Best combat in an RPG? EVAR

@MiniPato said:

I'd like to see another Grandia game. The battle system in those games is pretty great and exciting.

FFXIII does a pretty good fast paced JRPG battle system. Despite my complaints about the game, I still really liked the battle system.

The only answer.

Skyrim, considering I haven't played too many RPGs

Final Fantasy X-2

Say what you want about the JPOP and fanservice, but the combat system was amazing.

I'd have to say the Witcher. Two different swords, three styles each, and the timed clickings were nice and therapeutic. Wish they kept it in the second.

FFXIII has some very interesting combat. It's too bad the the main plot line doesn't offer any real challenge until the very end, and that the only side stuff to test yourself against is giant turtles. That said, any challenge you did face had to be beaten with strategy, not grinding, which is something I can appreciate.

Someone mentioned Resonance of Fate, which is again another good JRPG that required strategy and an understanding of the mechanics.

In the west, my favorite would be Dragon Age. Reminded me enough of Neverwinter Nights to stoke the nostalgia but not enough to make me remember why I didn't like Neverwinter Nights.

@Animasta said:

@TheDudeOfGaming said:

@sthusby said:

@christ0phe said:

Dragon Age 2? Isn't this about RPG's, not action games?

Skill trees? Check. - Character custumization? Check. - Levelling? Check. - Dialoug options? Check. - Tons of quests? Check. - Janky as hell animation? Check.

I would say that qualifies as an RPG. Bitch got told.

Yeah, but see, somehow it still sucks, and if it indeed is RPG, then it's barely so. In any case Dragon Age 2 sucks, and if we can nominate turn based "RPGs" then I'm gonna say KOTOR. RPG, great turn based combat, made by the developer that made DA2 before it started sucking.

(when's the last time you played KOTOR, that game does not hold up)

I last plated KOTOR in the fall/winter of 2010 and while there is no argument that graphically the game shows its age, I still find its combat system to be the most enjoyable for all the RPGs I've played. There is an element of strategy that goes beyond a single combat round. One of my complaints about Dragon Age Origins is that I was unable to queue up several moves for each party member and have them connect over the course of the battle. I could set it up so that one teammate took down the enemy's shields, then another immediately followed with a concussion grenade, then my hero would toss her lightsaber and so forth. One character's action combined with the next characters for added strength of attack. Now, DAO did do this sometimes on the fly due to its convoluted tactics system, which incidentally was more fluid when it appeared in Final Fantasy XII, and if you really micromanaged you could pull off some of the same tricks, but I had more fun getting through fights in the original Knights of the Old Republic. DAO eclipsed it on my "all-time" list for a while, but a year later KOTOR returned to the top-spot because I find its combat system to be the most intuitive and satisfying for my tastes.

Easily Mount & Blade: Warband for me

@Matfei90 said:

Morrowind. Clearly.

Yes.

YEEES.

YEEEEEEEEEEES!

Action oriented: Dark Souls

Turn based: Final Fantasy 13. Say what you will about the pace, story, linearity, characters, etc, but the combat system was very smart and provided an interesting new way to approach the turn based structure.

Tales of Vesperia and Dark Souls.

Final Fantasy Tactics

Grandia effing 2.

It's either Temple of Elemental Evil, or one of the old-school Final Fantasy games; depending on what kind of RPG we're talking about here.

Dragon Age 2? WHAT?

Dark Souls has my vote on combat in an RPG.

Most ARPGs and even JRPGs barely have anything in common with actual RPGs (as in, games with roleplaying in). Genre naming conventions are so fucked up. You might as well call Modern Warfare a Shooter RPG and choose that.

@Jimbo said:

Most ARPGs and even JRPGs barely have anything in common with actual RPGs (as in, games with roleplaying in). Genre naming conventions are so fucked up. You might as well call Modern Warfare a Shooter RPG and choose that.

Okay, so what do you prefer: D20, GURPS, or other?

I like turn based JRPGs, so, those. Eternal Sonata, Star Ocean 4, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Infinite Undiscovery, Magna Carta 2, Final Fantasy XIII. I don't care for the western RPGs too much, Mass Effect is pretty great though.

@Beforet said:

@Jimbo said:

Most ARPGs and even JRPGs barely have anything in common with actual RPGs (as in, games with roleplaying in). Genre naming conventions are so fucked up. You might as well call Modern Warfare a Shooter RPG and choose that.

Okay, so what do you prefer: D20, GURPS, or other?

I'll take anything that's well implemented into the game and impacts and resonates with the roleplaying (roleplaying as in, your character and choices impacting the narrative) side of the game. Ideally, the reverse should be true also. RPGs too often feel like two seperate games running parallel but seperate from each other, and I think that's a waste of the genre's potential.

To clarify what I mean about naming conventions: I think you can absolutely have shooting in an RPG (ME2 for example, which I would consider to be both an RPG and a TPS - they aren't exclusive terms), but I don't think you can take mechanics commonly associated with RPGs (dice, stats, levelling - anything except roleplaying itself), slap them in another genre and start calling it an xRPG. IMO it should only be considered an RPG when you roleplay a character and have significant influence over the narrative. Deciding whether to kill everything in front of you with magic or with a sword is not roleplaying.

Capcom Vs. SNK 2.

Dragon Age 2 is da greatest RPG eva, problem CRPG fans? <____>

Anyway, even though it has a bad engine, Baldur's Gate 2 has a number of great encounters. Same goes for Icewind Dale 1 and 2. In terms of pure mechanics, probably games like Temple of Elemental Evil, Knights of the Chalice, and the Goldboxes would be amongst the best.

Of the JRPGs I've played, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Final Fantasy Tactics, and the Souls games.

Dark Souls, hands down.

@spazmaster666 said:

Turn-based: I gotta go with Lost Odyssey. It was definitely one of the most fun and smartly designed yet modern interpretation of the classic JRPG turn based combat I've ever experienced. The Ring Targeting system was also a really nice touch that gave the player some amount of active involvement during the combat.

Real-time: Dark Souls. Everything you do just requires so much precision, timing, and proper recognition of distancing, which is something that many action RPGs fair to properly convey. Also there's just so much weight and impact in the melee combat, which ends up being incredibly satisfying.

Exactamundo on both counts. Except 'fail' in place of 'fair'. ;)

The melee combat in Skyrim just feels so bad after playing DS right before it. Open world exploration game, blah, blah, blah.....but still.

You know, if you really think about, all games are RPGs. Because in just about every game you play the role of a character or something, sure it's not really role play eating ghosts or gunning down Russians, but it's just a technicality, so I guess it's not correct.

@Dr_Ventum: Skyrim combat is kind of terrible...but that's just my butthole opinion...

Maybe it was just the Star Wars universe, but I really enjoyed KOTOR's combat system.

@ArbitraryWater said:

@Ubersmake said:

For me it's Temple of Elemental Evil for the PC. I wanted to continue playing that game because of how it did turn-based combat. I never continued playing that game because of a host of other issues.

As someone who has ruthlessly promoted that game on these forums for the past year, my answer has to be this. While the game itself is host to many issues, not all of them fixed by the fan mod, the combat is absolutely the thing to play it for. Who knew that unabridged 3rd edition D&D and sadistic difficulty worked so well together?

Augh...and now I'm tempted to dig out the discs from my closet and play it again, on a machine that's probably even more incompatible with the game than the one I originally played/tried it on. Well done, sir. Well done.

@Animasta said:

@TheDudeOfGaming said:

@sthusby said:

@christ0phe said:

Dragon Age 2? Isn't this about RPG's, not action games?

Skill trees? Check. - Character custumization? Check. - Levelling? Check. - Dialoug options? Check. - Tons of quests? Check. - Janky as hell animation? Check.

I would say that qualifies as an RPG. Bitch got told.

Yeah, but see, somehow it still sucks, and if it indeed is RPG, then it's barely so. In any case Dragon Age 2 sucks, and if we can nominate turn based "RPGs" then I'm gonna say KOTOR. RPG, great turn based combat, made by the developer that made DA2 before it started sucking.

(when's the last time you played KOTOR, that game does not hold up)

I last plated KOTOR in the fall/winter of 2010 and while there is no argument that graphically the game shows its age, I still find its combat system to be the most enjoyable for all the RPGs I've played. There is an element of strategy that goes beyond a single combat round. One of my complaints about Dragon Age Origins is that I was unable to queue up several moves for each party member and have them connect over the course of the battle. I could set it up so that one teammate took down the enemy's shields, then another immediately followed with a concussion grenade, then my hero would toss her lightsaber and so forth. One character's action combined with the next characters for added strength of attack. Now, DAO did do this sometimes on the fly due to its convoluted tactics system, which incidentally was more fluid when it appeared in Final Fantasy XII, and if you really micromanaged you could pull off some of the same tricks, but I had more fun getting through fights in the original Knights of the Old Republic. DAO eclipsed it on my "all-time" list for a while, but a year later KOTOR returned to the top-spot because I find its combat system to be the most intuitive and satisfying for my tastes.

Most Tri-Ace games have great combat. It's too bad that the games they appear in don't usually match that quality.

I have a strong affinity for the Grandia 2 combat. It was your basic turned-based affair, but the way the attacks could stack and combo made it a lot more involved than most JRPG's I had played up until that point

I really liked the combat from FFXIII. Once they actually let you use the entire combat system the way it was supposed to be used (which isn't till about 30 freakin hours in), it's actually really fun.

Also, Dark Souls controls are kind of shit. Sorry everyone.

Definitely Dark Souls. Always has a nice weight to it and deliberate (as opposed to floaty I suppose) controls, not to mention that your equipment, armor and stats greatly affect your combat style.

@Turambar said:

Resonance of Fate

Loved that game and that crazy ass combat system. Resonance doesn't get enough love.

as far as some jrpg turn based combat goes, i was really sucked into the combat gameplay Legend of Dragoon for PSX. It wasn't the best game by any means, but it had a cool timing based mechanic that broke up the monotony that sometimes plagues turn based combat gameplay.

Since this thread is still alive and amazing combat is still burning in my brain here are some more, going for some more not as obvious choices today: 
 
The Last Remnant: This game as a whole is a damn shame, one minor thing the game tells you gets ignored by the masses (increasing party level =/= increasing your stats) and the entire industry basically takes a dump on the game because they fucked up and it's "way too hard". The combat is up there in terms of my favorites because they somehow bring the whole SRPG thing to turn based combat. You took various soldiers you recruit through out the game and put them into squads which then act as their own "character" so even though you had around 15 or so people in a battle it was more traditional in that you only selected actions for 3-4 groups per turn. You could never directly choose where your people stood but instead based on the mobs current position (as after its turn ended it would be facing the last group it attacked) you could choose options such as running out of their attack radius or flanking them so you could keep attacking without them turning back to you. Some of the battles in there with crazy huge monsters are probably some of my most memorable RPG battles as a whole. 
 
Baten Kaitos: Anyone who even remembers this game at this point probably knows how insane the combat was. The short version of it is you have a deck of cards you custom make by finding/buying other cards which you use in combat. Each card also had a number and using specific cards in specific orders based on number and type could boost it's effect and so on. When the game first came out I always thought it was one of the craziest things ever, but still enjoyed it. Oh also one of the characters used guns made out of musical instruments. 
 
Parasite Eve: Such a shame Square decided to turn the sequel to this game into a really bad hybrid of RPG mechanics and Resident Evil controls because the first game had some damn fine combat. For anyone whose read my choices thus far it's fairly clear that I love combat that blends the positioning and movement stuff of SRPGs with more traditional turn based mechanics and Parasite Eve was one of the earliest games (if not the first I played) that did this. It had that whole ATB filling up that let you attack that Square was fond of in many of their games, but an added bonus of allowing you to move around the combat field in real time as long as you weren't shooting your gun (which required you to stand still for the duration). Not a lot of fights made amazing use of this but there were some gems in there where running in to attack and then trying to dodge a tentacle arm thing that made the combat a lot more engaging than other RPGs at the time. 
 
 
That looks like a nice wall of text, I will stop there again, I guess before I end up typing forever.

Final Fantasy X

First thing that came to mind was Mass Effect 2. So I'll stick with that.

Kingdom Hearts! Booyah

It's a tie between Chrono Trigger and Persona 4 for me. Mass Effect 2 strikes me more as an action game than an RPG, otherwise that would easily top my list.

I'd probably have to say Dark Souls or Fallout 3

Do MMOs count? I gotta rep the Shadowbane, everywhere, everyday.

Super mario RPG, best action rpg ever

Mother 3, Xenoblade, Dark Souls, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana 2/Seiken Densetsu 3, Paper Mario 2, and Persona 4. I liked Tales of Vesperia a bit as well, but it could have been better. Versus 13 may be amazing.

I think Dark Souls is near perfect.

@Dr_Ventum: Mother 3 is probably my favorite game of all time, but I really disliked the multi-hit music note system. No matter how on rhythm I was I could never consistently get multiple hits.

cthulhu saves the world

@Nux said:

@gelatinabomination said:

The World Ends With You. If not the best combat, certainly the most batshit insane.

100% yes.

That game was freakin madness. Fun, but let me take a breath.

Lots of mentions of Chrono Trigger... But am i the only one who liked the combat in Chrono Cross? Before it came out I thought there was no way it could be better than CT, but then I really fell in love with CC.

Resonance of Fate and Demon's/Dark Souls

Final Fantasy 13 has had the best combat system of any RPG that isn't in a hybrid genre. Fast paced, fluid, deceptively deep. But most importantly, fun (for 2nd half of the game at least).

@TheDudeOfGaming said:

@sthusby said:

@christ0phe said:

Dragon Age 2? Isn't this about RPG's, not action games?

Skill trees? Check.

Character custumization? Check.

Levelling? Check.

Dialoug options? Check.

Tons of quests? Check.

Janky as hell animation? Check.

I would say that qualifies as an RPG. Bitch got told.

Yeah, but see, somehow it still sucks, and if it indeed is RPG, then it's barely so. In any case Dragon Age 2 sucks, and if we can nominate turn based "RPGs" then I'm gonna say KOTOR. RPG, great turn based combat, made by the developer that made DA2 before it started sucking.

I completely agree with that DA2 sucks something awful, but what about Dragon Age:Origins? I thought that and ME 1 and 2 were still pretty good.

@sthusby said:

What do you guys think is the best combat in any RPG to date?

I'm going to start off this thread with a bit of controversy, as my vote goes to Dragon Age 2. I think the game as a whole is very good, and especially the combat sticks out as a fantastic piece of design. Hope they keep the DA2 combat in mind for the sequel, and spice it up with some of the more interesting stuff from Origins, such as bigger overworld, more interesting locations, and less repetetive caves.

You're up.

I don't want to play video games anymore if people think pushing "a" over and over again is the "best combat in any RPG to date." DA2 is a bad game. Top to bottom.