How Do You Improve Turn Based Combat?

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I love turn-based combat. Most of the time. But there are plenty of pain points that all kinds of games with turn-based combat keep running into. Fixing those points doesn't have to mean changing what makes the style great. Let's talk about some common game design problems turn-based combat games run into and how you can make JRPGs, tactics games, and more the best they can be.
Featuring:
Pokemon
Final Fantasy V
Super Mario RPG
Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam
Unlimited SaGa
Persona 5
Shin Megami Tensei V
Bravely Default 2
Grandia 2
Child of Light
Radiant Historia
Return to PopoloCrois
Tactics Ogre
Dragon Quest XI
Fire Emblem
Final Fantasy VIII
Chrono Cross
Disgaea
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[@DesignDoc]

Get organized with Milanote, for free! milanote.com/designdoc0322

[@thegreenxeno9430]

Hah! Jokes on you. I already use Milanote for keeping notes on the characters in the book I'm writing. Your ad was wasted on me.

[@ReversedFootage]

Milanote is pretty cool, just tried it out, nice to have a relevant ad.

[@markthompson4567]

final fantasy 12 already done it perfectly with the gambit system setup a list of actions...have your healer take action when a party member health falls lower then certain % of full HP ...to use certain attacks depending on the monsters health ,weaknesses ,statuses its just a perfect turn based action system that removes picking moves over and over removes a lot of menus use but still feel like a turn based game because of how it plays

[@NeostormXLMAX]

i notice a lot of these problems as well, with card games like yugioh master duel which recently got released, especially when you compare it vs hearthstone which is far faster, all these super slow animations really just add up, and hearthstone is also guilty to a lesser extend, i think magic arena is the fastest format

[@danielpayne1597]

Brand new here and already subbed. Terrific content both audibly and visually.

[@TheAaron730]

I think alot more than other genres the quality of the soundtrack in turn based games is vastly more important than in other games. You need something to jam to while thinking what to do next.

[@lazarus8455]

I'm probably biased as heck but i actually went out of my way to fight random monsters in Trails in the Sky FC because i loved the normal battle theme so much hahaha

[@mechashadow]

Visual Novels also need that for pretty much the Same reason since you’re kinda hanging by the same scene for a prolonged time

[@usaei2755]

@@lazarus8455 Trails in general has sublime music, as well as excellent combat

[@galaxier3543]

Trails boss fights are so awesome and intense thanks to the music

[@usaei2755]

@@galaxier3543 Cold Steel 1 against the “final boss” as a rendition of the final boss plays was so cool. Playing Cold Steel 2 for the first time and the soundtrack is better then the first game already, just wrapped up Act 1 and into Act 2 so hyped

[@BleuVII]

One thing to keep in mind is that the complexity of each encounter needs to be inversely proportional to frequency. If you're going to have frequent battles, they need to be simple. If you're going to have complex turn-based battles, then you need to drop the frequency. I have played many romhacks of RPGs where they seek to increase complexity, but don't do anything about frequency, and it just becomes a slog.

[@7dayspking]

Or...don't use random encounters.

[@oscarrenaupallares330]

@@7dayspking even set encounters can encounter that problem

[@7dayspking]

@@oscarrenaupallares330 Set, handcrafted, handplaced, scheduled, triggered and wandering encounters don't have a 'frequency' in the same way random encounters do. A high number of encounters always carries the potential for frustration if that's not what players are looking for or it doesn't deliver what players are looking for. But being stopped every few steps to load into a battle with a random enemy is a unique kind of tedious for those who don't want it.

[@Dazuro]

Honestly, I felt this was a pitfall of Octopath. Fantastic combat system but random battles were just a little too involved for their frequency and some areas got tedious real fast.

[@justascarecrow6988]

@@Dazuro can agree, the grind is so painfully slow at times.

[@OneTrueNobody]

7:33 - One of the other things Persona 5 does to speed things up a little is moving a lot of the wind-up-for-an-action animations into the menu-interaction phase itself. For example, in P1-P4, you'd select your actions, THEN your character would summon their Persona, the Persona would do an animation, and the spell would happen with its own animation. In Persona 5, you open the spellcasting menu and your character summons their Persona and enters a spell-prep pose, and the moment you confirm the action, they snap RIGHT into the spellcasting animation. A lot of animations that used to take up dead-air time between commands now play out in real time as you navigate the game's menus, and just revert backwards if you change your mind about a thing. It's something that a lot of turn-based RPGs probably SHOULD be doing.

[@LordShrub]

Divinity Original Sin and Baldur's Gate 3 also do this. When you select an ability it puts the character in a prep stance while you're choosing the target.

[@joshuajordan4080]

Deltarune does something similar.

[@VinceOfAllTrades]

While this may be an improvement over previous titles in the series, Persona 5 still wastes a tremendous amount of time on its battles compared to other series.

[@cagethelonewolf]

Game moving faster doesn't improve the combat itself

[@OneTrueNobody]

@@VinceOfAllTrades I dunno about that. For me Persona 5's combat keeps a pretty dang brisk pace. Unless you consider "actually needing to try" as wasting time. I mean. The enemies don't just poof after one hit like in some Final Fantasy games, but that just ain't the kind of game Atlus makes.

[@SwiftrunnerXXY]

A bit surprised you didn't mention how in Earthbound, if you've overleveled for an area, you instantly defeat the enemies you encounter with no battle required. Not only does it function as a great indicator that you've gotten all you can out of that area - especially how it combines with enemies running away from you at those levels - but if you DO need to grind a lower-level area for whatever reason, it helps trivialize it by making the battles end as soon as they start.

[@giantclaw138]

I agree it's good, but the balancing of Earthbound's early-game isn't exactly stellar. The Mother series has always struggled with this for some reason. Mother 3 has a lot of people grinding before bosses in Chapter 7 and fans patched Earthbound Zero to give you +30 defense at the start.

[@yaboihuey5298]

P5 does this as well if you rank up a specific social link, as it gives you the ability to immediately end battles against lower leveled enemies if you land an ambush.

[@Shadowespeon17]

Some other modern games can do that too TBH

[@jeremygabriel7813]

@@Shadowespeon17 jrpgs need more QOL changes in general imo

[@thehydrationman5500]

@@giantclaw138good point, I get hella sturdy to Mother 3 but the endgame bosses drive me absolutely insane. Barrier Trio, the first Masked Man battle, and both fights against Facaad make me want to absolutely scr0mble a dehydrated swine.

[@CrushedParagon]

I love how the Mario and Luigi games do things. Every attack can be dodged, which means you could conceivably go the entire game without grinding. I once did a run of Bowser's Inside Story where I straight up skipped every optional encounter

[@wariolandgoldpiramid]

and the attacks themselves are a lot of fun to do, as well. Though they do get a bit too long as the series progresses. My favorite Bros attacks are still the ones in Superstar Saga, because they are very quick and snappy, and they actually use the bros acrobatic abilities, without relying on some random magical items.

[@matthewrease2376]

That game is just a masterpiece tbh

[@EduSolsa]

Cool! I am not good enough to try a no damage run, but I alweys liked this in the Mario & Luigi series.

[@Ramsey276one]

O M G I want to see that now!

[@yoshi_705]

I love the series. R.I.P Alphadream...

[@avereynakama9854]

I don't always mind the grind, but it is nice when even the game's like, "Okay, enough's enough." I like how in Earthbound, if you get strong enough, not only do the enemies actively run from you, but you can insta-win and get any and all drops from said battle. Not sure how much this counts, but since Ring Fit Adventure is a turn based RPG, I like that the grind is in a variety of exercises. Maybe you want to redo a course or just some of the challenge gyms. Whatever you do will get you more XP if you need it as well as smoothie items (and, of course, actual exercise).

[@triforceofcourage100]

I think a good way to both have the grind and not is something that xenoblade chronicles definitive edition did. It’s a function that essentially allows you to control your level high or low. Basically you can turn on the function and you gain less exp from fights/quests/ exploring and and it stores exp and you can set your level based on each character’s stored exp. How high your level is will effect enemy behavior on whether or not they attack you or decide that they like living. This also offset by the Xenoblade series giving exp for basically everything. While xenoblade isn’t exactly a turn based series it still applies to any game series that might have grinding problem. The ability to essentially control how strong you are allows you to decide what kind of game you want to play either an extremely easy or fairly difficult game depending on how you set your level.

[@Thozmp]

The Suikoden series had something similar in that if your party was significantly stronger then the random encounter, you had the option of "let go" which replaced "run" but it's the enemy basically wanting to run in fear. A later game also had a "Flash" attack which was just an instant kill for weak enemies.

[@althelor]

Speaking of earthbound, I feel like that was one of the really clever things that undertale did. Where if you play the game like a typical turn based rpg, you canonically kill *all* the monsters in your area and unlock the genocide storyline. And then the game starts messing with you with the creepy music and towns go empty as they are evacuated before you show up and characters start commenting on how creepy you look as you're covered in dust (basically their blood) and just stalking your way forward. It's like the game telling you that the game is a story first, and you need to think about your actions in context of the story.

[@7dayspking]

It's common for Western RPGs to not even have grind. There's no reason grind is required, unless it's the actual point of the game.

[@7dayspking]

@@triforceofcourage100 A simpler solution to a 'grind problem' is to just not have grind in your game at all.

[@haruhirogrimgar6047]

I am so glad this video went beyond "Do what Paper Mario did." You did a wonderful job covering the massive scope of what turn-based combat can offer.

[@lukebytes5366]

As much as I love the Mario rpg's, I hate when the the suggestion to make a turn based rpg better is to not make it turn based.

[@Kintaku]

@@lukebytes5366 yeah, it’s nice as a flavor of turn-based combat but I wouldn’t want it to become the only option

[@masiehennequant8044]

yeah, from what it seems we will be seeing a massive rise of Paper Mario inspired indie games this decade, because that is what all the new younger game developers have grown up on.

[@yellowpowr8455]

@@masiehennequant8044 Indie devs seem to believe that turn-based combat on its own is outdated, when really its all the other stuff like the grinding that tends to make old RPGs outdated nowadays.

[@chemaesteo6555]

"Do what persona 5 does" is a better approach

[@aurumarma5711]

7:30 I'd also note that in Persona 5 you can press an input before it shows up, like when you hold someone up, you can press the attack button before any prompt comes up and it immediately goes into the attack animation. So even though there is stylish menus, you aren't required to wait for them. This is noticeable in the Velvet Room, when you snap through menus so quick that animations and diologue aren't finished the jailers will insult you for being impatient.

[@tacollab0924]

Thats funny

[@laravioliiii2832]

"You lack Patience"

[@NeonValkyrieGaming]

@@laravioliiii2832 "Such rudeness"

[@asdergold1]

Heard those at least 10000 times in the original P5. The optimization wasn't perfect, because then it'd be 20000. The 1/2 weeks lost to RNG.

[@tacollab0924]

@@asdergold1 rng?

[@Catman54]

I was actually really surprised you didn't include a bit about games like Persona 5 Royal, where after a certain point in the game (in this case Ryuji's social link) you can instantly kill significantly weaker enemies just by walking on them in the map, making it so you aren't forced to play out small-fry encounters over and over again

[@caellanmurphy4751]

tbf one can also say that about earthbound aswell

[@Bobson_Dugnutt_Esq]

Few things are more satisfying than ramming monsters in Mementos in the Morgana-van

[@ulink265]

Thats more of an earthbound thing

[@jasonreed7522]

That's also a badge in Paper Mario TTYD, technically 2 one lets you bump weaklings (based a xp they will drop being 1 for the entire battle) and one that makes your "first strike" do the same. Since first strikes require more skill yhan just running into an enemy that badge is noticably easier to get. I definitely support systems that let you decide to simply not fight enemies that are simply not worth your time. (Something something meme about lv 50 Charizard vs bugcatcher Doug's lv2 Caterpie)

[@wariolandgoldpiramid]

Earthbound did it first. But yeah, it's a good point.

[@otakubullfrog1665]

I used to find the older JRPGs (like the early Dragon Quests) to be very grindy when I was a kid, but I've revisited a lot of them and realized that's just because I was overleveling until I could clear dungeons by just attacking and healing. You can actually run them at much lower levels if you use the whole spellbook, strategically defend and even run from battles sometimes. Basically, assume that every option the game gives you was put there for a reason.

[@lazergurka-smerlin6561]

That's probably why I dislike a lot of classic rpg style games. Like, I've had a bad experience where like it feels like there's no need to think at any encounter. It's just normal attack, use a healing spell occationally. Boom, you've played the game.

[@revimfadli4666]

​@@lazergurka-smerlin6561 also the reason why I moved to PvP games; much less "solvable"

[@AlmarWinfield]

@@revimfadli4666 In my experience all newer PvP games are dumbed down so insanely much to put everyone on the same level that they're easier than PvE games now. Look at call of duty for example, the skill ceiling for that game is so low that most "good and average" players compete on the same level (which is intentional). WoW is the same way, Classic WoW you'd stomp people if you had good gear and once BC came out they started to balance everything more and put everyone on the same level. WoTLK was moreso in this direction. Now in WoW the skill ceiling is so low for the PvP overall that it's just not fun or interesting anymore.

[@goodintentions8106]

I was reverse. I would do the least amount of grinding and change my strategy once I had some problem. I would then get stuck dealing scratch damage to each enemy. Look up a guide and hey I'm 25 levels under where I should be

[@Dhalin]

The problem with some games, is that _they don't _*_want_*_ you using your abilities_ because they decide they're going to do some form of MP starvation. Breath of Fire 2 is lousy for this, for example. You are given some miniscule MP pool and your spells drain it fast. MP recovery items are nearly impossible to find, and you have rather limited item inventory capacity so you can't stock up on hundreds of herbs to handle the healing (and you'd have to grind for money to BUY those herbs). So, the game ends up being Attack Attack Attack because everything else is too precious and expensive to be "wasting" willy-nilly. Also, on the subject of grind: almost every single JRPG wants you to get at least 2-3 levelups before doing anything in the game, makes the rest of the game a lot smoother if you do. However, many of them are balanced so that if you get a few levels to start the game with and then proceed to kill everything in your path in normal play, you will maintain enough levels to keep things reasonably challenging with only minimal grinding to afford new equipment when you arrive at a new town for the most part.

[@NinjaKIngAce]

I feel random encounters play a part in the grind too. I find it doesn't feel as grindy if I can see the enemies on the overworld

[@ilyrich]

very very true random encounters i can't see makes everything feel worse

[@JoeyScraggy]

The difference is "there's a spawn area ahead, unavoidable. I hope I don't run into worms, i don't need to fight" vs "there's 3 worms ahead. If i path this way, i get around them quickly"

[@Loner098]

Random encounters really do seem to drag down the pacing of RPGs compared to none at all.

[@casanovafunkenstein5090]

I feel like one of the most interesting approaches to random encounters in an RPG is Illbleed (yes, it's an RPG with random battles, experience points, character upgrades and an overworld, even though nobody comments on it). Each time you enter a level you get a seed for the distribution of items, traps and random encounters. These are then placed in the environment and trigger based on proximity. The player has to interpret the information in the senses bar to identify the object in the environment that has an event trigger next to it and can either expend a resource to mark them or avoid the area of effect. You're discouraged from seeking out combat because of the high number of traps that will injure you and the fact that you have multiple gauges that need to be kept within a safe zone and it's possible for any one of them to cause instant death. I will admit that it's not a great game on a technical level, however it is a really interesting approach that makes for an experience that no other game really tries to do and it does a really good job of taking very linear levels with little in the way of exploration and makes you really consider each and every asset in the environment to see if it could be a threat.

[@Kingdom850]

Modern turn based games very quickly got rid of random encounters though. That's an issue they got on ASAP. Now you see enemies roaming the overworld and get to choose whether or not to fight them.

[@ersia87]

Yet another turn based mechanic is one I remember from an old PC version of the game Risk of all games. Normally in Risk each player makes their moves on their turn. In this game there was the mode "simultaneous risk" in which players didn't have individual turns but each player simultaneously, and secretly, registered all moves they would like to make for each of their units. When all players had locked in their moves all of it was revealed and played out as instructed. It made it so you never had perfect information of the battlefield and had to act according to what you could predict other players would do the next turn. It also made it possible to command several regions to attack one enemy region at the same time making it possible to take over powerful enemy regions if you had many weak adjacent regions. I have been looking for that old game for years. If anybody knows where to get a functioning version I would be so happy. It's "Risk II" for PC.

[@seangallagher9435]

The fan made Pokémon showdown has a system where instead of telling you what a move did in a text box it just puts it on the pokemon’s health bar. So if you were hit by an attack that reduces defense there would be a .75 defense under your health. So much faster and it’s way easier to tell what the move did

[@Reydriel]

In fact, a lot of Pokemon's battle messages can be done in the same way. It's not even a novel concept, the vast majority of RPG combat systems already do this lol

[@MrEntinen]

@@Reydriel There is a reason why people make fun of pokemon being so old fashioned and lazy

[@givecamichips]

Pokémon did this in Gen 7 at least with stat modifiers on the bottom screen. In Showdown it still tells you everything in a text box as well, it just goes by way faster. (It didn't tell you the exact multipliers but that's standard for jRPGs.)

[@eddie-roo]

@@Reydriel even pokemon already does it with status conditions, idk why it can't do it for other stuff.

[@callumjohn6622]

It also does like... a million other things. Attack animations rarely last more than 2 seconds and health bars drain pretty much instantly and instead of making you press a button after every line of text, it just adds it to a log you can scroll through at your leisure. It's full of UX improvements the real games should be using.

[@JoshTheValiant]

There's a big element that can really make turn-based battles shine that I think was passed right over, despite many examples being shown in the video: positioning. Final Fantasy Tactics is the game I have grinded the most in my life, simply because the terrain involved makes every encounter a wildly flexible occasion. Positioning AoEs, lining up line attacks, baiting enemies into position, the constant rolling of position trying to get the enemy's back without sacrificing your own, trying to measure your position to minimize the number of enemies that could gang up on a single target, grouping your allies together to prevent a surround, spreading them out to avoid enemy AoEs... It's such an incredible avenue for variety and keeping combat fresh that is so rarely tapped. Even Chrono Trigger did some work with this, and the idea of a game like that taking one single additional step to make movement and attack range an aspect of the system would have made two of its most innovative features, spatial area of effects and team attacks, so much more rich. It's something that is kind of astounding hasn't been more explored in the space, frankly.

[@yourface2464]

Gonna say this now The legend of heroes is a series that focuses entirely on positioning during turn based combat. I'd highly recommend starting with trails in the sky, at least looking into it a bit. Criminally underrated game, has a PC port too.

[@balthiertsk8596]

Hey, man, you should really check triangle strategy. It FEELS like what FFT 2 would be!

[@TehParismio]

You really should play Divintiy Original Sin 2

[@kewol5901]

@@TehParismio Divinity Original Sin 2 does so many things well lolol, The amount of strategy in that game is honestly insane.

[@benedict6962]

@@yourface2464 I think Sky is a very good story, but I'm pretty skeptical of the quality of its gameplay. You spend a significant amount of time tweaking raw numbers, and having invul shields and attacks that chunk through basically all your hp makes a lot of defensive options obsolete in high end play.

[@Kellicing]

I'm genuinely surprised Divinity: Original Sin 2 wasn't mentioned at all during this video. The combat in that game is wonderful since almost every fight has some use or purpose in the stories of the characters. Even fights that seem like throwaway grinds, such as some fights against Black Ring cultists on the Nameless Isle, have at least some nuance such as being able to talk your way out of them or fighting two different parties at once. Additionally, the Action Points system used in that game is a nice balance between how turns can give you multiple actions, and fixing the turns so you can get more moves is extremely rewarding.

[@TheTriskaideka]

Because it is more a strategy game not just basic turn based

[@irwinwinaris9800]

I agree that Larian has revolutonized turn based gameplay. They're also evolving it in Baldur's Gate 3 and it will be copied for years to come after its full release. Less but unique encounters are the way to go forward in that genre. I still remember most fights in DOS2, even the smaller encounters because of how well crafted they are.

[@ChaosMechanica]

I'd argue that if FF Tactics, Tactics Ogre and Fire Emblem can be in this video, the Divinity games can be as well. It's a TRPG just like those

[@EldronGah]

@@ChaosMechanica also xcom was mentioned but didn't spend a word on it. This video focuses too much on jrpgs while in reality there are other turn based games that are completely different from them.

[@LucRio448]

@@TheTriskaideka Where exactly would you get that from? The battles are turn based, and the rest is a classic RPG. The only difference to FFT, Fire Emblem etc may be that you got an actually free to roam world in between battles.

[@RelativelyBest]

It's been a while now, but I recall really liking the combat system in Final Fantasy X-2. It used timed meters to determine when individual characters could make their move and didn't require them to wait their turn, so their attacks could overlap. At times it almost felt like real time, while still sticking to the classic formula.

[@TamNguyen-hm2lj]

Yeah that's the atb system. It's also in ff4, 5, 6, 7

[@PikaPenny17]

To me that just feels the worst of both worlds of Turn-based and not turn-based.

[@WhatTheFnu]

I'm glad you brought up Fire Emblem. The classic games addressed the grind problem simply by there only being a limited number of encounters in the entire game. It made leveling up your team feel like a puzzle, and encouraged you to share the reward evenly lest a unit with strategically relevant abilities to your current mission be too underpowered to help. I get that's not everybody's cup of tea, but man...you feel like a genius when you get old FE games correct. Even Three Houses plays with this idea. The clock is constantly pushing you forward to the next story beat, but how you choose to spend that time in the interim is yours to decide.

[@Buglin_Burger7878]

I mean it also made the issue to grind more prevalent as units perma-die and in return you lose massive amounts of Exp potentially. So if you didn't do things perfectly the result was typically a issue with balancing EXP and need to grind or just have units as fodder. If you're doing 1/2 HP in damage and the person you want to level is doing 1/3 HP then things get messy.

[@Gensolink]

@@Buglin_Burger7878 FE provides enough replacement unit to accomodate a few loss the problem with FE imo is that it tries to make you attached to its units so said replacement only get used in specific situations like iron man or sometimes Hard mode

[@elechain2441]

Summed it up perfectly honestly, I feel like a god whenever I beat the classic games

[@Runegrem]

Not speaking of the FE series specifically since I haven't played it, but I usually don't like it when games make you pick who gets to finish off enemies just so that character can have the xp for that enemy. It feels you have to play suboptimally in earlier battles just so you can have a balanced party in later battles. It's just as artificial and gamey as having a character do most of the heavy lifting for the entirety of a long battle but just because he fell unconcious right before the enemy died he didn't get any xp at all for the entire battle.

[@cringekid3993]

@@Buglin_Burger7878 yeah, that makes the emotional impact when they die higher

[@Vandel212]

I'm developing a turn based RPG, and one thing I'm doing to help with the grind is rewarding players for defeating the same monsters over and over. I've played games with that mechanic, but I don't see it much. For example, defeat 25 slimes and you do an extra 5% damage to all slime type monsters (multiple tiers with more kills), gain double items, or extra money... you get the idea. Makes the encounter more rewarding because you are helping yourself with future encounters.

[@ZTimeGamingYT]

The mechanic in question reminds me personally of the enemy bonuses in Super Mario Run; defeating a certain amount of a singular enemy increases their value by a multiplicand. Really cool that you're implementing a parallel into an RPG.

[@UniTheNstall]

To do this, you should include bosses into those categories, for example, make the first boss a slime-type boss, the second one a skeleton-type boss, and so on. This rewards players not only for future grinding, but on bossfights as well.

[@UniTheNstall]

Also, lmk when it's done or there's a beta i can join, I'm always up for an RPG.

[@PauLtus_B]

I think there's a problem there as you're motivating people to grind. Is that really the way you want people to engage? I can actually see it working if you also have a reverse effect to it: Make them less effective against you but also gain less XP for defeating them. It makes enemies you've encountered tons of times easier to deal with but at the same time you're not rewarded to keep fighting the same type of enemies all the time. Even narratively this makes sense: at some point you're really good at defeating those kind of enemies but at the same time there's not as much to learn from defeating them.

[@LukeGJPotter]

Have you considered that an enemy could drop an item. Multiple of this item can be crafted into a weapon, or weapon augmentation, that will do extra damage to that enemy.

[@lavalord96]

Honorable mention should go to scott cawthon's, yes, THAT scott cawthon, desolate room and desolate hope duology. I'd even argue that it goes a little TOO overboard in the speed department sometimes; In the game if youre not fast enough choosing your moves, the ENEMY will get sick of waiting and attack. Definitely gets you in a panicky micro-managong simulator.

[@thebearnado4256]

I really like the SMT/Persona aproach to battle rewards. In both Persona 5 Royal, and SMTV, I would be reconstructing my party after unlocking some new demons to fuse, or finally unlocking that one skills that makes a demon worth it. It makes each level up more than a stat boost, since every 3-5 levels im completely changing my team composition to adapt to bosses, and new demon unlocks. It might not be everyone's favorite thing, but its my favorite part of the series.

[@guidedexplosiveprojectileg9943]

I love reconstructing my party, reuse recycle amirite?

[@A_Generic_Name]

I love videos like this, where people are just unapologetically fans of something without ignoring its potential flaws. My favorite turn structures probably are the multi-layered ones, like in Slay the Spire or Mystery Dungeon, where each combat instance is like a turn in a long-term test of attrition.

[@pn2294]

The problem is that a lot of “flaws” are things that some people like and will miss if it’s cut out or neutered. I still can’t forgive Gamefreak for what they did to the Safari Zone.

[@sauceinmyface9302]

My favorite turn based system is probably FFX and SMT's press turn. FFX feels so rewarding to replay thanks to the good story, swift battles that reward knowledge and great leveling system.

[@blumiu2426]

I think turn-based games have always had criticism considering the sub-genre is always tampered with to try something new or tweaked an aspect.

[@Runegrem]

@@sauceinmyface9302 I really like the battle system in FFX too. Since it's not based on a slowly charging bar you can pick your commands without waiting. There's also an overlap in animations, at least with normal attacks, so that's even faster. And all this while giving the player all the time in the world to think about your actions.

[@Punaparta]

@@pn2294 Yeah, I always struggle to listen criticisms of menu-based combat system because I played a lot of '90s RPGs as a kid so my reaction to any of those flaws is "but that's what I _like_ about it..." I am, however, perfectly aware that I am very much in the minority here.

[@ObsidianKnight90]

Chrono Trigger does a lot of thing right. The ATB system based on the Speed stat, and the fact that your party members have different Speed, means they take turns in an irregular pattern. If you choose for enemies to act continuously it creates an incentive to choose your actions faster. Animations are generally quick and the longer ones require more MP and are thus used less frequently. Between the variety of enemy weaknesses and resistances, how physical placement interacts with AoE Techs, and some enemies having different 'stances' or charging attacks, combat feels like a puzzle more than a waste of your time. Getting new Techs, your roster of characters constantly changing, and all the Dual and Triple Tech combinations you can learn mean the tools you have at your disposal are constantly changing. You can also avoid encounters entirely which really cuts down on the grind when travelling through areas with weaker foes. You don't need to grind enemies for money and experience, but at the same time the game does reward you for doing so by giving you an edge in future battles. It's not a perfect game but the fact that its system holds up after decades is pretty impressive.

[@FelisImpurrator]

I personally despise turn based games trying to force me to *choose actions* more quickly. I don't understand why people like it. In concept I'm not against ATB type systems allowing multiple queues to line up in downtime, but why punish someone for lingering in menus? It takes away from the "strategy" aspect and emphasizes reaction time, and honestly, I never liked that or the way RTS games transitioned more toward high APM micromanagement to align with the eSports crowd. Is there a way to avoid the time pressure aspect there? I've never gotten to Chrono Trigger, but the middle FF games always felt as if ATB Wait didn't solve the issue whatsoever of enemies just getting free turns if you took a second too long choosing spells.

[@ObsidianKnight90]

@@FelisImpurrator Yes, in Chrono Trigger you can disable the time pressure, and monsters will wait while you select your actions. It's totally optional.

[@vaporsaver]

@@FelisImpurrator I never had an issue taking however long I needed to select an attack in the atb final fantasies. That was when I was a lot younger too and sometimes took a bit to decide. Really those final fantasies that use atb don’t require very much to consider per turn anyway, unlike something like a tactics turn based game like ff tactics or disgaea (or divinity original sin 2 if you’re familiar). Played them since being older and still not an issue. Nothing to understand about why people like it, maybe some folks just don’t feel whatever pressure or rush you do and honestly I don’t think it goes against the strategy of it at all. Like speed chess.

[@Danahell]

I think a system like FFX-2's mixed with Chrono Trigger's could lead to a really fascinating outcome. Having actions taking place simultaneously like in X-2, mixed with the chain combos could benefit a system based on timing and combining attacks like Chrono Trigger's, and both systems also had characters moving around the battlefield based on their attacks with placement playing an important part on how different attacks affect targets. FFX-2 might get a lot of flak for its story or how corny it could get compared to FFX, but honestly i think it had one of the best iterations of the ATB system in Final Fantasy games, the dresspheres might be a bit unbalanced, but I think that's where Square hit the spot in terms of balance between battle speed and control of your characters

[@ObsidianKnight90]

@@Danahell I'm not that familiar with X-2 but if you want something that fits the concept of the dresspheres while being more balanced, check out Blood Codes from Code:VEIN. They essentially let characters switch classes on the fly, with their affinity for different weapons and magic types being determined by the Blood Code's rating in certain attributes, as well as the character's level. You can further customize characters by picking up active and passive abilities through classes, like FF5's Job system. It actively encourages you to experiment with different playstyles, as well as rewarding exploration as some of the best Blood Codes have to be discovered.

[@sergel02]

I’m so happy you mentioned Child of Light! I was just playing it last night and it was one of the best turn based systems I’ve played in over 2 decades of playing. It’s relatively simple but the timeline and knocking you back helps put a lot of strategy into the whole thing, over when to defend, when to attack, and which attack to use. Definitely highly recommended for any RPG fan. The art style is beautiful too.

[@gabrielgoes0]

The soundtrack is amazing too

[@user-tf1oo9rj6u]

I'm surprised you didn't mention the *primary bonus of turn-based games: they aren't tied to fast-twitch skill.* Many of them are even enjoyable to play while you eat and relax. Though it does not solve the slowdown problem (actually tends to make it worse), one of the more *fun solutions to turn based combat depth is deckbuilders.* Each turn has different options at a core mechanic level. How well the game lets you shape, control, combine and interact with that element can vary a lot and definitely shapes whether something feels good or terrible. Across the obelisk does a very good job at allowing multiple strategies and combos with the characters and cards you choose each run. It also plays directly into what paths are risky or more viable. I can remember creating an excessively unbalanced bleed + poison dream team, but faced a regular group of enemies (normally no challenge), except I hadn't faced them before to learn that they have the ability to take their debuff/curses and move them onto your characters instead. I went from wiping the floor with bosses to inescapable death in less than 3 turns to basic enemies. Unlike Slay the Spire, this was not some random bad luck of getting that one boss tailored to wreck you. All of this was avoidable at layers of my choice, both at the characters/card/strategy level and at the choice of where I went on the map. *I didn't get random bad luck, I just so happened to walk my characters into the single most dangerous place for their build in the entire game.* And I now knew for any future builds to be careful of trapping _myself_ that same way. Several deckbuilders use action point economy. You can have a great turn now, but then you won't have many points to spend next turn. And that also helps level out good and bad card draw: get a terrible draw, save action points for next turn, when you know you will have an excess of high power cards. Astrea has an interesting twist, where the game is about strategically attacking yourself - granting super powers.

[@HorizonEdge]

Ill just throw out that Darkest Dungeon does a really good job making its turn based combat system feel unique and interesting.

[@johnyendrey5590]

I'll go a step further: Darkest Dungeon doesn't have a unique combat system at all: it simply uses high stakes and open information to create a system that is harsh, but fair and manages to be player-facing. Its the standard "I hit you, you hit me" affair. Having combat ranks/positioning is nothing too crazy, and the skill selection is a nice touch, allowing a single hero class to have multiple possible specialties. The party composition/training offers those out-of-dungeon choices that can make or break a delve. But because character death is permanent, what would be a rather ordinary "endurance quest" becomes more meaningful: the risk of the next encounter vs the health of your heroes is something to be kept in mind at all times. RNG plays a large factor, but all information is open, meaning you know exactly what your hit chance is, or what your damage range is; the odds are never hidden from the player, a facet that I think many games could stand to learn from. I think Avernum is one of the few RPGs to do this, as every single derived stat presented the formula it used to determine its value. DD managed to have a system completely devoid of derived stats, something I also wish more games in the genre would try for.

[@calsalitra4689]

​@@johnyendrey5590 Even more than the high stakes and open information, the sound design and artstyle really sell the feeling the games are going for. Pretty much everything in the game is visually striking. The animations as well are simple, but the speed and snappiness they have waste minimal time, and have significant impact that makes each move feel satisfying (a boosted Leper crit being the peak).

[@Kurochana]

@@johnyendrey5590 Its really meaty and I like it a lot so I'm biased, but I think you're not giving DD enough credit where its due. The moves don't have MP and skills that have usage limits are the exception, with the strongest moves having caveats like requiring certain positions, only targeting certain positions or messing up your formation if done poorly. Making a satisfying rotation on a dancing team greatly increases the satisfaction of combat. Tied in with the danger to your heroes and semi limited resources and the combat changes from "get me out of this already" to "oh shit I don't wanna die". This changes the dynamic into encounters aren't as much a slog to get through, but into a risk and reward endeavor as the enemies can throw a wrench into your plans by disrupting your formation or just not being where you want to hit. Character leveling isn't tied to smashing monsters to grind XP to fill a bar either, you complete the mission and every party member alive gets a fixed XP value to their next level (of which there are only 7) regardless of how many mooks you slay. You fight enemies to complete your objective or go for greed and try to fill your packs with loot. Risk vs reward is the heart of DD game design and the fact that the devs lets you make the decision and bear the consequences makes it really engaging and immersive, righteous traits for a video game.

[@Zaktot-ho8fe]

@@johnyendrey5590 Adding onto it, Darkest Dungeon has quick, snappy poses for action and brilliant sound design, allowing them to make quick, impactful, and probably cheap battle animations

[@That_One_Guy-.]

Have been looking forward to this! Personally I like how the Megami Tensei does it, the emphasis on buffs and debuffs plus the press turn system makes it so you can`t jusst brute force your way through the a fight, you have to think about your team composition, and about each move you make. EDIT: SMT did, in fact, get mentioned.

[@pn2294]

But that’s how most JRPGS work.

[@gaiko804]

@@pn2294 I've played many jrpgs since my childhood and SMT (or even most Atlus RPG games like Etrian Odyssey) is the only game that made me aware of buffs, debuffs, ailments/status effects plus the importance of items. I mostly end games with a shit ton of items and bruteforcing my way with pure damage alone but never in an SMT game. I'm not saying that it's perfect because it still has more room for improvement but overall it's unique and challenging.

[@pn2294]

@Benji 64 III and V. I also played Soul Hackers. I also played Vesperia, Abyss and about half of the Final Fantasy games where I still had to rely on buffs and debuffs

[@pn2294]

@@gaiko804 that’s funny. That’s precisely how I finish SMT games in contrast to other ones where I felt I had to think more.

[@mysteryboii4869]

@@pn2294 Even having endgame demons you still need to have buffs and debuffs especially in III i.e Beelzebub, Lucifer, Metatron, and Noah

[@hylianmage413]

One of my favorite examples of expanding strategic depth comes in the Etrian Odyssey/Persona Q item drop system. Certain monsters have rarer materials that can only be obtained if they're defeated by a certain weapon type, or while under a certain status condition. It adds an additional layer of complexity to combat so that your objective isn't always merely 'get hp to zero'.

[@sigurdtheblue]

Nice one! Never played those, but perhaps one day...

[@Densoro]

I was thinking about this! I’ve never played these games, but ‘fight the same battle 800,000x while getting screwed by drop rate RNG’ sounds so much worse than ‘some players will _randomly_ beat this enemy with fire, and some will _randomly_ beat it with slash, and beating it with slash guarantees x drop’

[@NerissaVal]

Having played EO this mostly just adds annoyance because the normal mob drops are worthless compared to the special ones. You HAVE to get the special ones to stay on-par with the game.

[@Sterncold]

@@NerissaVal No you don't. You can just ignore special drops and still clear the game easily if you know what you're doing. You will need to farm the standard drop however and have at least the weapon depending on the game.

[@marphoria]

Really happy to see you included SMT V. That's probably my new favorite turn-based RPG, just from some elements I haven't seen before in the handful of turn-based RPGs I've played. The mechanic of gaining extra turns from hitting weaknesses [and from sneaking up on enemies] was satisfying. The negotiating was great too, given that you didn't have to do damage to an enemy at all to get them to join your party [as long as you were the appropriate level]. My only gripe with that was just figuring out which options were the best ones to say. After awhile you can tell the personality of the different demons just due to how they talked [and even the alternating sMaLl CaPs CaPs LoCk text, lmao], but personally I couldn't catch onto that until 10+ hours in. It was also a little frustrating because even if you gave a demon your money/item/HP/MP etc, they could still escape. But maybe that was due to their personality you'd have to gather via text, not totally sure. Regardless, it has the mechanics I enjoyed about the Persona series, even though the UI was simpler and not as flashy. I will always enjoy how the Megaten games feel less grindy due to Persona/Demon fusion, and just from their quicker animations, bomb soundtracks and character/demon designs. I've grown to dislike and not have the patience for Pokemon over the years, just because you have to spend a lot of time leveling up your individual Pokemon, as opposed to a Megaten game where only your MC has to level up, and a Persona/Demon levels up quickly just from what you fuse together. I never even considered that the extra text you have to see before/during/after Pokemon battles made the game feel slower, which totally makes sense. Anyways, awesome analysis, thank you for the amazing upload!!!!

[@Enzed_]

After playing megaten, all other RPGs feel shallow with their turn based combat. I can't go back to Pokémon anymore cuz it's so slow and leveling up is a slog.

[@VCXZ883]

DQ11 convinced me that overworld enemies are the way to go in turn-based RPGs. Program them so they don't start a fight with you if you're significantly higher level, that way you don't waste your time on weak enemies when you go back to an earlier section of the game.

[@degreeskelvin3025]

DQMJ did this way back in 2006/2007. Too bad nobody knows about that gem. Honestly been doing everything pokemon shoulda done a decade before they did it. I was really hoping to for a resurgence of the DQ monster games after how terrible SWSH was and how successful and mainstream DQ11 became. Monster hunter stories capitalized on that so it was truly the best time for a comeback, especially since there was no monster capture feature in dq11 but we had such amazing and lively monster models

[@braydengraves4655]

Earthbound did the same thing years earlier.

[@PewPew_McPewster]

It was also very perfectly balanced IMO. If you killed like 75% of all encounters you saw, you'd usually end up at a perfect level to deal with almost everything, even the harder "grind-gate" bosses. DQXI was one of those instances of a perfectly-paced game right down to the amount of grinding it asked of you. Grind balancing is an art and games that manage to balance for players who like to grind and players that don't have a leg up in the competition.

[@bitsamui5104]

More overworld monster style games are incorporating an auto-win feature of some kind. Where if you're substantially higher, the monsters either run away or just instant lose, rewards sometimes given even. There's definitely an issue within that, it can make grinding too easy and overleveling too accessible, but I think JRPGs are moving in the right direction.

[@dustintanksley9950]

I am a bit torn on the idea itself, I find myself so focused on trying to avoid encounters that it just becomes tedious to do all the dodging, and it feels like a penalty when I couldn't squeeze past an obnoxiously large hitbox. Best comparison I can give is DQ 8, between the PS 2 and DS version. DS has a lot of nice things, really making a lot of things faster, but it kinda loses value too. The random encounters are usually pretty well balanced in the PS2 version where it feels like the dungeon itself is an obstacle, rather then your dodging ability. I much prefer playing the PS2 version emulated to double speed then trying to play the DS version (more fair then you might think since DS has double speed in battles option), though its hard to put into detail all the reasons I feel that way. Another big offender in my opinion is all the FF13 series. Not turn based, but something feels off about tons of really long annoying fights with bad rewards, making dodging super important, and really annoying when you almost get past an an enemy swoops in to just barely touch you. Not to mention the full heals after every fight means its really just a time sink. I am sure there are ways to do it properly, but so far haven't been amazed by a overworld enemies game. I think other factors end up being much more important, and I just really don't like how incentivized you are to walk around and dodge things then to actually play the game.

[@jmh8817]

A weird mechanic from an obscure indie game that I haven't seen anywhere else: In Cosmic Star Heroine every combat move can only be used once before you must spend a turn refreshing it and every X turns (depending on your equipped weapon) a character gets a 2X power buff to their next move. The need to take an off-turn to recharge your moves with getting double damage every X guaranteed turns means you're always planning several moves ahead and adapting to circumstances on the fly as your sequence adapts to things like elemental resistances, needing to heal, etc. Add some combat mechanics designed around this like moves that have infinite use, get stronger for every spent move in your pool, refresh randomly spent moves or randomize the number of turns before your next buff and you end up with a very fun combat system.

[@QuinnSheeba]

Thank you for talking about this absolute gem, love this game ❤️

[@tetra654]

Cosmic Star also handles status effects really nicely - every enemy has resistance to each status that you're gradually wearing down, so an enemy might be gratuitously difficult to poison but not totally immune to it, and successive applications of the same status on the same target get harder so you can't stunlock even an easily stunned enemy.

[@gon9684]

Not that obscure lol

[@landis9767]

the combat in that game is just amazing. i'm not usually crazy about turn-based but there it's actually addicting edit: the banger that is the battle music helps a lot too

[@archmagusofevil]

Thanks for this comment. That game slipped my radar, but sounds interesting. I'm going to check it out.

[@givecamichips]

SaGa Scarlet Grace has my favorite recent turn-based combat. For one thing, it's always your choice when you engage in a battle. Sometimes they spring a follow-up battle on you, but they're usually pretty easy to see coming, and you still get a chance to switch around gear and party members before the start. The battles themselves are based on the Battle Point system. Depending on your formation, you start with a certain number of BP and usually every turn your BP goes up by 1 until you reach the cap. Each character can spend BP to use a tech or spell. Doing nothing leaves them in defend mode. The most common starting BP is 4, and you can have 5 people in battle, so immediately you have to make a more thorough decision that just pressing A to attack. There are no 'normal attacks', if you want to attack you need points. Spells are stronger than normal attacks but take multiple turns to cast, which gives you some nice momentum if you choose to cast multi-turn spells: On the turns the spell is charging or activating you get to use all the BP for weapon attacks. Enemies also use BP, so for both sides every turn increases the damage dealt which keeps turn count low. And the special thing about the combat system: You can see the entire timeline of player and enemy attacks, every turn, although you can't see the target. Which skills you choose can affect your spot or your enemies' spots, along with the character's mobility stat. So you can plan around your enemies' attacks. If anyone is defeated, their spot in the timeline disappears and the surrounding combatants come together. If both of them are on the same side, enemy or player, they get a special opportunity attack called a United Attack. (The target is pseudo-random, but a high intelligence stat means the target will be favorable.) The fun part is, you can chain United Attacks with proper timeline manipulation, or avoid them by clustering your characters together, or force your enemies into give them to you by putting your low HP character turns between high HP characters, or letting them die to poison, and more. And since activating a United Attack decreases BP cost for the next turn, there's even more incentive to go for them. The game goes hard in making sure there are very few useless abilities. You can poison many bosses (In fact it is nearly mandatory to beat some bosses without losing any characters) and it's often worth poisoning normal enemies too, stunning works less often but can still work depending on stats, and most bosses summon a few minions to allow for some United Attacks. Even the most basic attack for many weapon types has a special attribute, such as axes doing extra damage to plants and greatswords provoking the target. And there are 6 attacking attributes, 3 physical and 3 elemental, to take into account. Despite having lowish damage, short swords have easy access to elemental attacks, poison, and sleep abilities, making them a great utility choice. Axes have the best damage but they are the only weapon type to regularly have to deal with misses. Hammers kinda suck in general but can disrupt enemy spells, and have good options for stat buffs and debuffs. The grind is mainly to unlock new weapon techs, since your stats other than HP and weapon levels never go up from battle. To go along with the random chance of getting new skills, one character with a staff equipped can put points towards learning a new spell and levelling a known spell, so there's also a reliable schedule for seeing rewards after battle. And if a character gets the right combination of techs or spells, you get a new role, which is like a smaller version of a job, as a rarer reward. And every tech and spell has a unique animation, there's a sizeable amount of victory poses for each character, and the music generally rocks. The victory theme's a little weak but the battle themes are among my favorite and never got boring. Sorry for dropping a mini-essay but I kinda got this game late so there was no one talking about it. I thought it was quite fun and I'd like to see the SaGa series back as a regular series. I know the series has kind of a bad rep outside of Japan so I like to spread the good word when it's relevant.

[@nathanc.1958]

So glad I got recommended this video! I've played a lot of the games you mentioned, and of the ones that I've played, I agreed with your opinions 100%. One thing I really enjoyed about Pokemon Legends Arceus that I don't see much in other games was the way the environment seamlessly blended from exploration into combat. Almost every game with turn-based combat, even really good ones, involves some time-eating transition from 'overworld' into 'combat bubble.' I'd love to see more developers invest in sewing their combat scenarios into the world rather than it feeling like they take place in an alternate universe. Another feature I appreciate from some games is the option to skip battles that the player is overqualified for. In Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door, you get a power around halfway through that allows you to jump on enemies in the overworld who were significantly weaker than you to kill them out-right and skip their battle, returning a small fraction of the rewards. Something I appreciate in Persona 5 is that the game's UI (which you highlighted beautifully) tracks every element that you've tried on an enemy and displays its effectiveness clearly whenever you hover them, and it maintains that knowledge every time you fight that enemy type. It reduces the amount of bookkeeping the player has to do significantly (I enjoy nothing less than having to tab out to google "rock type vs. poison type" constantly while playing).

[@blakdeth]

South Park: the Fractured but Whole unironically has an interesting effective method of dealing with it. The grid, the ability to move around the arena, the attacks that have unique shapes, and the abilities that can move friendly or enemy units all culminate to more strategy than just picking picking a strong move every turn. There's also no punishment for swapping out team members or your own attacks between battles, so you can try new strategies on the fly. Some boss fights even demand that you do so. Some have a heavy emphasis on position while others have the classic big boss big health bar, so there's always variety.

[@mattsully2238]

Agreed. However tfbw got a little one note once you figure out your best move set. Roots, roots, roots.

[@blakdeth]

@@mattsully2238 yeah a lot could be done in the way of balancing the powers, but the basic mechanic in of itself is fantastic.

[@mattsully2238]

@@blakdeth no doubt. I enjoyed both the South parks. They were unnecessarily wonderful

[@Jack_______oh]

Too bad it's terrible and boring

[@HorizonEdge]

True, but its not really what people think when they hear turn based combat. At this point we could even include Civilization since thats a grid, turn based game with combat. Or a more modern example might be Into the Breach.

[@David.Marquez]

I'm happy to see Child of Light mentioned, that combat system has always stuck with me. I think Lost Odyssey also had quite a fun combat system for what it was. Definitely an underrated gem.

[@MrB-bh2ee]

Kind of surprised no one has mentioned Xenoblade’s overkill system, as it’s one of the cleanest ways I’ve seen a game handle level progression. Instead of just killing an enemy normally and getting a normal amount of xp, you can finish your opponent in a chain attack, and if the chain can continue beyond the finishing blow, you can wail on your opponent even more to increase a bonus xp multiplier which makes leveling really fast.

[@jamic6107]

FFX has a similar system and it's true that it does help a lot.

[@fencerderio9814]

Xenoblade isn’t turn based, though.

[@Kingdom850]

@@fencerderio9814 It's a form of ATB, which is a sub genre of turn based.

[@iamLI3]

@@Kingdom850 so it is turn based then? i knew that's how my mind/feelings were classifying it though i haven't not played it yet

[@nfsman3452]

​@@Kingdom850except it isn't, because in Xenoblade, turns don't exist. Infact, it's closer to how MMOs handle combat, where it's real time, party members have cooldowns for each skill, and do basic attacks when not moving.

[@ecchicharmed]

I actually want to make my own turn based RPG someday, so I love watching videos like this. I even have my own idea for a battle system where each player character has a sort of timer that has a length determined by the speed stat of that character. Until the gauge runs out, the character can do almost anything: heal, position themselves, attack, etc. It's still a work in progress, but maybe I can do something with it.

[@pedroscoponi4905]

I'm still a big fan of Chrono Trigger, to be honest. It wins my heart entirely by a) not having old DQ/FF style random encounters, and b) the amount of charm and juice in the animations, sound effects and music. Honestly, I think a lot of people who say they "hate turn based combat" actually really _hate_ the random encounters part more than anything else. Having direct, uncompromising control over how much fighting you do between story beats goes a long way towards making a "slow" turn based combat feel less grating, since your flow of exploration isn't constantly getting interrupted by slow, easy fights you can't opt out on. And no, tying that control to an expendable resource doesn't count (I'm looking at you, pokemon ಠ_ಠ ). If the player has control over how much grinding they do at all times, there's less harm in having slow, drawn out animations, since you're not gonna be seeing them 500 times per hour of game while just trying to get from point A to point B.

[@7dayspking]

Western RPGs figured this out long ago...

[@adudeplaying4100]

Blue Dragon did this perfectly. For 90%+ of combats you can literally just walk around them, and entering them is a skill itself. Sometimes you need to realise you aren't going to dodge the fight so you're better off attacking to not give the enemy the advantage (if the enemy hits you in the overworld they get higher up on the turn order, gain bonus turns, or if they hit you from behind they can even mess up your formation entirely as well as gain bonus turns. You can also do these things to most enemies.) This means you either A: dodge fights you don't want B: aren't annoyed at the game for you messing up in the overworld C: can optionally grind no problem As a bonus if you do get that advantage in the encounter you can smash it very quickly if it's a fodder fight or even make an otherwise difficult/impossible fight just about winnable. Conversely the enemy getting the advantage can make what would be a moderate/easy fight actually quite challenging. The game throws enough mandatory fights at you to avoid it being overworld simulator too. You can even challenge clusters of enemy encounters at the same time, which usually gives an optional challenge or situationally makes the enemies fight each other for many cool interactions! You're rewarded for clearing multiple waves of enemies with buffs too, making it way more efficient to clear one group of four mobs then four groups of one mob. In addition you can unlock a skill to kill fodder in the overworld instantly. Super weak enemies eventually run from you, which almost never is an issue. To date it's the best encounter system I've ever experienced!

[@krausewitz6786]

Don't forget that other thing Chrono Trigger did right: it was short! The game it easily done in under 20 hours. It moves briskly along, and never overstays its welcome. I wish modern Square-Enix would learn this lesson. I would have played Octopath a dozen times by now if each playthrough didn't take 80-100 hours....

[@Speedy-Rabbit]

i felt this so much when playing DQXI the actual game is great, but u have a 2D world that tries to mimic earlier games, and it mimics them a bit too well, because even if you're overleveled, if you're going into a multi floor dungeon, getting to that point has like dozens of random encounters. There is an item that makes weaker enemies run away from you, but all it does is make random encounters of stronger enemies Crucially, the main game doesnt have this since u can see the enemies on the map and simply avoid them if you wish, but the clash was very very bad in 2D World

[@7dayspking]

@@adudeplaying4100 I think there's better encounter systems, unless you're a play who wants to fight a lot of battles. If you are, the encounter system sounds great.

[@jackferring6790]

I like Bravely Default 2, but some of the changes made (presumably to make it more "dynamic") conflict with the games core systems. In BD2 rather than everyone choosing their action at the start of the turn and seeing them play out, everyone has their own turn timer based on speed. Problem is this makes timing Default and many abilities really difficult. Many times I would activate Default or a 1 turn defensive ability only for that character's next turn to come before the enemy attacks. This could've been solved by showing a running display of who attacks next like Octopath Traveler, but instead we have very vague prompts for enemies and unhelpful guages for allies

[@rpglover5955]

Well typically the characters that have higher speed stats get their turns faster, and you can roughly gauge enemies turns by the "!!!" bauble popping up on enemies before their turns (about over 50% of their "bar" filled). If anything, the first thing that really threw me off guard for BD2 was the fact that they decided that all actions doesn't consume BP and that you don't gain BP unless you default or go into negative points, which was the staple for the two prior games, and honestly worked just fine. I do agree that the Octopath/FFX route would probably have been a better idea, since I'm much more of a fan of knowing when enemies attack, rather than a unknown variable based on a stat that might not translate too well into actual turn order (if you look back at BD1 and Second, the "speed" stat in battle isn't entirely deterministic of who goes first, as there is a random variable added to all combatants speed by a random number between 1* your speed and about 1.30/1.35 times your speed to check who goes first, making some later game bosses kinda hard to manage turn order, especially if you are going for specific strategies that require you to go in specific order)

[@Panory]

BD2's system is also a downgrade because of how much the job system relies on synergies. BD1 and BS could get away with some crazy strategies because you could reliably give everyone a turn each. BD2's ATB nonsense makes that functionally impossible, especially with how obfuscated the actual turn order is. For as much praise as it gets, Persona falls into the same trap. I want every JRPG with a dynamic turn order to have a FFX-style turn order banner running across the top. Being able to see one person into the future is so supremely unhelpful that it may as well not exist.

[@pn2294]

@@Panory what are you talking about? You can see the full turn order with Persona.

[@cookiestar3069]

I’m in the minority here-maybe that’s partly because I played Bravely Default 2 first. I loved BD2 so I went back to play the original and found it a bit tedious for my tastes. Although to be fair, part of that stems from the random encounters.

[@jackferring6790]

@@cookiestar3069 personally I prefer the random encounters, but that's mainly because I like unlocking the job abilities as fast as possible and am completely fine with grinding. The problem is that by chapter 3 every monster ran away from me, despite actually putting up a long fight when I caught them, since unlike the first two games you can't turn off exp gain at will.

[@BorgztheDutchCyborg]

What also helps is great battle music. But if the overworld music instead is great, or the battle music annoying, I get really annoyed if the ramdom encounters happen all the time.

[@Enzed_]

I felt that a bit with ff7, the overworld theme is so good that I sometimes try not to move too much to avoid activating a battle theme. But with ff4 it's the opposite, the battle theme bops compared to the dungeon themes.

[@atsukana1704]

Paper mario and mario and luigi games are honestly just a huge example of turn based combat done wrong. While playing through color splash and finding hodden secrets I wanted mothing more than the unskippable encounters to just go away. After the first couple of battles the system quickly lost its charm and was frustrating at other times. Having to go back and buy extra cards got tedious, battles were stale, and sometimes the timing of attack and defense prompts felt way off. I ended up dying to the final boss 3 times having to go back through the 10 minute long fight each time just because the final defense prompt had the projectile slow down at the last moment causing me to miss the timing by going too early.

[@HewleyxAngel]

Thank you for noting the Press Turn System and demon negotiations in SMT, two of my favorite things about that series. Shout out in particular to the apps in SMT4 and 4 Apocalypse to let you up your ability to negotiate. On the subject of Pokémon in particular Legends: Arceus does a good job of updating the gameplay, both with the overworld visible enemies that can be caught without encounter and the Agile/Strong moves. Agile Moves deal less power but let you take more turns, while Strong Moves deal more power but sacrifice your place in the turn order. Also shout out to the boss fight against [REDACTED] for basically being an 8 vs 6 encounter, one of the wildest fights I’ve had in the series.

[@pn2294]

Interestingly, part of the reason why Pokémon is easy is because it always plays fair and oftentimes just gives you the advantage. The hardest fights in the series are when the franchise does what any other JRPG franchise does: cheat.

[@starmaker75]

The press turn/one more is probably the best thing megmai tensei as makes flow battle faster and made hitting weakness and risk and reward system. Basically gave it a great gameplay loop

[@pn2294]

@@starmaker75 I don’t know it’s never really felt that notable to me. It’s just hitting weaknesses.

[@averytubestudios]

Too bad you can cheese the last phase with Lunar Blessing?

[@pn2294]

@@averytubestudios too bad people didn’t realize they didn’t have to cheese the fight with Lunar Blessing

[@lopesdoria]

I'm glad to see Child of Light being brought up. As my first RPG I really enjoyed its combat, but was then sad to learn that other games don't usually have interesting turn structures.

[@Ramsey276one]

My first was THE FIRST Final Fantasy Still got that game Gotta level up more to see the ending, BUT I WILL

[@thestoicnerd7606]

Atelier Iris 2 have a battle system very similar to Child of Light, I have played the entire game and didn't got tired of the system and its a long game, its a bit old game tho.

[@UeharaM]

Great analysis there! I have been thinking more lately about how I favor turn based games that are more engaging during your turn AND when it's not your turn, like in the case of Undertale, for example, where they manage to make the waiting turn the actual spotlight of the gameplay. On the other hand, that is precisely my biggest gripes with tactics games (at least the classic formula), whereas you are forced to sit and painstakingly watch every single enemy unit do their own thing and sometimes get very unlucky and frustrated when the merciless RNG works against you and you can't do much about it until then.

[@JD-xz1mx]

The question seems to conflate "turn based" combat with "text only, menu based ability selection". They don't mean the same thing.

[@Spiritxiii]

Edit Note: Not directly related to RPG combat, but decision making in a turn-based RPG. The newest turn-based RPG I can praise would be Triangle Strategy. The story, aesthetics, and combat are all appealing & engaging. It does take an hour or so for the story & gameplay to get started, but so far I've been enjoying the ride. Key-story progression though trust and negotiation with your party members is easily the best new mechanic I can think of. I'll be using the first time it occurs as an example, so very light spoilers: You have to decide on which of two neighboring continents you and your party would like to visit. Each have their benefits, but you can only visit one, and your reputation with the other may tarnish. Instead of simply having the player choose for the party, it's up to a vote. You have 7 party members, each who have a decision already in mind, and you can attempt to convince them to change their vote to whichever you prefer. Thing is, you have to gather information beforehand that would appeal to their way of thinking that would sway them to your side. You gather this info by during your downtime in the overworld by, get this, talking to NPCs - which are entirely missable! This is the first time in awhile where I can think of that has made talking to optional NPCs benefit the player. I felt good for going around and talking to NPCs, getting to know the world, which also influenced which continent I wanted to travel to. As for the party members themselves, each of the 18 units I’ve recruited so far is a unique class, every single one. The only shared ability I’ve come across so far is the multi-tile healing spell Sanctuary. This is the first time I’ve played a tactics game with this much party diversity. I’m 16 hours and 8 chapters in so far, and can’t wait to see what happens.

[@pn2294]

This has nothing to do with combat

[@FelisImpurrator]

That sounds delightful. Great way to make party members more relevant.

[@7dayspking]

Sounds in many ways similar to Western RPGs. The option to gather information to sway NPC opinion sounds interesting though. In Western RPGs it's usually more about how players converse with their companions & their actions through the game and how the companions side quests pan out that determines their standing with their party. Often party members take rigid stances of things that can't be overturned though. I think it'd be very cool though to offer optional encounters players could find to gather intel that'd allow them to better persuade or even manipulate companions when they are being rigid. Options for cruel, pragmatic and benevolent characters. Whether that's outright holding a family member hostage or helping them deal with whatever business is keeping them from helping you.

[@queseraphita]

i'm so glad you brought up Shin Megami Tensei games, I love the series so much There are alot of spinoffs and iterations of both the press turn system in the series, the most polished version of this was Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse and the Smirk system of the turn economy where one you critically damaged the enemy there was a buff you or your demon party members could get that would make you powerful for a turn and guarantee a crit while making your enemy miss (this can also apply to the enemy) it also built upon the demon whisper mechanic + fusion mechanic so certain demons could have advantage or disadvantage when learning certain skills (ie an ice demon would be very bad at fire moves) I think Strange Journey had a really interesting press turn system as it interacted dynamically with the story in the alignment system, your choices would push you +/-1 or 0 direction making you either Law, Chaos, or Neutral throughout the story and how you interact with the characters in the story, well demons also have an alignment and will be more or less likely to join you depending on your alignment. So depending on what route you were going, you'd have to think about what demons you could bring because while yes having a variety of demons is good, it was also an advantage to have demons that match your alignment because then you could do these powerful all out attacks for more turns. The password system of fusion wasnt my favorite personally but for a price it could get you some very powerful demons with customizable moves if you knew what you were doing.

[@demi-femme4821]

Good animations and sound design are really important. SMT Nocturne is a masterclass in this. The enemies' hurt animations, the weight of your attack animations, and those satisfying hit sounds makes every hit feel great, from a basic Lunge all the way up to Freikugel.

[@12abbits72]

This was an excellent video. Thank you for organizing your thoughts and presenting them like this.

[@Heyhowsitgoin999]

I think DQ11 had a few situations where they hid the grind behind side quests. The one that comes to mind is in the desert area. You are tasked with fighting this rare type of cactus enemy for an item. The rare enemy is harder, and only shows up on occasion. So you have to fight the cactus enemies a few times before one shows up. If the reward for the side quest is good then people will want to do them, and if the enemy is rare but not obscenly so they can nab a few levels while hunting the rare enemy that could catch them up to where the game expects them to be while also giving them a reason to do it beyond just getting stronger. I feel like this should be used by more RPGs.

[@till5871]

The press turn system introduced in the smt series is my favorite type of turn based gameplay. Fast, Few to no gimmicks and strategy based. I'm absolutely addicted to these games

[@carlosaugusto9821]

Then that must mean the turn based genre really is condemned. If only SMT and Persona and a few others have an extremely fresh and competent take on it. They aren't examples to prove that turn based have to be the norm. Basically whenever someone mentions these games, that's nothing but an apologetic argument to favor the games particularly and not exactly the genre. Since it's not possible to standardize that system for every game. It's a reason to show why SMT and Persona's systems are so good. But it cannot prove that Final Fantasy has to return to turn based, for example.

[@dmas7749]

the press turn system IS a gimmick tho it just happens to be actually good

[@EddiePReacts]

Press turn is cool. Works damn near the same as one more in persona. Both have found dope ways to utilize their respective systems. Maximizing my turns in SMT is just as important as maximizing damage via baton pass in P5R

[@tnichols8273]

I feel that Miitopia has a pretty good way of streamlining battles. By having other party members fight on their own it limits the amount of navigation in menus. The way that the friendship works, getting boosts if the miis have high friendship with each other. Also having a speed up button helps a lot

[@snivyboy168]

I'm a fan of Miitopia but teammates auto battling is a part I dislike, as it limits how strategic you can be in fights, you just have to hope they do the right move and it's just luck most of the time. A lot of the time they use a weaker attack when they could use a much stronger one, (or they steal grub and waste a few turns). You learn so many great moves that the game could be a lot more satisfying and strategic if 3/4 of the party wasn't largely out of control outside of sprinkles/safe spot. Sometimes it feels like I need to play *around* not being able to pick their moves as well which feels wrong. I do like how it can make battles faster though, but I'd prefer there was an option to turn it off, like how you can turn it on for your main character. But I still love the game, don't get me wrong. Speed up button is a godsend though I wish it was a thing in every RPG ever. Edit: I didn't realize this was a whole year ago lol

[@SilverAlex92]

I love how all of these apply to Fear and Hunger. That game's turn battle system feels anything but slow and grindy. Battles often end in a couple of turns, enemies are as capable and scary as they look like and most of the game you should NOT be fighting them unless you have a serious plan or are willing to risk permanent injury on your party members. And the best part of it, the game constantly rewards you in trying to think outside the box. Like the big scary dogs at the begining are kinda impossible to kill unless you have a full party and better armor and weapons, they just do too much damage and too much hp for you alone. But throw them a stick and they get distracted long enough for you to escape. And the like, almsot all the battles feel like a dark souls boss, but with enough creativy or effort or sacrifice you can actually win them.

[@soltythomas]

The other problem a lot of turn based games have, is that there are a lot of trash encounters which are essentially meaningless. Whenever you want to grind, you stand next to a town and use basic strategies to get exp and money. You don't need to play well, as any damage is meaningless. After all you are next to a town where you can heal up with the money you get from the fights. When you look at Persona, the day system and the rarity of SP regeneration (early on) makes it so that you have to stay on your toes. Damage you take in the dungeon can be healed with items or magic, but those are both limited. Going back to town means a day passes and those are limited.

[@7dayspking]

It's not a universal problem among turn based games, it's pretty isolated to JRPGs.

[@saschathesas7628]

Etrian oddysey is a classic RPG series that does random encounters well too, the fights are about not getting destroyed (very possible due the high difficulty of the series) while also finding ways to efficiently win since if you burn through your SP you simply won't make progress as you won't be able to reach the next floor or shortcut. It's a dungeon crawler where you can't just return to town and keep progress

[@7dayspking]

@@saschathesas7628 Etrian odyssey is a Japanese style first person Dungeon crawler. It's not 'classic' like Wizardry is, it's Japanese style.

[@AlastairGames]

thank you, great point!

[@imveryangryitsnotbutter]

In retrospect, FFVIII's solution to have enemies level up as you do isn't great. In practice, it makes the gaining of EXP a punishment rather than a reward, since enemies usually gain way more benefits than you do from levelling up. Instead, I think the following solution would work better. The tabletop RPG Pathfinder 2e, like FF8, grants a level-up every 1000 EXP, but the EXP you earn scales depending on the difference between the player party's level and the enemy party's level. You earn 40 EXP for defeating an enemy mob scaled to your level, more for enemy mobs higher level than you, and less for enemy mobs lower level than you. If an enemy mob is so weak that it poses no threat, you don't get any EXP for defeating it. So, to fix FF8, I would keep the enemy scaling, but instead of tying enemy levels to the player's levels, they should instead be tied to plot progression. At the start of the game, all random encounters are leveled from 1 to 15 (Bite Bugs and those sand shark things typically being Level 1-7, T-Rexaurs being Level 15). After you clear the Fire Cavern, the random encounter level range becomes 3 to 17. After you complete the Dollet mission, the range becomes 5 to 19, etc etc. Because EXP gains are based on the level difference between the player and enemy party, this means that any time you find yourself stuck on a plot-related boss, stopping to grind is a perfectly viable option (provided random encounters are available), as enemies will not level up until you advance the plot. And this same system can't be exploited to grind way ahead of the curve, because EXP gains diminish and eventually stop if you get too powerful for the current point in the story. One more thing: I'd get rid of AP gains entirely. Instead, just make it so that whenever GFs level up, you can spend build points to unlock their abilities. If you want to make it so that only GFs benefit from boss battles, then just make it so that only GFs earn EXP when you defeat a boss.

[@AdamTheGameBoy]

How about what Square did with Romancing Saga 2 where winning battles doesn't level you up, but levels the enemies up and you can do NG+ at any point and keep your (global) class stat increases while resetting your stat levels, because the devs realized the game was so broken it would be impossible to finish on one run for a first time player. So basically the game boils down to naively playing for a while, eventually getting stomped and softlocked by everything because you are underleveled, going online thinking you just suck, but learning how the game works. Then reluctantly NG+ing and very likely getting softlocked eventually again because your stat level ups can RNG screw you and give you no increases. (Oh also the game has permadeath)

[@Buglin_Burger7878]

We already use down scaling Exp, well sort of. It is known as the Exp curve. An enemy in this area offers 10 exp but in the next offers 100 exp. This does the same thing without extra steps but also lets people grind if they want to. By restricting it to 0 exp you're removing player agency which is generally NEVER something you should do in a game but also you make any area where an enemy offers 0 exp much more frustrating to the player.

[@imveryangryitsnotbutter]

Heck, since I'm on a roll, I might as well dump my other FF8 tweaks here. Okay, everyone who's played this game knows how boring the Draw grind is. Of course, it's not actually necessary to put yourself through that pain, since 100 of each spell is overkill (and Triple Triad is the superior grinding method anyway). But players are tempted to do it anyway just because it's an obvious and effortless way to gain power. So let's fix it by turning the Draw grind into an interesting strategic challenge. First, let's change the way the Draw command works. Instead of selecting it over and over every turn, it should be a continuous ability that remains in effect until the character takes a different action. In FFX-2, many Songstress abilities worked this way; you chose an ability, and it would confer buffs/debuffs continuously for as long as that character wasn't issued a new command or interrupted by an enemy. However, while Drawing, spells don't just come to you automatically (otherwise you could just AFK). Nor can you select the spells you want to Draw from a menu. No, to get spells while Drawing, you have to fulfill certain conditions, usually by attacking the enemy with a second character. As an example, let's take the Bomb enemy; each time you attack it, it grows from Small to Medium, then Medium to Large, then finally kamikazes for massive damage. While Drawing, using a second character to attack it in its small form gives you Fire spells, attacking it in its medium form gives Fira spells, and attacking it in its large form gives Firaga spells. If it explodes and the Drawer survives or someone else takes the hit for her, it yields a large amount of Meltdown spells. Also, many GFs in the original game are acquired by just Drawing them from certain bosses. For example, the Elvoret boss fight lets you draw Siren from it; if you defeat the boss without doing this, you miss out on that GF until the final dungeon. This boss battle can be reworked to make Siren's acquisition more likely and more interesting. Normally, Elvoret uses Storm Breath every 6 turns to deal large non-elemental damage to the party. However, if a party member is Drawing while Elvoret uses Storm Breath, Storm Breath instead reduces the Drawer's HP to 1 and doesn't affect anyone else; this also successfully draws out Siren. Doing this again later in battle will draw Silence spells. I imagine reworking several boss battles this way to offer ways of subverting strong attacks and undermining defenses would add a great deal of depth to these battles besides, and giving GFs is a great reward for clever thinking. In general, exploratory tactics and meeting secondary objectives in boss battles often nets the party great rewards like strong spells and GFs. This would certainly encourage the player to explore the combat system more thoroughly, and not simply fall back on boring tried-and-true tactics.

[@pn2294]

@@imveryangryitsnotbutter I’ve found that most people that complain about grinding would also prefer to just playing the game normally Seriously, the developers never expected us to draw 100 of a spell; not bothering with that makes the game a whole lot more enjoyable

[@nesoukkefka1741]

The problem with FFVIII is just that the most efficient ways to get powerfull are independant from LV. A scaling would work better if there was still incentive to take LV, but that's not the case in FFVIII, pretty everything can be gotten without increasing LV at all. In all honnestly I think a system were EXP scaled with how powerfull the ennemy is compare to you, kinda like the Trails game did, is better makes it clear which ennemies are worth fighting and which aren't.

[@Kaitou1412Fangirl]

There's a niche RPG gem called Shadow Hearts where after you select your attack/magic, you have a "Ring of Judgement" appear with colored sections. Hit the colored sections, you attack once for each section hit, but get the smaller darker section next to the lighter one, and you get a critical hit. It adds a little extra something to the standard turn-based formula. Also, the game itself is really interesting with the alternate WWI-era earth, transforming (or soul-fusion as the game calls it) into monsters, and the anti-hero protagonist is really cool. I'd recommend it.

[@Alpha.Phenix]

There is this mecha game called Phantom Brigade which came out recently. Enemy and Player turns are simultaneous. There is a planning phase in which you can spend however long you like, looking at what the oponents are ''predicted'' to do, and mapping out your actions on a 5s timeline to counter them. This might take a bit if you are a perfectionist, but only having whatever you bring with you (instead of whole pages of magic spells) helps to keep it going at a reasonable pace. You can equip anything, from a rifle & sword, to a two handed heavy laser pointer that chews through buildings; also shields. You can go full RAMMING SPEED with shields in Phantom Brigade!

[@AdamTheGameBoy]

Trails is the most perfected form of turn based combat I've seen - Standard attacks are quick and special and magic attacks can be skipped - It has a double speed toggle - The menus are mapped across the face buttons and D-pad - Standard enemies die in 1-3 turns, but deal decent damage - High level of tactical complexity, conveyed with simplicity and a focus on enemies being either physical or magic focused, so even those quick kill standard enemies require some thinking - Characters, orbs and links all level up independently and battles reward money, items and septima to upgrade equipment with - Adjustable difficulty option so you only have to fight as many enemies as you want to How do you improve on turn-based battles? Look at and use Trails as your foundation and try to improve on it further

[@veeshadow]

Well, I'm not saying this is bad but Trails basically have balancing problem. Sky series basically has traits Magic/Arts is better than Physical while Cold Steel is Physical instead. For the series, I won't claim it as best combat system after you learn deep and replay the games...

[@gejamugamlatsoomanam7716]

@@veeshadow cold steel 1 and 2 its not physical attacks that are op, attacks with delay properties are op In cold steel 3 and 4, magic is op if you stack all the delay from casting reduction and use instant cast order, i beaten many boss fights spamming S+ magic spells 4 to 5 times in a row without the boss gettting their turn in

[@Walamonga1313]

This comment right here. There's so many mechanics that work super smoothly. And you've Turbo mode on top to make everything faster when needed (aka most of the time). Trails games are genuinely fun to fight in, plus there's banger tracks to jam to while you battle

[@Walamonga1313]

@@veeshadow You're forgetting the most important part of combat (and by default, in any game): fun. Yes combat is unbalanced, but is it fun? Absolutely. The music is incredible and the mechanics are really engaging. I never get tired of Trails combat, which is something I can't say for any other turn based JRPG

[@veeshadow]

@@Walamonga1313 I don't forget it is fun. A lot of negatives mainly come on hardest difficulties and upcoming Trails into Reverie for hardcore JP players said it's worst for combat system and being confused for too many characters... Again, it's not the best combat I can recommend on. Is it good to copy Trails series battle system as one reference or source? Yes. But should Trails be only one to recommend on? A big No...

[@diavolo6433]

I really enjoyed the "row" system in SMT: Soul hackers. It's quite different from the Press Turn System in Modern SMT games and more similar to traditional games. There are 6 spots in your party, 3 in the front row and 3 in the back row and each weapon and skill has its own area of effect and the front row is more likely to be targeted by enemies, but once a party member in the front row dies if there is someone behind them they get put into the front row. It adds a lot of strategy not just with who to add to your party but also where to place them to make best use of their stats and skills. You select skills at the start of every turn and the order in which everything plays out is determined by everyone's individual speed stat, but there is also a random chance at the start of every battle for either the enemy to get a free turn or your party to get a free turn. One system I also really enjoyed was that sometimes enemies would attack from the back, making it so your back row gets moved to the front, only downside of that system is that after battle you have to change everyone back. The skill animations are quick and flashy so you don't have to wait around a lot and most of the time is spent thinking about your next move. Because you can't immediately tell in what order everyone is going to attack you also have to plan in a way where you can take a lot of hits. Overall Soul Hackers combat is really great, at least in my opinion.

[@blumiu2426]

That's THE classic form of turn-based originated with Dragon Quest. Still used today and still enjoyable, but not always among the younger audience as they are geared toward endorphin rushes

[@gaiko804]

Try out Etrian Odyssey made by Atlus too. They have this "row" system and the game heavily emphasizes on classes, team composition, buffs and debuffs plus their bind system where every skills are associated to one of the three body parts: head, arms and legs so if you bind an enemies head they can't use magic skills since most of it are tied to the head or arms for physical skills or legs for greatly reducing the enemy speed.

[@pn2294]

Why are people trying to rush through combat so much? Isn’t that why people play the game to begin with?

[@blumiu2426]

@@pn2294 The short attention span is a real thing. Social media has trained brains to only maintain focus in short spurts, so things have to be spectace and brief. Turn-based requires critical thinking skills, so that becomes a problem.

[@tanookimariorocks]

That sorta sounds like darkest dungeon with it's position based combat

[@DarkAngelBluejay]

I feel a deck based move system like in the Mega Man Battle Network series is a great way to go. You get the hunt in trying to get your enemies moves and rare chips. You are never forced to wait as you can almost always move freely, and use your regular buster to do chip damage the entire fight. And the system letting you customize your special move set to your own play style really takes the pain out of most of the grind.

[@justcallmexen]

One thing I thought of was a simple one I didn't think about before, but displaying damage numbers. In old Dragon Quest games, you attacked and a text box would pop up to tell you what you did and what happened, independent of the action. In the second game where there were parties of allies and enemies, this appeared for each one hit by party wide moves, which just meant more waiting as each foe was eliminated one by one, even in the same turn. Later games put the damage values over enemies heads the moment attacks connected and vice versa, you still get the same general information without having to wait for the game to say so after the attack is done. It is small and text usually still appears below to be redundant but you know that it's redundant and can focus on the more pleasing and exciting fight and not a plain box with words, usually skipping past them faster with a bit of button pressing.

[@Quortezz3]

Radiant Historia has one of my favorite battle systems with being able to change turn order at the risk of taking more damage at the advantage of creating combos and moving enemies as a part of the grid system. It made every battle pretty fun and the boss battles challenging with putting together when to go for a crazy chain and how best to structure it.

[@agentofcaladium2741]

This The fact that the system encourages you to go for a hit chain by increasing the damage of each additional attack and gives more exp and gold is really great in my opinion Plus having out of combat party members jump in for support just made it so much for fun

[@benedict6962]

It also needs more layers. Bosses frequently can't be pushed around, negating a good third of the mechanics, and latter party members don't actually change up what you can do since you've already filled up the various directions of pushing. It's a very tight system paired with a story that's just long enough not to overstay its welcome.

[@ugh5880]

@@benedict6962 I remember being super disappointed by the final boss because it couldn't be pushed around. Isn't the last boss supposed to be a culmination of everything you learned through the adventure?

[@Quortezz3]

@@ugh5880 yeah I agree, the final boss was disappointing in that aspect. Especially since I was using Aht and that took out the majority of her usefulness

[@FelisImpurrator]

Oh yeah. I was just thinking about how fun it was to push enemies, but immovable bosses really did take away something from the endgame. That being said... It's such an underrated game. The final boss, despite not taking advantage of all the mechanics, was an excellent spectacle.

[@Tortferngatr]

I like how Ruined King: A League of Legends Story handled the turn economy-it uses a timeline system, but separated into three lanes. Both you and the enemy can make special abilities in the Speed Lane, Balanced Lane, or Power Lane. Speed Lane abilities take less time but are weaker, Power Lane abilities take more time but are stronger. The game plays with this by introducing buffs and debuffs based on what lane you use certain abilities and attacks in, as well as lane-specific Boons, Hazards, and Wildcards that either buff allies that act or start their turn in the boon, harm allies that start their turn or act in the hazard, and wildcards that can buff allies OR enemies that start their turn or act inside them. Some abilities can push allies forward or enemies backward, too, giving you more granular control of your turns. It combines to make a fun system based around trying to get as much time in the good spots as possible, as little time in the bad spots as possible, and trying to keep enemies out of the wildcards when they’d be an issue there. Basic attacks and ultimates bypass this system and trigger immediately, and there’s both an “just spam basic attacks” button and a “double the speed of combat” toggle for battles where you really couldn’t care less. Also, the game outright lets you see what enemies can do, so if you’re paying attention their mechanics shouldn’t be a surprise.

[@TinyPrinceGames]

Was hoping someone would mention this game. I didn't expect an RPG centered around League to be so good, but it really is

[@_eggwife7805]

I have a soft spot for the battle system in Eternal Sonata!! It mixes turn based strategy with action elements in a satisfying way imo. Each 'real time' attack and movement on the field depletes a specific amount of "tactical time" you have before it moves on to the next turn, some attacks value skill and overall gameplay benefits from having a good sense of strategy since every little move counts.

[@chfgn]

A big part of making the grind fun instead of, you know, a grind, is making sure the player understands clearly what the benefit is that they're getting. I've played a few RPGs that try to do some kind of clever workaround to leveling without using XP, and sometimes that leaves me unsure of why I'm bothering to battle at all instead of running from every encounter. I'm sure there's *some* reason for it, but if I don't understand it then I'm not having fun.

[@egoalter1276]

The grind is a result of a battle system that is not fun to engage with primarily.

[@happyhydralisk6885]

A fairly niche game called Library of Ruina had an interesting way to handle turn-based combat: It all happens at once One phase is figuring out which enemies is using which attack against which one of your guys, and you position your own moves to counter those attacks

[@BlazingMagpie]

Library of Ruina does so many things great: every encounter brings new mechanics, each victory rewards with new possibilities for your builds, each turn is vital to your strategy and combat animations are at right lengths for how they work in the game: commonly used attacks are fast and don't interrupt combat flow, mass attacks and other powerful attacks are slow and accentuate reception-deciding moments.

[@Hell_O7]

I think Fate/Extra did similar things as a rock paper scissor game

[@thelightningking8772]

The Trails series has one of if not my favorite turn-based battle systems out there. You have to manage both time (manipulating turn order through the delay value) and space (attacks and spells have an aoe so juggling risk and reward with your party positioning). Trails of Cold Steel 3 and 4 also have a break system which is fun in most games it appears in

[@frozenwrath1352]

Break system is incredibly player friendly, but once you learn to exploit it the game is a breeze, same goes for delay tactics, even enemies that reduce delay by 95% are not immune to actually never get a turn and this is true for most final bosses, all of them can be delayed to the point they never get a single attack out. Ironically the only Cold steel game that had a punishing "final" final boss was CS 1, where you can softlock yourself because you were underleveled, as Valimar's stats are tied to Rean's level meaning that if you were bored of steamrolling battles by the ened of the game you can actually find yourself in this situation, forcing you to reset. Same goes for CS 4 Rivalries, if you're not farming those Omega orbs, you're not getting past them unless the CPU doesn't get too many break on your mechs.

[@CarDaMax1770]

@@frozenwrath1352 You can actually prevent the enemy from breaking your mechs during the rivalries in CS4 by using the "guard" command, but it's kinda finnicky. If the enemy uses a single target attack, then just having the targeted character guard is enough to not get a break. But if the enemy uses an attack that targets all 3 of your mechs then you must have ALL of them guard, otherwise the enemy will make a followup attack for massive dmg. In fact, in nightmare difficulty, the guard command is a must to keep all your party alive during the rivalries, especially the ones in the final dungeon. Every time I found myself breezing through the rerular boss fights without even taking damage, only to spend upwards of 20 minutes during the mech fights because of how easy it was to die if you didn't guard.

[@ninototo1]

Trails series easily has my favorite turn based combat system. That said, they are horribly balanced, especially the Cold Steel games. Thank god there are fan made difficulty/balancing mods.

[@Pikaton659]

@@ninototo1 That "imbalance" that everyone harps on Cold Steel about is why I love the combat in that game so much. Turn based combat, is at it's core about the strategy, so there is no better feeling for me than using the tools at my disposal to find a way to shatter the game at it's very core

[@ninototo1]

@@Pikaton659 I agree IF you actually have to find a way. Cold Steel hands you a ton of those ways on a silver platter, such as AT delay crafts and way too powerful s-crafts or Chrono Burst, I could go on. It's fundamentally unbalanced, these aren't some cool tactics players found.

[@DJMilez]

This video was phenomenal! Thank you for making this

[@kirbwarriork3371]

For me, the "Waiting" is the most important part to address. A battle that lasts two turns lasts two turns regardless of how long the real time is. At the most extreme level, you could have something like having the player input all commands for a turn, then jump forward and just show the results (such as HP changes, state changes, if any action was skipped, etc) instantly and waiting for the player to push "Accept" to input actions again. With a player who knows what they are doing, you could have a random encounter take literally ten seconds to do! Of course, that does come at a cost of basically any 'charm' such as battle music, animations of spells and actions, idle animations, sound effects, etc. But on the other end of the spectrum, you can get an rpg where the exact same inputs takes MINUTES like you point out and end up with people who won't play the fantastic FF9 because of a pretty big and constant flaw, even players who like the series and turn-based combat.

[@MrNovascar]

What makes me love Grandia 1 so much, is that it encourages you to use its combat to the fullest. This isn't TIED to Turn Base Combat/Old Fashioned RPGs, but happens more in these games. Take Octopath for example. MP is a resource and you wont get any back until you go back to a town or buy expensiv MP potions. Since nothing happens when using a spell(except a faster ending battle), I tend to normal attack only the entire game, saving all MP for the bosses and occasional healing spells. In Grandia you get a save point before the boss, which refills HP and MP. So it doesn't matter that you spend MP on normal encounters. In addition, all spells are connected to an element, using a fire spell increases your fire stat. This is the primary way of learning new spells and skills. Also every element(and weapon stat) increase one of your "normal" stats like speed for using wind magic. You throw out massive spells and maybe overkill here and there and it feels worth it. Something they sadly removed in Grandia 2...

[@boobah5643]

The real problem with _Grandia 2_ is that every character's first ability was an interrupt, it was cheap to level, and once it was maxed out time stopped as soon as you selected it. So if an opponent was a half-second from finishing their super attack, your character could run all the way across the field, dodging three or four minor enemies on the way, wind up and knock down the enemy, not only interrupting the attack but forcing the enemy back to the beginning of the time track. There was rarely any point in using any other attack; you'd burn more MP, do marginally more damage, but the enemy would just shrug it off. Use your starter attack, never run out of MP, do almost as much damage, and stagger them. Killed any sense of strategy.

[@someonesgenericfish0]

A turn based RPG I found interesting is Epic Battle Fantasy 5, which has a lot of strategic depth in the battles involving equipment, summons, spells, and status effects which can let you get off multi-million damage combos.

[@sneezingwizard]

Hmm, I expect you to also talked about Suikoden series combat system where after you decide what command to use on each of characters you bring to combat -- the characters as well as enemies move at the same time (provided they have different targets) which sped up turn-based combat unlike other JRPGs at the time. Maybe worth checking it out if you haven't.

[@SomethingEternal]

My first suggestion is to understand what you believe the benefits of turn based combat are. An improvement to one person is a regression to another. Given that you stated you love the strategic nature of them, I'd like to point out (and hopefully this is received kindly) that the games listed in this video are those I'd consider less consequential: You can more or less autopilot through without dramatic gains or losses because they are only strategic at a base level. While I'd not go so far as to say they're entirely lacking in strategy, you're never asked to plan for a large number of outcome or possibilities or many turns in a row. So, either it's not strategy you're truly valuing, or if it is, I could recommend a few games of varying difficulties from a broader range of genres that have stronger emphasis on strategy.

[@gabrielandy9272]

yeah some turn based games have no sttrategy level, but divinity original sin 1 and 2 and bg3, xcom2 have insane strategy levels that u have to think alot and add huge value to the game.

[@jpegwarrior5431]

It took me a while to find out why I enjoy Golden Sun's combat so much, and I think it comes down to two things. One, menus are just so fast. All your inputs are quick and responsive with zero time between menu boxes, and the selection sound effects are excellent. Most normal encounters take less than 20 seconds because you just fly through them and it is sick. Another big part for me is how it essentially disables mashing. Strategy is the cornerstone of most traditional turn-based RPGs, but a lot of them fall into the trap where you can just mash A and get through them without thinking, which makes them feel like a mindless grind. In Golden Sun, if you target an enemy but they die before you act, your characters will defend instead of attacking another enemy, more or less wasting their turn. Meanwhile if you plan your attacks, you can easily one-turn most encounters. I know characters defending instead of changing target is nothing unique, but combined with the responsive menus and pacing of the battles it really just adds so much to the game in my opinion. It feels like you can play as fast as you can think and it is incredibly satisfying.

[@FelisImpurrator]

Oh, I loved Golden Sun to pieces and you might have finally explained why I enjoyed the damn game so much. Heavily agreed - and more than that, even nuking things isn't an unsatisfying, mindless rhythm because the whole game is built on being so goddamn flashy. The way GS is based on building up your Djinn and expanding a massive roster of characters and abilities, with puzzles that feel worth the absurd complexity and rewards that truly qualify as special not just because they're rare but because they're uniquely powerful... The game just made you feel like a true powerhouse when you set everything up just right. It nailed the feeling of tapping into unfathomably powerful divine forces to unleash devastation on enemies... and it doesn't hurt that said deific figures are adorable and ideal mascots that might have dominated Nintendo's lineup in a world without Pokemon's runaway success.

[@RoninCatholic]

Better than that - the fact the heroes _defend_ rather than _do nothing_ if someone else kills the monster before they can kill it is a benefit compared to how the early Dragon Warrior games and the first Final Fantasy did it, with heroes attacking empty air but still being wide open to enemy attacks. I liked that system too for the reasons you outlined, but by making Defend the default option, it's being extra merciful.

[@sor3999]

Characters losing a turn because the enemy dies before they execute their attack is a flaw of Final Fantasy 1. It was more an annoyance than having depth. It just meant you had to have ran into the enemy before and can gauge how many hits it takes to not waste turns.

[@RoninCatholic]

@@sor3999 No, objectively it requires the player to think more when that's in place. This makes tactics deeper by default. Just because something is inconvenient to the player doesn't mean it's bad, that's literally what obstacles exist for. If anything, I'd say that the "quality of life" alternative most turn based RPGs have used for the last three decades is a big factor in why people tend to think turn based combat is "boring" - since it's literally mindless as all you do is rapidly press the attack button and the in-game characters do the thinking for you.

[@jpegwarrior5431]

Yeah and I think it adds depth because of that.

[@legodawg2001]

SMTIV (and IV Apocalypse) is my gold standard for turn based JRPGs. The turns are blisteringly fast, with animations taking less than a second. The game has this incredible feedback loop that makes the game FEEL fast paced. Combine that with the stat builds to maximize or minimize grinding (dump all stats into magic), demon negotiation and fusion, and things like apps to minimize your tedium like healing, the battles feel so incredibly fun and addicting. You can beat minibosses like 20 levels higher than you if you build your stats right. Bosses also have dialogue choices when you get their HP to a certain level, affecting alignment points. Its satisfying in a way that hasn't been surpassed in my eyes. SMTV is great, but it trades speed with fancy battle animationsm, which is fine, I just prefer the SMTIV approach

[@BawesomeBurf]

Fantastic video, and I pretty much agree with all the points you made. You mentioned a lot of games that I really love. The 6th gen really seemed to be the peak of the genre, with many developers coming up with creative ways to keep combat interesting. Of course, there's also some more modern games doing that such as Persona 5, which is just an evolution of a system from the PS2 days, which was just an evolution of the main SMT series. And Bravely Default was brilliant because it was FF5 at its core, with some light online functionality, and the Brave/Default system to take it to the next level. On the other side of the coin, there are games like Xenosaga 2, which try way too hard to make combat interesting and complex, but all it does is make every single encounter feel like a chore.

[@red_adept]

You should look at Arc Rise Fantasia on the Wii. Combat was just so much fun cause of the bit system. You could actually spec party members for roles like tank or healer. And you weren't limited on which party members you could spec for what. Obviously there where party members that seemed optimized for certain builds, but even then you can spec them differently to achieve that role in different ways, such as a healer that acts fast with small heals, or a healer that focuses on group heals. Every combat felt like tangible progression towards something like unlocking new bits. Exploration rewarded you with new weapons. Using new weapons unlocked new bits. New bits unlock abilities and aspects, and with these new abilities came new strategies. So you could stack taunt and def boosts on one Character, then spec the others to strike fast and/or hard. It was definitely the most innovation I've seen from a turn based game Star Ocean with the ATB gauge on the SNES.

[@user-nt8dy4xw9r]

Every turn-based combat I enjoyed felt like a chess game. Strategy is the key here, and Into the Breach was the best in this regard, followed by Slay the Spire and Final Fantasy X. I’m also glad for Child of Light properly introduced in this video. This beautiful Ubisoft game deserves more attention.

[@lancelindlelee7256]

Something the Trails series does that's really helpful, just a universal fast forward that works well. Run really fast, skip battle animations and all those. Plus they added Exp scaling so that you are always at the right level

[@zedelpilfer]

I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had played cold steel 2 without the fast forward

[@deeps6979]

XP scaling was pretty vital to sanity for Suikoden titles as well. Easy to catch up new characters as you find them, but the decreasing gains toward an area's expected level meant that you also couldn't just out-grind it entirely.

[@Layazeroda]

That fast forward is so good, skip your super moves and and summons after the 5th or 6th time you've seen them? Why isn't something so simple in every RPG i gotta wonder.

[@Walamonga1313]

Trails games have the best turn based systems, hands down. Order manipulating, positioning, special skills with tons of different effects, different tiers of Arts, elements and ailments, character linking for combo attacks, supermoves... And best of all, Turbo mode. Every turn based game needs a speedup option after playing Trails

[@wolfwhitman1961]

I personally have only really played Final Fantasy VI (the SNES version where its called III), and Chrono Trigger, but I always liked how in Final Fantasy you can choose what stats your characters develop using the espers and how Gau, Sabin, and Cyan each have interesting and unique attack styles, with Gau making each enemy a nice treat as it gives the opportunity to give him a new ability, Sabin having a far more difficult blitz system that rewards learning his combos, and Cyan requiring you to think through if you have enough time to get to his most powerful attack or if it would be better to do a weaker attack faster.

[@zobblewobble1770]

Not an RPG, but I think Battlestar Galactica Deadlock present an interesting concept to turn based combat: simultaneous turns. The game primarily revolves around moving ships through a 3 dimensional space and anticipating where your opponent will be so you can align your firing arcs. This can lead to funny incidents where you accidentally (or intentionally) crash into each other. Also, the game primarily uses auto attacks, so the player only has to worry about positioning and special abilities. This minimizes the need for menus and text boxes. I do wonder if these concepts can be applied to a turn based RPG as well.

[@calahoon22]

The grind has always been something I've seen as an optional way of making the game easier for yourself if the game balancing is done right! Its one of the reason I loved the genre growing up as if I was on a low level due to wanting to experience the story or just not strategically minded enough, I could always grind for a bit to make it a bit easier for myself!

[@jasonreed7522]

I remember seeing someones video that basically says "grinding is a state of mind, not a game mechanic" Basically grinding is when you are just slogging through enemies looking for the reward not the fight. It could be experience in pokemon, or a weapon with too low a drop rate in MMOs, or whatever material reward for killing enemies. However, the same activity of ploughing through enemies or strip mining in Minecraft could be done because its enjoyable and the reward is a side effect. Basically gringing is a mental state of just gimme the reward at the end and the same activity done for any other reason isn't grinding.

[@Jack_______oh]

@@jasonreed7522 Thats a cool story, but no, grinding just means to repeat the same action over and over for the purposes of getting something

[@Buglin_Burger7878]

@@jasonreed7522 Unfortunately that person is completely wrong while their logic being applicable to anything. Racing is just a mental state of just gimme the reward at the end. Writing is just a mental state of just gimme the reward at the end. Breathing is just a mental state of just gimme the reward at the end. There is intended Grinding (Disgaea) but most grinding is purely avoidable. (No one expects the player to grind for that 1% drop rather it is a surprise reward.) while most "Grinding" in RPGs is fight every on field encounter once or just don't run from battles when doing the main story. ...otherwise known as face the challenge the game gave to you. Most people who complain about having to grind tend to use the ESCAPE command or walk around on field encounters. So you have a harder boss fight and fewer items and less money and worse equipment. All because you're avoiding the "learn an area's mechanic" fights and in turn literally refusing to play the game. This is like playing CTF in Halo and just ignoring the flag the entire game. No duh you're going to lose and hate the game mode. You literally were not playing the game.

[@jasonreed7522]

@@Buglin_Burger7878 you missed the point by a mile. 1 HTF is breathing a mental states of give me the reward, its literally an involuntary process until you tell someone "You are now breathing manually." And when i say grind i mean run back and forth in the tall grass in pokemon to get enough exp to keep pace with the gym leaders because you had the audacity to change up your team to include the new pokemon you found and not just the 6 you preplanned to use. Its playing a call of duty campaign over and over to get achievements. Grinding is not causally strolling through a route fighting back when things attack you and this puts you at the intended level to fight the boss. Grinding is treating the game like a chore or job that you don't enjoy so you can have the "rare item that supposed to be a surprise" but its the objective best thing available so nearly everyone is going to try and get it even if they have to spend 8hrs getting it. Edit: i found the video, judge for your self kzbin.info/www/bejne/pIGUon-ojcZ3rKc

[@noukan42]

@@jasonreed7522 you usually don't need to be at the same level of the gym leader or to drop the rare item. You can win without doing both. There is some games that require grinding, but most of those are old and were already considered bad back then. Other than that, people complain about grinding blame the game for their own bad decisions.

[@lethauntic]

I like the 'conditional turn-based' system that Final Fantasy 10 went with. I'm kind of surprised that you didn't touch on it, actually. The way it works is that each action has it's own speed associated with it. Use a faster move and that character's turn could move further up giving you more time to act. Using items and guarding are quicker as well, so in doing one of those actions you aren't using an entire turn, just part of one. Sometimes you can even guard to have a character wait just long enough for someone else to move first, but not so long that the enemy gets an attack in. Many games have done something like it, most recently Pokemon Legends Arceus, though not usually to the same extent. FFX was still turn-based, but they made it much more fluid and interesting almost like it had some of the element of active-time battles somewhere in there, so long as you didn't overlevel like in many RPGs and render a lot of it pointless, but that's another discussion.

[@Tortferngatr]

I know Ruined King: a League of Legends story played with this, combining it with a timeline system and having gameplay revolving around trying to keep your allies acting in the good spots of the timeline and out of the bad spots, and I definitely found that game fun.

[@ninototo1]

Trails games also use a system like this

[@steveh1474]

the biggest problem of FF10, and square enix games in general, is that a huge majority of the tools and abilities they give you are completely worthless. its pretty awesome that you can cast Bio and poison an enemy, but Tidus can smack it once with his sword and it dies. you could try it on a boss, but bosses are immune to a majority of status ailments. usually, the early bosses are vulnerable to many ailments, but you dont have the abilities unlocked to inflict those ailments. by the time you get the abilities to inflict ailments, the bosses are immune to everything. im sure everyone has seen a Malboro cast Bad Breath once or twice, and they quickly found themselves on the Game Over screen from it. but when you have Kimahri cast the same spell back at the enemies? only 1 or 2 ailments work. dragon quest games have the same problem, going a step further by also being made with no magic defense stat. your offensive spells like frizz and crack are just okay against enemies with no resistance, but if the enemy has a resistance at all, your spells are doing a pitiful amount of damage. meanwhile, since theres no mag def stat, the enemies can fire away with all the spells they want, and itll take massive chunks out of your health every turn. DQ11 has actually made huge improvements with allowing bosses to be inflicted with ailments like poison, so like... good job squenix, u did a good thing. a big problem that comes in with turn based RPGs is that spamming your basic attack with no cost turns into the most efficient strategy in a lot of them. i could cast Ultima for 9999 damage, or i can swing big sword for 9999 damage. Ultima costs 100 MP, swing sword costs 0. theres just no reason to cast ultima here. this is what makes turn based games significantly more boring, a giant list of abilities and menus, and none of them are as good as punching the monster in the face. Persona is a great example of solving this problem, to be sure, but its not bulletproof.

[@Tortferngatr]

@@steveh1474 Ruined King seems to also solve this by making basic attacks weaker than abilities, but letting them still matter by having basics also add Overcharge (i.e. temporary this-battle-only mana) or set up abilities with things like status effects or self-buffs. Also the only status bosses are outright immune to is Stun, and one endgame optional boss outright relies on inflicting it with specific status effects to depower its strongest attack.

[@si-level]

@@steveh1474 actually you can use bio to poison seymour in mt gagazet. and about the last paragraph i feel like it only happen on old turn based games

[@jaikthesnake6285]

I had an idea while watching this video. It would be interesting to have a system in place where the more you defeat a single type of enemy, you get bonuses against them, like extra damage or defense. And you could cap it off with being able to one shot the enemy from the overworld, like in Earthbound, so you can save time fighting them. If you want to balance this out, maybe decrease exp given by that particular enemy type the more you fight them

[@GoodFishMan]

I always come back to this video, its a great video for game makers, thank you.

[@MellowSquash]

Wish you featured Monster Hunter Stories 2, it does a marvelous job at translating the core gameplay of MH in a turn based format while containing QoL changes that takes a lot of the tedium of the genre out of the grind

[@domymbd]

I got to try MHS2 ! I heard its so good

[@niyaking-khari3515]

I really liked MHS2 something as simple as allowing you to speed up battle animations really helps with preventing the game from feeling to slow

[@Nevir202]

Was glad to see you shout out Disgaea, definitely one of the most underappreciated games in the grid-based tactical genre.

[@OvrlordEtna]

[@anthonycennamo7538]

Grandia’s combat system is an excellent template that modern turn based games could follow as a recipe for success. As you say, it’s more visually complex ATB system tackles the “waiting game” issue, you can pull off combos like an action game if you time your moves correctly, and if you use the correct moves you can cancel enemy turns completely, which is sometimes necessary to avoid TPK’ing. Another HUGE benefit that keeps combat interesting in Grandia is the fact that AOE and splash damage attacks are crucial and frequent, and built into the strategy of the game. You have the option of MOVING each individual party member on their turn to another area on the battle Map, and how far they move depends on their speed. Placing characters strategically around the map as needed is another added layer of strategy that keeps long haul boss fights engaging, and makes it easy to avoid needling and resource draining random encounters affecting you so much. I would love to see a triple A turn based series or game weave elements of the Grandia system into their gameplay.

[@hooby_9066]

I kinda disagree with a lot that's said in this video... I do fully agree that turn-based combat can be amazing if done right, and that the outcome-effecting strategic choices you get to make are the main reason why this is the case. I also do fully agree, that turn-based combat can feel slow, and be a real slog, if you have to passively wait through a lot of delays. That being said, I don't feel that ATB in an improvment. The amount of time a player needs to make a strategic choice, a tactical decision, can vary from situation to situation. Especially if the combat is not a grind, but the strategic choices you have to make are actually deep and important, then there are times where you might need some more time to think about what you want to do - like in a low health situation, or when trying to chain up combo effects/synergies between multiple characters. In a turn-based system that pauses, you can take as much or as little time as you need. Difficult situation? Take as long as you need. Everything clear an obvious? Make your choice and the game INSTANTLY CONTINUES. But with an ATB, in a difficult situation you might feel time pressure, since the clock is ticking - which negatively impacts your ability to make deep tactical choices. At the same time, you can't speed up things in a by-the-numbers fight, as you always have to WAIT for ATB allowing your next move. The argument that ATB allows you to input the next command while the previous is playing out, doesn't hold up, because why wouldn't the same thing be possible to do in a pausing turn-based system? Why couldn't the menu for the next character in line pop up, immediately after you issued the previous command? Technically possible and doable - probably more of an intentional UX choice when game don't do that. Then there's minigames and quick-time-events. I absolutely despise those. What makes turn-based great is said tactical choice. If you want a game that's about timing button presses, than DON'T do turn-based. I feel that the best turn-based games have absolutely nothing of that. The amount of damage an attack does should be purely based on the tactical choice the player made - instead of being based on button timing. As for the rewards you get from combat - you completely glossed over the intrinsic rewards. You only mention the extrinsic rewards, the stuff the game gives you, but that's secondary. The intrinsic rewards - which you sadly don't even mention - are wayyy more important. Intrinsic rewards would be something like dealing extra damage for properly exploiting enemy weaknesses, or having attacks that can exploit effects caused by previous attacks. Pulling off cool combos and stuff like that - the rewarding feeling of mastering the intricacies of the tactical choices you do get to make. I further don't believe that how "grindy" a game feels, is down to a reward imbalance. Just look at some mobile games that absolutely shower you in rewards. Those can still feel extremely grindy, despite all those rewards they hand out. Games have a core loop that you repeat over and over and over - which makes them inherently repetitive. But that loop doesn't feel repetitive, as long as there is enough diversity and variety to keep things fresh: new enemies whose weakness you don't yet know, new attacks and items you are trying to figure out to use most effectively, new companions with new skill sets to use, enemy combinations that require different tactics, different strategic choices popping up, and so on and so forth. It only starts getting boring, when there's nothing left to learn, to experiment with, to figure out. When the player already knows all about a fight, that is just being repeated in the same fashion, to get more XP or gold, with no surprises happening. It's interesting, as long as there's something new to figure out, and it's boring, when the puzzle is already solved and the player knows the optimal solution. This things need to be ever changing, to keep the players on their toes. Giving the player a (small but meaningful) reward as often as possible, is not a way out of this - especially not if that reward is just a few XP+job XP. The job system is fun because it gives you new things to figure out - not because of the rewards.

[@CaptainCFalcon]

A lot of this pretty much just boils down to *_"I'M_* not a fan of real-time decision making in my turn-based strategy games." And the point of the video isn't saying ATB is objectively better. The point was how to *_improve_* the formula. Doing the same thing doesn't *_improve_* the formula, it just possibly does it a bit better. And there's plenty of turn-based games that give you exactly that style of rigid decision making even today. Dragon Quest is literally defined by the creation of this formula, & save for the spinoffs, that formula is cemented in the games core design. That being said, ATB does offer a ton of complexity in & of itself that you seem to be acting like it doesn't have. Moves or mechanics that directly impact this flow of battle gives an entire new avenue of strategy to be formed in order to min/max turn progression & turn order. Thinking fast on your feet also allows for a unique sense of satisfaction & reward that a cemented turn system just cannot offer. Neither of these are *_objectively better_* than the other. They just cater to different playstyles. You should probably learn to accept that instead of acting like removing ATB is for the greater good or some shit.

[@pragmat1k]

Final Fantasy X letting you swap party members without losing turns and showing you the turn order is one of my favorite features. Additionally I think the added effects/debuffs of Pokemon feel pretty good. Lets you go for some luck strats without being overly broken in most situations.

[@Danahell]

I think a system like FFX could benefit Tactics type games, allowing you to see the turn order is indeed a great feature and it plays a nice role in strategizing, I mean Final Fantasy Tactics does have that feature, but it's not visible on screen all the time, I remember playing through it a couple of times without even noticing that you could see the turn order. XD

[@Walamonga1313]

Try Lord of the Rings The Third Age and Trails games. The best turn based systems out there imo

[@7dayspking]

@@Danahell A visible turn order is pretty typical in Western turn-based RPGs (which have combat similar to tactical JRPGs). But not many unfortunately allow players to alter that turn order, it's usually determined by 'initiative'. Some even allow players to control all of their characters on their turn. An example of a game that does allow players to manipulate turn order is Baldur's gate 3. Anytime two or more of a player's characters enter combat while standing near to each other, they get their turns next to each other and their turns can be switched freely. Originally players could control all of their characters on their turn, but they changed this.

[@onlyicedgarrett7791]

The Pokemon turn based combat is wild because it's got tons and tons of depth for PvP. It could have that depth in PvE too, theoretically, but the AI isn't smart enough to do much more than click the super effective move on what's in front of them.

[@kellamyoshikage286]

Pokemon's had the option to speed up text and skip move animations since forever, I know it was in gen 4 and I think in gen 3, never played prior generations. One series that I must always bring up is Etrian Odyssey, from Atlus. It embraces its turn-based elements hard, to the point that map movement is turn-based as well, and you can see how many turns any given battle has lasted for. But in terms of the pace of the battle, every game starting with Untold has settings to make the combat as fast as you want, up to and including the point where your menuing will be the main time expenditure even if you know exactly what you want to do in advance. In terms of progression and "the grind", enemies are dangerous and varied in such a way that you can't approach every formation the same way, and the amount of control you have over your party means that different playthroughs will feel different, as well. The progression is partially through drops to get more money and/or better equipment, but when you level up, you get skill points to learn new skills or upgrade existing ones. This is similar to how you described FFV, though characters will generally all level up at the same time if their exp bars are synced. But the choice of skills to invest in is in general far more important than raw level, and a good team can beat a boss several levels, perhaps 10 or more once you get into midgame, sooner than a bad team, even if the teams use the same classes. If you run into a wall, there's always options with experimenting with your build by redistributing your skill points, and this will almost always be more effective than simply grinding up more levels.

[@allthelonely4287]

Yeah, gen 1 and gen 2 of Pokémon also had the options to turn off the battle animations and speed up text, although the champion fight with your rival in gen 1 played with battle animations even if you had them turned off.

[@7dayspking]

Etrian odyssey is inspired by Western First person Dungeon crawlers. Technically JRPGs originally were as well but they'ved strayed very far.

[@davdev793]

Love the video! Nice to find this channel. =) I would add to the grind part things that are not combat bound at all. Wild Arms is both guilty and and problem solver on that matter. Sometimes the game just need to be more than the battle system to give player some breathing room . Puzzle intensive and a tool system similar to zelda and metroidvania abilities that allows you to explore some areas and secrets further are some good insights to it. Also the ability to choose or try to avoid combat, less automation and more player agency when possible are keys to make it better .

[@basimaziz]

Excellent video! Thanks man!

[@tlc1432]

I like turn based combat because it makes me feel like a tactician, And it gives you time to imagine yourself in the game.

[@AdrianERosales]

Agreed! It's something I can't stand about the Xenoblade games for example. You start a battle and it's a cluster fuck of annoying catchphrases, seizure inducing lights, and being unable to tell what the fuck is going on. I hate it!

[@carlosaugusto9821]

Ok but an actual tactical rpg gives that idea infinitely better than a regular turn based rpg. I mean for example a main old Final Fantasy vs Final Fantasy Tactics.

[@anab0lic]

​@@AdrianERosales hahaha perfectly described my very brief experience with that series.

[@jmgonzales7701]

its boring thou

[@jmgonzales7701]

@@carlosaugusto9821 how can we upgrade the turn based system,

[@komurmaldeb]

Mana Khemia has another style of turn tracker, with a series of cards running along the top of the screen marking when each character will next act (and that explicitly shows you where a character will land depending on which action they tatke). In addition, though, several attacks can create recurring effects that get their own cards in the the order, and you can pile up damage on a single enemy to 'break' them and force them to skip their next turn--though it can happen to the player as well. As one final, very neat touch, one of the playable characters deliberately messes with the turn order, being able to 'purify' a section and remove any recurring effects/damage any enemies in a section of the turn grid, or pull all friendly cards from a certain section forwards. So with those abilities in hand, the whole system gets another layer of trying to group together allies/enemies so that you can get the most out of your turn-affecting abilities.

[@Lunarwingluna]

I'm glad someone mentioned this game. I haven't played it in a really long time, but I still think about it to this day. Definitely one of the coolest JRPGs I've played, but it seems like it wasn't as popular as it could have been.

[@Kaitou1412Fangirl]

@@Lunarwingluna It came out on the PS2 in 2008 which was after the PS3 was released. It's a shame too, as this spinoff could easily get some deserved attention since the Atelier series is gaining popularity.

[@hoowhdis7191]

Yooo! I can't believe I saw Mother in your videos and didn't hear you talk about how random battles are skipped if the enemies are too weak. Good video though. It's food for thought.

[@MrHyonD]

Adept of Action RPGs and loving Grinding, I have to agree there, what I dislike in turn based combat systems are mostly how much time it takes to win ONE single fight, and the amount of menu interaction, totally breaking the pace of combat flow. Anyway, Grandia is a gem.

[@rita1525]

Glad to see Golden Sun footage here. Those games deserve more attention. Maybe an analysis of the Djinn system in a video would be nice, seeing as how well it threads the needle between being complicated and versatile

[@ci7210]

Your thumbnail had my childhood JRPG and my current favorite JRPG. Both games have super flashy attack. In Final Fantasy 8 I remember loving watching the GF sequences dozens of times as a kid. Also P5 all attacks look awesome and love the button layout and easy menus.

[@frogb00ts]

Another thing that I feel gets over looked is deciding how a player enters combat. Reoccurring random encounters that don’t have any cap to them can make exploring feel like a slog, especially if there’s a long transition between exploration and combat. Games that put a limit on how many encounters can occur in one area and that transition more smoothly between fights really help to negate the annoyance of getting ambushed when all you’re trying to do is look around an area.