RPG Battle Systems!

[Gondor Reficul]

I wanted to start this thread just to take a glance at how many battle systems there are at this moment (though I probably won't note all of the branch-offs directly).


Classic Turn-Based ~ This is the classic battle system introduced by such popular games as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest in which you divide battles not by turns (separate actions performed by each character/enemy), but rounds in which you choose what everyone does before the battle starts. This form of battle system is a fairly simple concept, but fairly complex in reality, where you have to take into account everyone's speed and who will ultimately go first, meaning knowing when to heal and defend in highly important. This battle system may be old, but it's still used in fairly popular games such as the classic Wild ARMs, Pokemon, Dragon Quest, and Golden Sun.


Priority Turn-Based ~ Unlike classic Turn-Based, turns are based on a "Turn Priority" system in which you can predict who will come up next and strategize accordingly. In many ways, some can say this is a watered-down version of its classic ancestor, but we can't easily discredit the games that have gone off this battle system so easily. We can see this form of battle system has been used in such RPGs as the Shadow Hearts Series, Final Fantasy X, recent Wild ARMs games, Jade Cocoon, and Persona 3.


Active Time ~ This was solely introduced by Squaresoft with the release of Final Fantasy IV, in which it has turn-based aspects (such as inputing commands, etc.), but turns don't come on a whim, you have to wait for them based on the character's speed. FF IV was just the start of it though, for you could accurately tell who was going to be next by an ATB gauge (the gauge was first used in FF V if I recall right), which would be used in many AT FF games to come. This system is still used, though it's mostly dominated by Square, in games such as Final Fantasy V-IX, X-2-XII, and the Grandia games.


Real Time ~ In this battle system, you are in full control of the character's movements and actions with little to no limitations put on you in a mostly 3D environment. This was first started with the Japanese release of Star Ocean for the SNES (soon to be rivaled by another battle system, but I'll get into that later), and many other games started to go off the system as technology and graphics evolved. We can see that real time RPGs have their fair share in the marked with their turn-based counterparts in games such as the .hack games, the Star Ocean series, Rogue Galaxy, Brave Fencer Musashi, and the Kingdom Hearts series.


Linear Motion ~ This battle system could easily be placed in the Real Time section, but I though that the battle system was a tad bit too unique to really be placed in the same category. This battle system was first introduced with the release of Tales of Phantasia in Japan for the SNES, and has pretty much been a Bandai Namco exclusive battle system as of now, and for over 10 years has given birth to various alternatives to the LMBS such as Flex Range, Tri-Linear, and Dimension Stride. This battle system basically is like a fighting game to some extent, in which you fight on a 2D battlefield or in a 2D fashion (with games like Tales of Symphonia and Abyss) and have a basic button for attacking and a button, in combination with any button on the D-Pad, to unleash special abilities or spells, and also features shortcuts in which you can make a party member or yourself pull off a move or spell at the touch of that shortcut button. You can find this battle system and all of its variants in the Tales games.


These are all the battle systems I can think of for now, but I'll be using these for my reference in my future reviews. And if I got some info wrong as to the system's history, then please correct me.

[Yoherz]

Active time! That's what FFXII was, not real time.
That's what I was trying to explain back then, but you got it here. *Rep +*

[Gondor Reficul]

No. I remember we came to that conclusion a few days after the argument.

[Yoherz]

We did? Well, I don't remember it. *Grumblewatergrumble* .....Now I'm thirsty.

[Gondor Reficul]

Go drink some water then.

[Yoherz]

....Scarily enough, right before I looked at this thread, I went and got some water.

[Gondor Reficul]

You scare me sometimes, Yoherz...

[Yoherz]

I scare lots of people. o_o

And I actually remember what we agreed on. It was that KH system was fully realtime, and that FFXII and X-2 were only semi-realtime.

[Gondor Reficul]

And the term for semi-real time is "Active Time". It's close enough though, eh?

[Yoherz]

Yeah, since they label it as "wait" and "active" as the differences in the game, it's correct by gaming terminology.