I’m currently playing Xenoblade Chronicles and I also played Final Fantasy remake and Golden Sun recently and all of them have wildly different combats. Which got me thinking what JRPG out there had the best combat? This doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily your favorite JRPG as well.
My favorite is Persona 5. I just love figuring out what the weakness of the enemy may be and making sure to arrange my party in such a way that I can handle most combats very easily.
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Do the Mario RPGs count
I like the timing-based mechanics because they make the fights feel less like glorified menus. Sure menu-based fights can be strategic and entertaing, but sooner or later you’ll end up in grind city just mashing the confirm button to see number go up. Not a thing in the likes of Paper Mario and Bug Fables.
I’ll take persona, although it’s been way too many games with the same setup. Ditto for the Trails series.
Honestly, I don’t think it got any better than ATB systems in FF 6 and 7. Everybody else is either riffing on those or spending so much money they think they can’t be those and need to be Devil May Cry instead.
Since FF 6 and 7 have already been mentioned, I’m going to give a honorable mention to Shining Force.
Been having a ton of fun with Granblue Fantasy Relink!
The more I play, the less I enjoy games that have active combat systems, from the Mario RPGs’ timed attacks to even Final Fantasy’s ATB. I really want to have time to think my turns and just select and use the skills, no reason to try to make it more action-based. So the MegaTen series and Trails series are the ones that cater to my current tastes.
Grandia series. I’m partial to the leveling systems but the battle system is fantastic. There’s ATB, field movement, charged attacks/magic incantations that can be canceled, a light combo system. I just love it
I haven’t played many JRPGs, but I’ll say Grandia 2. I liked the way the timers worked, and the cancels.
Panzer Dragoon Saga was pretty cool too, with the circular movement.
FF6, or more recently, Battle Chasers: Nightwar
I like it old school.
Chrono Trigger and Grandia 2 come to mind.
Persona 5’s combat is really good, although I feel like it’s less fun against bosses where you’re not constantly getting weak point resets.
The Xenoblade games have fantastic combat, I’d probably rank them XBC2(late game)>Torna>XBC3>XBX>XBC2(early game)>XBC1
I love this. Lookin forward to future XBC games even more now.
Miitopia is as simple as it gets
I can’t say I have a favorite, but I do strongly favor anything strictly turned based. I’ve been playing Divided Reigns and its combat system is stellar imho, so there. Lots of weapon types, lots of attacks for each types, lots of skills, lots of magics. Makes non magic users at least as satisfying to use as spell casters.
If we talk Action JRPGs then i guess it’s Drakengard.
Protagonist power not enough? Then i summon my legendary dragon and end my turn!
(Wait no, that last thing is not true.)
Legend of Mana, although it was broken, I never got bored with encounters. didn’t have to worry about items or mana, only health. if they added a mana system (ironic) and fixed the stunlock, would’ve been more balanced
secret of mana was good but honestly seiken densetsu 3 improved on it so much.
on the other hand, earthbound combat is so nostalgic to me.
