Best battle system (not character buildin) of the main series?

[Mirage]

FFX-2's and FF13-2s combat systems are my favourites. The only thing I'm really missing is the ability to control combat positioning.

Truth be told, I don't really think any of these hold a candle to Star Ocean 3 or most of the PS2/GC and newer "Tales" games.

Star Ocean 3 on full manual mode, that is some serious tit.

[Formalhaut]

I like the active dimension battle system. Although I think FFXII's take on that type of system can be spoiled by gambit abuse. I personally try to limit gambit use to a necessary basis but the fact that you can abuse this system means that people will, and then become annoyed with the game because it "plays itself". It would have been better if your party leader's gambits deactivate to force interaction.

I like this. If the current Party Leader's gambits are turned off, then it makes things alot less automated. But then you can turn gambits off anyway. While people bemoan the gambit system, you don't have to use it.

I'm very interested in Type-0's battle system. Could someone explain it to me?

Sure. I'm playing through it and loving it right now, so I'll take any excuse to gush.

The battle system is that of an Action RPG, closer to Kingdom Hearts than your traditional Final Fantasy (and quite possibly a preview of what we'll get in FFXV).

Movement is based around the Analog stick, and you can lock on to enemies by holding the R Button.

There are plenty of ways to actually attack, so we'll go through them now. A character's basic attack is triggered by Triangle. And every character has a different attack and combo setup, based on their unique weapons. King wields two pistols, giving him high range, but he has to stop to reload every so often. Ace wields a deck of cards, which he throws for mid-range attacks that come fast, but do little damage. And the list goes on and on. There are fifteen playable characters that I know of (Class Zero starts with thirteen members, one for each of the cards in a suit, and picks up two more after the prologue), and each wields a different weapon and fighting style. Attack speed, combos, timing, damage, attack movement (such as lunging with a sword)... These all change between characters.

Next up is special abilities. As a character attacks, they build up a gauge that can be triggered to activate the character's special moves with Circle. Again, these are unique to a character. Ace's Special (collapsed for brevity)Ace, in keeping with his card motif, summons forth a card each time you press Circle. He can summon up to four at a time (though they vanish if you're hit), and when you perform a Triangle attack with Cards out, the effect of the Cards will trigger instead of a normal attack. Which cards are out determine the effects. Red cards make the attack a heavy hitting fireball. White cards cause the attack to deal damage and freeze the enemy. Blue cards restore health instead of attacking, and Yellow restores MP (I believe, it's hard to track sometimes, and I'm not sure what Black Cards do). And if you have a mix of various cards, it will activate one of the effects and power it up (not sure of exact calculations for which effect is used, but they don't seem to combine effects, only power). Queen summons a spinning cross of magic that surrounds her and tears through enemies and heals allies while you hold the Circle Button, and until she's hit. So these vary greatly, and look as though they can be upgraded and possibly exchanged out (but, unfortunately, I can't read Japanese, so no details on that yet).

Then we get the X Button, which controls dodging and blocking. As with Kingdom Hearts, dodge when moving, block while holding still. Get used to this button, you'll use it a lot.

And, finally, the Square Button, which is used to control Magic. Each character starts with a particular spell setup, but these can be exchanged (if you can find where in the menu to change them and what to change them out with). Each spell is actually a combination of spell type and effect range. For example, Ace starts with Blizzard magic with Bomb attack range. Blizzard is an ice spell that can freeze enemies (or, y'know, just destroy them), and the Bomb range means it's a short range attack that hits every enemy in a circle around Ace. Great for when you get surrounded. Then there are other ranges like Missile (which fires homing shots), Rifle (fires straight forward but travels really, really fire), Shotgun (spreads at close range, and can hit multiple enemies and at multiple heights), and Rocket Launcher (creates a reticule for you to aim with, then travels to the target and blows up for area damage).

That's just the basics of spells though. Higher level spells, like Blizzara and Blizzaga, require you to charge the spell for a time before releasing to get the extra power. And there are unique spells like Quake and Tornado, which don't follow the normal area rules. There are also, of course, Support spells like Cure, and each character can carry one of those in addition to an attack spell. I think. I haven't figured out how to use them yet, even on characters I know have them (Queen has casted Cure on me plenty of times when AI controlled, but I haven't figured out how to cast it myself). And, finally, there's a customization system called the Alto Crystarium that can supposedly change how powerful spells are and how they work (charge speed, projectile speed, power, MP Use, range, etcetera). But, I haven't found it yet, and wouldn't understand it if I did, so we can ignore it for now. Oh, and supposedly you need a particular proficiency in a spell's element to use it on a character, but I don't know the details of that yet.

Yeah, magic's complicated.


That's it for the basics, now, on to the more advanced techniques. First, Countering (my name for it, no clue what it's actually called). As you fight while locked on to enemies, you'll occasionally notice a yellow or red reticule pop up on them. This is a Counter indicator. If you land an attack while that reticule is up, it will deal massive damage. Color is a simple indication of effectiveness. If it's Red, it means that landing an attack in that time frame will do enough damage to kill the enemy (as far as I can tell). Harder enemies have harder to hit Counter reticules. You do a lot more damage with Counters, but going for them can open you up to a lot of pain if you screw up.

Then there's the Phantoma system. When an enemy dies, if you target their corpse (or just keep targeting them), you can press an action button to rip Phantoma from their bodies. This replenishes MP, does decent damage in a small area around the corpse, and collects Phantoma which is used to level the Alto Crystarium for your spells. It's also involved with the plot, as Phantoma manipulation is one of Class Zero's specialties, and is at least part of why they can use magic even when in the field of the Crystal Jammer.

And, finally, summons. Each character apparently has a summon monster, which you can choose to summon at the cost of sacrificing (temporarily) the summoner. Not sure how effective they are, since the only one I've used is Odin (riding Sleipner this time, not a transformer), and he's part of the prologue/tutorial, so it's probably not balanced that way for the actual game. But he had the ability to charge a Zantetsuken. The longer you charge, the higher the percent chance to one hit kill things. Normal enemies were 100% very quickly. The boss? Yeah, it took a little time, but you can charge him to 100% on that boss too. Odin is a beast.


That's pretty much all I can think of off the top of my head, hopefully it gives you a little bit of a feel for the systems.

That sounds awesome! Hurry up and localise it SE!

[Lennox Muerto]

TL;DR at that guy's post:

Type-0's battle system is a highly streamlined version of Kingdom Hearts and Crisis Core. If anything, the three-man combat and the button input of Kingdom Hearts as well as the sped-up ATB mechanics of Crisis Core are pretty much hybridized.

Magic has its own Charge Time gauge to make spells increase tiers (e.g. Fira to Firaga when holding Square or Cure to Cura when holding Cross), while the Takatsugu Nakazawa's referring to it as the Supersonic Active Time Battle system can be seen in how unlike FFXII, actions cannot be chained and wait time is imposed in between each attack.

Honestly, an FFVIII remake on the Type-0 engine would be pretty great. Case in point: drawing Spells from enemies--Phantoma and the Altocrystarium.

[Omni-Odin]

X-2 so I'll just go with ATB

[Jiro]

There were quite a few good ones, weren't there? FFX's CTB gave me the ability to breathe and think a little more, but also to abuse the system and just use delaying attacks to never let them attack. FFX-2 nailed the ATB system so so well. And yeah, FFXII's whatever it was called again (ADB? should scroll up but cba) was an interesting albeit flawed step in what I think is the right direction. I don't think ATB has much of a place these days, at least not in the direction modern JRPGs and such are going, but ADB could be the answer. Needs refining, though.

[Quindiana Jones]

"I really hated XII's system because it had a completely optional aspect".

Bitching about Gambits always confuses me. I like playing with dogs, but I don't like sucking them off, so I don't.

XII and X-2 had my favourite battle systems, independent of any other factors. I really liked X's as well, if only for the freedom it granted you compared to the older systems.

[Red Mage Coffman]

If only Kingdom Hearts 2 would have been mentioned on this list.. Easily has one of my most favorite battle systems of all time, and I wouldn't mind seeing Final Fantasy take that turn at all, but that isn't what we're discussing here, is it?

In terms of battle systems, its a tie between the X and X-2. As much as I hate them both with a burning passion, the battle systems won me over easily. A cross between these two battle systems, with more control and maybe even a kind of multiplayer aspect (Even if that is going to far out of the questions) like Secret of Mana, though I doubt it'll ever happen, would probably be my ideal battle system, even if it does cross swords with Kingdom Hearts 2, THE defining action RPG. For me, anyways.

[Bolivar]

ATB is my favorite cause it's pure rpg gameplay but with the intensity of an active fight, those bars always filling up. X was more strategic but everything stops for you to analyze and plan your next move; its just not as exciting for me.

I'm with Jiro in that modern JRPGs should take a cue from ADB. It allows for real time exploration and eliminates combat transitions, while still giving the player full control over every single action a full party of heroes takes. If thats too frightening for you, turn off gambits for your main and let your other party members follow AI, much like XIII, Mass Effect and every other modern RPG operates, much to my disappointment.

[Skyblade]

"I really hated XII's system because it had a completely optional aspect".

Bitching about Gambits always confuses me. I like playing with dogs, but I don't like sucking them off, so I don't.

XII and X-2 had my favourite battle systems, independent of any other factors. I really liked X's as well, if only for the freedom it granted you compared to the older systems.

While you have a point, Gambits were really not what made XII's system so bad, and had the core gameplay been better, Gambits probably would have been much better received.

[VeloZer0]

While you have a point, Gambits were really not what made XII's system so bad, and had the core gameplay been better, Gambits probably would have been much better received.

Ding, ding ding!

I'm so happy to hear someone else has the same opinion.

[maybee]

Final Fantasy X's battle system. It was so cool how you could change your party team through battle which made battles less repetitive, fun and added new tactics to the game. Plus it was noob-friendly and then by Al Bhed Home it went into serious business time. It was the perfect balance between starting out easy and then heading into expert mode without destroying too much.

[SteahMeLee]

I choose X...

Also XII for many reasons but X is better to me! I found it the most tactical... It's turn based and not with ATB... It doesn't stuck you to 3-4-5 characters but it lets you use the whole party exchanging them freely! This latter part is the most important to a Job Class maniac like me because any of my characters is totally different from the others and all his/her skills are unique to him/her, then it means that for every type of action I want to accomplish I need to have the corresponding character/class on the field and this way I can use them all according to what I need to do, but I'm not hurried to make decisions, I have time to choose because everything stands while I have to input commands but at the same time speed counts with the order and frequency of turns, so If I need to act fast I can call the Thief Rikku in and move quickly!