First of all, Jasede, you're reading too much negativity into my comments. It's true I'm not a huge fan of this genre, but in the other thread I did mention that I find this particular game to be one of the more competently done examples.
It's probably my own fault, as I couldn't resist the "less depth than Pokemon" cheap shot, but it's less negative than it sounds, as CK so ably illustrated, Pokemon is actually designed as a competitive multiplayer game and has quite a bit of depth, at least that's what I gather from the few narrated youtube battles I've watched.
Ultimately though, my purpose of my post was to label SMT:SJ as having JRPG combat, rather than to criticize it overly harshly.
Combat where your party and the monsters stand immobile across from each other and trade attacks and where actions occur purely through menus is classic JRPG combat. It may well have been invented in the West, but the Japs were the ones who ran it into the ground.
While it's more commonly associated with third person battle graphics, as you can see, 1st person was also common.
This kind of combat can be ok, there are least a few games with this sort of combat that also have excellent combat. But I don't see how it's not JRPG combat.
Jasede said:
... how did you ever become an RPG fan if you look for more combat depth than the (TONS) of spells and abilities in this game?
It can't have been Wizardry or Might and Magic, not 1-3 at any rate. Unless you liked the puzle solving aspects of M&M - the combat depth it can't be. It can't have been Eye of the Beholder or Dungeon Master or those kind of real-time RPGs either because they have even less depth. That also rules out Lands of Lore. What else is there? Goldbox, I suppose.
How did I become a RPG fan? Simple. My enjoyment of RPGs (and video games in general) is probably an (very, very slightly) more grown up extension of my enjoyment of playing war with plastic figures as a kid.
I want to
command little plastic guys a band of doughty adventurers or mercenaries and lead them into glorious battle, but I much prefer when they're not generic faceless grunts, but RPG style characters.
So admittedly I am greatly biased in favor of games where you get to move around on the map.
However, again, my purpose in this thread was not so much to bash, but to defend the characterization of SMT:SJ as having JPRG combat.
Look, my point is, are you really looking for much deeper combat than this, or saying that "jRPG" combat is so much different from the combat of RPGs? I think we can both agree that we have yet to encounter a game that actually had tactically meaningful combat while also being an RPG (I'd call Jagged Allicance 2 a strategy game, but it's closest to what I am thinking of.)
I think you're overestimating the depth of the combat in SMT a bit, as it's really more about how you build your demons than how you use them, using them seems relatively straightforward. The depth of the party building is pretty high, the combat seems somewhat formulaic, but still solid, at least for those who are fans of the genre.
