Best Combat System?

[hazabaza1]

Wow, I have a few.
First of all, the Tales series wins my vote for some of the best combat in the JRPG genre.
No More Heroes, because of all the area attacks, and wrestling moves and the such.
And of course, Mount and Blade. See the video above, and search up some horse combat on youtube.

I would have voted Mass Effect 2, but all that has to bring it from generic shooty bang bang is a really rather good interactive cross-hair, and the biotic/tech abilities.

 

[Thk13421]

AC2, because it was simple, and because you couldn't just spam counters like in the first game, and it had a diversity of enemies.

However, there is one thing that bugs me: In AC1, when you got hit with an attack, you did block it, but it was sloppy and puts you off balance. You would loose some Sync. It made sense. The animus was basically telling you that Altiar was better than that, so please suck less.

Cut to AC2,where every hit leads to an enormous burst of blood, and it begins to look ridiculous. It bugs me.

 

[Sephychu]

Heck; Tales, Arkham Asylum, Bayonetta, SRPGs and some others are all brilliant in my view.

 

[Abedeus]

Uhm. That's why you are supposed to tell your team what to do - I always set Yukari to heal/support, so she doesn't try attacking with a bow (unless the enemy is weak to Pierce, that is) and I take either Mitsuru and Akihiko or Mitsuru and Aegis/Aigis. Tried using Junpei, he's sitting at level 29 or so. Same with Ken - never used him more than twice. Koromaru is sitting on level 52, while my character already has level 69 Personae (Thanatos, Raphael).

The best way to make sure your character attacks enemy's weakness? Use the "Knock Down" command. This way they will try to exploit the enemy's weakness.

However, what makes Persona 3/FES/4 combat good is that your characters can miss and fall down, losing a turn, enemy can miss/get knocked down, then if everyone is lying flat you can do an All-Out-Attack, after which you get to Shuffle for cards...

...Man, I must finish P3 by the end of the week and start playing P4.

Oh, it's been awhile since I played P3, let me rephrase:

Spoiler

Me: Oh, the enemy is only damaged by pierce, and uses Pierce counters... Aegis! Do your stuff! Adjusts battle tactic
Aegis defends.

Me: Hey Aegis! YOU are perfect for this situation. Do your stuff.
Aegis defends.

Me: Look, I'll attack first, take a hit, but maybe it'll give you some ideas. Bam/Counter!/Ouch!
Aegis Defends.

Me: Tries every battle tactic
Aegis Defends

Me:...
Aegis Defends

Me: ...
Aegis Defends

Me: Blargh!
Aegis Defends

Better?
There are fights where no matter what you tell them, they will act in their own best interests (and not that of the infinitely more important party leader).

Again, P4 allows you to control your party directly, which solves this issue. But it's still pretty standard Turn based fighting.

Okay fine, after playing today I can see that putting Yukari or Mitsuru on "Heal/Support" doesn't change the fact that they waste SP casting Wind/Ice Break on an enemy who is Weak to physical attacks...

Direct control in P4? Awesome. Just more things to look up for.

Standard turn based fighting... not really. It's a lot more fluid and dynamic than other turn-based jRPGs. Just the fact that you can knock down enemies, you get knocked down, or you character's team might run away and desert you if they are under the effect of Fear makes it a lot more interesting.

 

[ma55ter_fett]

Dark Messiah had some very good fps sword play, far superior to Oblivion and Fallout 3 anyway.

 

[Dangerious P. Cats]

My favorite combat system is that of Mount & Blade [http://www.taleworlds.com/main.aspx] (the original, not Warbands). I like directional combat since I find it more interlectually engaging than mashing buttons. Having to choose a line of attack, or defend it, creates a fair degree of tactical choice. I thougherly recogmend that people try it.

Sorry for the double post, but this too. I'd forgotten how much fun Mount & Blade is, especially its combat system. Took me a while to realise how powerful a spear charge on horse-back is. What's wrong with Warband's combat system? Have they changed it? I haven't played it yet.

The creators changed the animations and also made your characeter swivel at the torso in a weird way which makes judging distance really difficult and just look really stupid. Also all attacks from horseback seem to only come at shoulder hight or right next to your horse meaning you can't hit infantry unless you're right next to them which ussally means they've already hit, ussally by virtue of the affore mentioned distance problems. Also Polearms no longer couch. Well lances might I havn't tried them yet, but none of the other Pole Arms do anymore. I though the premise behind polearms was that they were useless if your enemy got too close but capable of couching to balance them out against two handed weapons. The combat is basically frustrating and unituitive now where it wasn't in the first, which is a shame because the extra faction and new politics mechanics are really interesting.

 

[Axzarious]

Dark Messiah had some very good fps sword play, far superior to Oblivion and Fallout 3 anyway.

Ill agree with that. That game had the best melee system out of any single FPS I have played.

 

[dazed871]

I just adore the battle system used in the Tales series.

 

[Shaun555]

Mass Effect 2 has a real nice third-person setup now. For hand-to-hand I'd have to tie The Bourne Conspiracy and Batman:AA.

 

[Sebenko]

My favorite combat system is that of Mount & Blade [http://www.taleworlds.com/main.aspx] (the original, not Warbands). I like directional combat since I find it more interlectually engaging than mashing buttons. Having to choose a line of attack, or defend it, creates a fair degree of tactical choice. I thougherly recogmend that people try it.

Sorry for the double post, but this too. I'd forgotten how much fun Mount & Blade is, especially its combat system. Took me a while to realise how powerful a spear charge on horse-back is. What's wrong with Warband's combat system? Have they changed it? I haven't played it yet.

The creators changed the animations and also made your characeter swivel at the torso in a weird way which makes judging distance really difficult and just look really stupid. Also all attacks from horseback seem to only come at shoulder hight or right next to your horse meaning you can't hit infantry unless you're right next to them which ussally means they've already hit, ussally by virtue of the affore mentioned distance problems. Also Polearms no longer couch. Well lances might I havn't tried them yet, but none of the other Pole Arms do anymore. I though the premise behind polearms was that they were useless if your enemy got too close but capable of couching to balance them out against two handed weapons. The combat is basically frustrating and unituitive now where it wasn't in the first, which is a shame because the extra faction and new politics mechanics are really interesting.

I don't know what everyone's complaining about.
The new animations for two-handed swords on horseback have a wonderful "Fuckest thou, peasant!" (is that correct? I'm not up to speed on my medieval language murdering)

Lances still couche, and in one of the recent patches they added back in auto-couching. Before the patch you had to press "X" to change weapon mode and go into couche.

But yeah, Warband is definitely buggier than M&B- I've seen a few debug messages, and an odd green/blue light on characters in some taverns and castles.
I've heard of some game-breaking bugs, but haven't encountered any yet.

If you have M&B already, then Warband is definitely not worth the £25 steam wants for it. £15 would be more passable, and even then only after the bugs are fixed.
If you don't have M&B already, wait for the bugs to be fixed and it will be worth it.

 

[Victim 19]

Reonance of fate, sure its kinda stiff and awkward like an erection but its gotta be among the flashiest gun play i've seen since DMC....unlike an erection?

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Bayonetta.

Toned to perfection. A finely tuned machine of awesome.

 

[CrashBang]

Depends on the genre...
My favourite combat system for flow and fluitiy in fighting games would be either DOA4 or the Soul Calibur games
For adventure/hack 'n' slash games it'd be God Of War or Prince Of Persia SOT trilogy
Also the combat system in Arkham Asylum raised the bar, it's outstanding and so much fun to use

 

[Mr. Mike]

My favorite combat system is that of Mount & Blade [http://www.taleworlds.com/main.aspx] (the original, not Warbands). I like directional combat since I find it more interlectually engaging than mashing buttons. Having to choose a line of attack, or defend it, creates a fair degree of tactical choice. I thougherly recogmend that people try it.

Sorry for the double post, but this too. I'd forgotten how much fun Mount & Blade is, especially its combat system. Took me a while to realise how powerful a spear charge on horse-back is. What's wrong with Warband's combat system? Have they changed it? I haven't played it yet.

The creators changed the animations and also made your characeter swivel at the torso in a weird way which makes judging distance really difficult and just look really stupid. Also all attacks from horseback seem to only come at shoulder hight or right next to your horse meaning you can't hit infantry unless you're right next to them which ussally means they've already hit, ussally by virtue of the affore mentioned distance problems. Also Polearms no longer couch. Well lances might I havn't tried them yet, but none of the other Pole Arms do anymore. I though the premise behind polearms was that they were useless if your enemy got too close but capable of couching to balance them out against two handed weapons. The combat is basically frustrating and unituitive now where it wasn't in the first, which is a shame because the extra faction and new politics mechanics are really interesting.

That's a bummer, once I found out you COULD couch spears and polearms I used it all the time, in fact often always when on horseback. I would understand why they'd want to take it out for multiplayer balance reasons, but there's not excuse for it to be removed from single-player. Man all those other tweaks sound bad too, I think the system was perfect the way it was. I'm sure there'll be mods for the old combat system pretty soon though, so anyone that shares you sentiments can have an old-school M&B experience.

 

[CoachZ]

For 3rd person action - PoP: Warrior Within
For RPG's, I liked Valkyria Chronicles a lot
For 1st person combat, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic was awesome.
For strategy games, Dawn of War still has the best combat animations ever!

 

[Z(ombie)fan]

fps? really? no contest.