Battle Systems That You Would Like to See Again

[Shadow flame master]

As the title suggests, there might have been a game that you like or had a fleeting interest in whose battle system more or less caught your attention, and now you would probably like to see it again in other games.

The battle system I would like to see implemented again would be the card battle system of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. I found it to be an interesting concept, using cards to fight and interact with the world. Sure, it could use some fixing up, but I would be happy if it came back to new game.

So what's yours Escapists?

 

[PicaPirate]

Would have to be Mount and Blade for me.
Its combat system was something I had brainstormed in my head for a good while now and it's a good skill based one.

Now if only the troop controlling system in it didn't suck so bad...

 

[CannibalCorpses]

Go on then...i'll say die by sword since someone mentioned mount and blade lol...

 

[Jandau]

Bahamut Lagoon - A SNES-era JRPG that almost nobody heard of. It had a cool take on the standard JRPG battle system. Basically, the game was turn based, on a Fire Emblem style map. You had two types of "units" - Dragons and Heroes. The twist was that Dragons were hugely powerful, but were controlled by the AI. On the other hand, you could control Heroes directly, but they came in groups of 4 and you set them up out of a big selection of characters. Each fight on the battle map played out in a separate view and was essentially one turn of a JRPG battle.

The end result were large scale battles with multiple parties of Heroes running around, supported by massive Dragons overhead.

Further depth came between missions - Dragons were controlled by the AI and their behavior (as well as stats and evolution) depended on what you fed them. And Dragons can eat any item in the game. So there's a management element, where you're trying to raise your dragons right, to get massive engines of destruction, instead of cowardly deformed freaks (yes, both were possible results from pretty much any Dragon, and yes, you could fuck yourself over a ton if you didn't pay attention).

Likewise, Hero group lineup made a ton of difference. Do you deploy balanced parties capable of facing anything, or do you deploy specialist teams, trying to get high-end combo spells, but running the risk of being countered by the enemy?

I suppose this sounds a bit too chaotic and hands-off, but Hero parties function like Fire Emblem units that need to be manually set up before the battle, and Dragons can be relied upon if raised correctly.

Oh, and it was one of the prettiest SNES games ever made. I very much suggest you look it up.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

I've played Bahamut Lagoon! That makes 2.

OT: Grandia 2's system which let you clearly see when enemies were about to attack. Additionally, special moves knocked most enemies back on the turn gage, potentially allowing you to prevent any enemy from attacking at all if you were careful and had a good supply of MP. They could do this to you too of course, but I'd still like to see an evolution of this system where more powerful attacks took longer, or some attacks had the drawback of making its victim jump forward on the gage. Maybe some kind of blocking move that delayed your turn in exchange for reducing damage, or combo moves a la Chrono Trigger where all participants must be at the end of the gage first.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Dragon's Dogma

I don't think I've ever played a fantasy RPG (ish) where the combat felt so wonderful. It has just the slightest dash of Devil May Cry to give the generally grounded combat a very satisfying flourish. Many fantasy RPGs have tried to copy the Lord of the Rings films, but this was the first one that succeeded in truly giving me that feeling.

If we could get a Dragon Age game with this exact combat, I'd be in heaven.

 

[go-10]

Final Fantasy X-2 - SE finally perfected the ATB system and then they went and abandoned it form that game onwards, They really should go back to it again

Valkyria Chronicles - I've never played a game that has a battle system that gets even close to what VC did. It was awesome and challenging a shame the series died after 3

 

[momijirabbit]

Final Fantasy X-2's battles system is the best one I have ever seen in a JRPG, You can't just sit there and carefully plan out your next attack, you have to think fast or risk taking damage that could have been avoided if you attacked a second earlier.

While on the topic of X-2, Chac can go fuck herself, guaranteed petrification on attack and it ignores guards against petrify, Screw That.

 

[JonnyHG]

Gotta say The Last Remnant. It took a while to get used to but ended up being quite enjoyable.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Risen 1. The combat in that was amazing, and while combat has been improved immensely in Risen 3 over the second game, it's still really lacking in comparison. The first Risen has one of my favourite melee combat systems (albeit a bit easy if you opt to use a shield) and I'd love to see it implemented again in a future Piranha Bytes game. Unfortunately, they've completely changed around the way their games work mechanically, so I don't imagine that's going to happen.

Other people have mentioned it, but Mount & Blade: Warband, which is easily the deepest and most rewarding combat system I've ever played. I'd love to see Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord re-use a more polished, updated version of the same system with better animations and some kind of limitation to feinting (feint spamming is kinda ridiculous looking).

While it isn't out yet until late 2015, Kingdom Come: Deliverance is looking to have an extremely good combat system, and possibly the first truly realistic depiction of sword play in a video game so far. It's one to keep an eye on next year for sure.

 

[FillerDmon]

Honestly, with a little spit and shine and polish, Dissidia Final Fantasy had a pretty cool combat system. More of that would be the hypest gameplay on youtube!

 

[PinkiePyro]

a few years ago I would of answered the system from Cubivore it worked well easy to get the basics down and was well balanced with a nice rock paper scissors thing going down.. but now it kind of has a spiritual successor in Tokyo jungle the fighting in that is fairly similar (they are both food chain games after all) but T.J. lacks the rock,paper,scissors part.. though it does add in allowing followers

 

[The Wykydtron]

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII had some damn fun combat and switching schemata was an interesting idea and worked well, would love to see Square do something with it.

The World Ends With You, like many a fan, I am holding out hope for a sequel, but if not, I still want to see the battle system explored further, because it was the most fun combat on the DS, entirely by touchscreen.

Final Fantasy X-2, as already mentioned, despite the games faults, its combat was damn near flawless, being able to kill an enemy during its attack animation never got old.

The Last Remnant, make it more obvious what your troops are gonna do (what was witht he weird positioning that determined physical and magic attacks or something?) and I can see it going a long way, because when shit hit the fan, the fights were absolutely thrilling (Gates of Hell stands as one of the most exciting and most gruelling fights I have ever had in a game)

Dissidia, hopefully Square will make an actual sequel as opposed to the psuedo sequel that 012 was, add more characters and more moves to pull off (6 ground moves and 6 air moves made fights feel limited to be honest) make characters switch forms like Lightning could for more usable moves and we may well have a damn masterpiece. If no sequel is made, still wanna see the system explored more.

Does The Last Remnant end up being any good by the way? I've gone through the first few hours and i'm unsure how the story is gonna go, it could go the boring, generic route with random anime/JRPG tropes just randomised and thrown at you or it could go somewhere interesting.

The combat system did look interesting so I would like to know if it's worth going back into.

OT: I suppose Fire Emblem: Awakening, though I dunno how many games have the same type of combat system so maybe it's more widely used than I think it is.

The sort of rock-paper-scissors approach (double rock-paper-scissors?) was pretty cool, the fucking dread that hits you when you realise you left your Pegasus unit out in range of an Archer when you end your turn is truly gut-wrenching...

[sub][sub]Cordellia! Nooooooooooo![/sub][/sub]

 

[fletch_talon]

I liked the Megaman Battle Network/Starforce system, the use of proper positioning and timing made it very cool to play and combo attacks (stun with a shock attack then lob a grenade, steal a tile of the opponent's area so you can get in range for your wide sword etc.)

Also the Medabots RPG had a cool system. Your bots took their order, then had to run to the middle of the arena to execute them, then run back to you, wash rinse repeat. Thing is all the parts (head, right arm, left arm, legs) determined what moves you had and in the case of legs, your speed. Your attacks also targeted these parts which could be destroyed independently. What this meant was, if you had really fast legs, you could get to attack first, potentially destroy the part your opponent planned to use meaning when they got to their turn they couldn't attack. Alternatively, you could destroy their legs meaning they move really slowly, giving you the chance to get multiple attacks in before they can take one.

Such a good game.

 

[Alexei F. Karamazov]

More of that would be the hypest gameplay on youtube!

OT: I would be totally fine seeing another game similar to the two Castlevania games featuring Soma Cruz, Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow. Both games were kick-ass in their own right, but the games were all about stealing the souls of those you fought to gain their abilities... when I write it like that, it sounds really overdone, but it doesn't feel like it!

To my knowledge, none of the Castlevania games prior to AoS had a similar mechanic, and after DoS, it was mostly forgotten. Every enemy had a chance of "dropping" their soul, which allowed you to mimic their behavior in some way. Some were really damn cool, while others were tripe, but it still felt exciting, and gave a second reason to thoroughly explore areas.

The only downside was that the chance of an enemy "dropping" their soul was random, so farming souls (and failing) could be extremely aggravating. At least the xp drops made up for the lost time, somewhat.

 

[Alexei F. Karamazov]

I liked the Megaman Battle Network/Starforce system, the use of proper positioning and timing made it very cool to play and combo attacks (stun with a shock attack then lob a grenade, steal a tile of the opponent's area so you can get in range for your wide sword etc.)

Whoa, I completely forgot about those games! Damn right Battle Network was cool! My first and only entry to the series was Battle Network 5, though, and even then I don't think I finished it all the way for whatever reason. Are there any standouts in the series that you'd suggest?

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

The Golden Sun battle system is terrific, I wouldn't mind a game that plays similarly. The decision to go for summons or to retain stats can be critical and I just liked the class system.

 

[gsf1200]

Final Fantasy 7. I loved the materia and the way you could use it in armor or weapons. And then you could chain some effects together to make interesting combinations.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

The first BioShock. The way the Plasmids and weapons were done was really awesome. Infinite improves it in some ways but it also takes a couple steps back too that I really didn't like. Don't know how Burial at Sea was at all though.

Ninja Gaiden 2. Haven't found a game like it that comes close to it, to how varied and satisfying the weapons felt...