB system present in CT and FF4-9.

Phantasy Star's system of techniques (which use a pool of generic points) vs skills (which can be used a specific number of times each individually before resting, so you might have an uber heal you can use once before resting regardless of everything else) was pretty cool, along with a cool combo system pretty similar to chrono trigger's.

SaGa Frontier has some really cool combat mechanics, including the HP/LP/WP/JP system (basically two different health pools and two different 'magic' pools) learn new special attacks (or immunities to certain attacks!) during battle, especially in desperate situations, and a rather unique take on the combo system that has combos occur dynamically based on attack traits rather than a bunch of pre scripted ones. Character growth and the different races was really cool as well, along with some really cool spell effects like glass shield, overdrive, stasis, light sword, and a bunch of other cool shit.

Plenty of jrpgs have interesting mechanics, they're just wasted because they didn't bother to tune the difficulty so they matter. Pretty much all these games have some pretty simple strategies that, while perhaps not optimal, are good enough to handle all threats in a repetitive way.
 

pakoito

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Plenty of jrpgs have interesting mechanics, they're just wasted because they didn't bother to tune the difficulty so they matter. Pretty much all these games have some pretty simple strategies that, while perhaps not optimal, are good enough to handle all threats in a repetitive way.
And that's what I'm trying to avoid :D
 

Damned Registrations

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If it's mostly difficulty you're hung up on then romhacks would be the way to go. I've got sparse experience with them though. Either that or try to find a gem in the sea of RPG Maker games. I enjoyed the mechanics of Wooden Ocean, but dropped it because it was laggy as fuck. Someone must have stumbled onto a good balance by now.
 

Endemic

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Since we're mentioning tactical RPGs/SRPGs, I'll throw in Berwick Saga.

Some highlights for me:

-Hex grid instead of tiles
-Mercenary system\fund management (mercs are generally better than the fixed units you receive, cost scales with experience just like Jagged Alliance)
-A variety of interesting skills (eg passives, command-activated, defensive\offensive, leadership and overwatch types)
-Capturing, injuries, ransom mechanic. Enemies usually don't drop their equipment, so wounding them and capturing them is the only way to get certain items
-Soft (secondary objectives) and hard (primary objectives in many missions) turn limits encourage efficient play
-Unit turn orders that depend on relative numbers of units deployed rather than a speed stat (although attack speed is still relevant and affected by weapon\shield)
-Incentives to use dismounted knights such as terrain penalties and seperate hp bars for horses (the latter are also purchaseable, with varying stats)
-Weapons that have a variety of secondary effects (elemental damage, charge bonuses, breaking\bypassing\knocking away shields, disarming, poison\sleep\etc)
-Jagged Alliance-style equipment skills that improve by use as well as level-ups; bags for expanding inventory space
-Weather\fog-of-war effects on some maps
-Archers needing arrows to be replenished and being able to counterattack in melee with crossbows
-Some units can hide in dense terrain and ambush the opposition as they approach, this also applies to enemies you fight - countered by units with a scouting skill

Probably some more stuff that I've forgotten. There is a solid enough overarching story (I'm told it's partly inspired by Legend of the Galactic Heroes, although the dialogue is not fully translated yet), but it doesn't overwhelm the gameplay. I've been able to play through the second half of the game primarily using what's in the menus and objective screens.
 
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pakoito

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Are the Tales of games considered "RPG" enough? Because I thought a traditional jRPG stat system combined with real-time fighting game combat was pretty durn cool.
And which one keep story and character development to a minimum, focusing on combat design instead?
And why would those two be mutually exclusive?
They don't have to, I'm asking for the one that does a better job at it :D I'm going to be skipping all cutscenes, so it has to be understandable without them.
 

Damned Registrations

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ultra loser

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Super Robot Taisen OG Saga Endless Frontier
I don't even like robots and I'm a storyfag and this game has only anime boobs instead of story, but I enjoyed the battle system so much I kept playing.

adyudhf.jpg

Also Knights in the Nightmare but that's a sRPG.
 

Goi~Yaas~Dinn

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Are the Tales of games considered "RPG" enough? Because I thought a traditional jRPG stat system combined with real-time fighting game combat was pretty durn cool.
And which one keep story and character development to a minimum, focusing on combat design instead?
And why would those two be mutually exclusive?
Allow me to introduce to you the concepts of 'time' and 'money'.
Surely you're not implying that no games have ever done both really well...Right?
 

Damned Registrations

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No, but trading one for the other is a very real thing, and there's nothing wrong with having a preference. No game has ever done both as well as they possibly could have if they'd focused their efforts more on one or the other.
 

ultra loser

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Knights in the Nightmare is similar to Yggdra Union, right?
Never played it but judging by the random gameplay on jewtube it's not really similar. You have two different phases you can switch between and that makes a difference in what weapons you can use. Depending on a phase/weapon your units have different attack ranges and I don't mean it's a difference of if you can attack one or two squares in front of your character, attack areas have different shapes. You do all things in the game by controlling a wisp but you have to avoid projectiles enemies shoot at him.
 

Jacob

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Grab the Codex by the pussy
Super Robot Taisen OG Saga Endless Frontier
I don't even like robots and I'm a storyfag and this game has only anime boobs instead of story, but I enjoyed the battle system so much I kept playing.

adyudhf.jpg

Also Knights in the Nightmare but that's a sRPG.
I remember this, emulated it back then, but never beat it. Combat system isn't very Codexian but it sure is fun.
 

Nathir

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SMT: Nocturne and FF5 are what I liked the most, from JRPGS I've played.
 
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aweigh

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It's been years since I last played it but I remember really enjoying Xenogears combat. It was fun mashing buttons!
 

Abu Antar

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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Treasure Hunter G
Bahamut Lagoon
Feda: The Emblem of Justice
Treasure of the Rudras

4 cool games that are playable in English.
 

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