TONFA'S PROFILE

Let's do this, first some systems I like in general

- Non-frontview pure CTB. (Ex: Atelier Iris 3, Final Fantasy X) A heavenly system with so much potential for varied pure RPG-battle goodness without being overcluttered or overcomplicated. It's just the perfect clean slate though - the enjoyability is fully dependent on the design of the systems and fights built around it. Sadly all games I've played have some issues with it - AI3 does best, but it has the cardinal flaw of being way, way too easy. (Non-frontview specified because it's much more intuitive to process the information of a character getting visually hit than just a line of numbers changing on your status window, for the record.)

- CTB tactical map. (Ex: Final Fantasy Tactics) Similarly, the way to go for SRPGs. I consider the LFT hack to be pretty much the ultimate experience in this regard in terms of straight up tactics RPG gameplay.

And talking more specific...

- CTB tactical map, now with summoning and resource control (Vantage Master) A duel of summoners! Figure out which creatures to use and how, secure magic stones to keep up MP regeneration, take a swing at the enemy's forces with your hero itself if you dare, even. Simply brilliant and has online multiplayer as a bonus.

- CTB tactical map, now with summoning and did you just literally hit me with a trainwreck (Phantom Brave) Perhaps the single most customizable system out there, Phantom Brave has seemingly simple rules of gameplay but the ways to interact with objects (and your characters can count as objects as well) make for a large number of out of the box solutions to battles with a dash of delightful insanity.

- Straight up action hack and slash (Modern Ys games) You can't really argue with a game where you hop on a giant centipede's back and start hacking parts off it with an axe to reduce the amount of lightning strikes on the battlefield and oh god it's dropping poison bombs now because I'm hacking off parts okay use the wind shield to spin them away and now it's spinning around the arena as a wheel aaaaa

- Dual screen action THING (The World Ends With You) One character on each screen, control one with stylus, other with d-pad, good luck trying to keep up! Fast and furious system that allows you to ease yourself into it by putting one character on auto and dynamically adjusting difficulty. Only problem is the stylus controls being a bit finicky.

- ATB with charge/recharge times and combos (Final Fantasy X-2) The one good use of ATB!

- Good ol' materia system (Final Fantasy 7) If only this was CTB...an awesome customization system right here, even today.

- Turn-based squad-based WAR (The Last Remnant) No other RPG captures the feeling of duking it out on the battlefield nearly as well. Tactics, positioning, morale, a ton of little touches like deadlocked squads sizing each other up and trying to attack and dodge each other while you're choosing commands just for visual flavor.

I like %-based healing both because HP as a stat usually needs all the help it can get, and I don't like my items getting outdated. The FF7 hack I've been working on makes Potions 25/50/75%, the standard Potion is still pretty worthless with this but hey it's better than mighty 100 HP healing.

Fun fact about FF2: The people who hit themselves for hours to raise their HP are the ones who find the endgame ungodly hard because all the relevant enemies do %-based damage !!

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Valkyrie Profile is a good example of how it's done right in an rpg (other than the obvious fallout/oblivion). I guess you could say the game is kinda linear since there is a world map with only a select few locations (which eventually open up over time). You have to poke around to find quests, though. And the game doesn't specifically tell you where to go.

"21 DAYS UNTIL RAGNAROK. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER"

Since there are only a handful of locations to go to, it's pretty easy to find quests and recruit people. Plus the areas are small, so it's not like you're wandering around in the dark.

This was pretty novel but the hard capped time limit made me somewhat paranoid about being strong enough for endgame and I spent way more time grinding than I should have by entering a dungeon each available free day. Ultimately my own fault but the game should probably have some kind of disclaimer that you don't need to resort that kind of behavior or it should have diminishing/no returns for it.

I'm talking specifically about the final boss receiving an increase in difficulty after the player has beaten an optional boss. ie- if Safer Sephiroth were to gain an extra 10,000 HP after the player has defeated both Ruby and Emerald WEAPON.

This would just make the fight 5 minutes longer for Level 6 Cloud & Co. ignore the part where they can't beat the weapons

Either way, straight up stat mods are just lazy and bad form in this case. A more difficult form of a boss fight should be more than a 1.3x mod to HP and ATK, its creation should be given as much attention as an entirely new fight.

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This is an particularly amazing case because it's still slow when sped up to 8x on an emulator