Games with the best battle systems

I just wrapped up the main campaign for Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition, and I have to say, I really loved the battle system! It's very unique, even 10 years later. Loved the Tension building and Chain Attack systems. It makes the game so much more fun. Also, the affinity system makes good use of relationship building, which often sucks in a JRPG. But in this game, the higher affinity you have with a NPC, the more it benefits you in terms of combat and crafting. It basically incentivizes you to play with different characters, which is great. Overall, really loved the battle system in this game, and so I ask you SW, what other games have the best battle systems? Let me know your thoughts!

It’s not an rpg but I like many of the 2D fighter games. Many in the market are good. You can just sit down and play for hours and get good (at the game).

Either single player or online, it doesn’t matter.

I always fondly remember the legend of legaia battle system. Input directional commands when attacking your foe.

Damn, that's a really hardcore throwback. I remember being hyped for that game back in the day. It was advertised pretty well too. The battle system was definitely the most interesting part of the game as far as I can remember. I never finished it, but played quite a bit of it.

@SolidGame_basic: lol that's awesome. Yeah as much as I'm a big final Fantasy fan, Legend of legaia is my favorite RPG.

Have been playing the Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle a lot lately, and really enjoying Armored Warriors. It's badass how you can take different weapons and engine systems from defeated enemies to change up your tactics. A very solid mech game.

Well I mean Street Fighter II obviously comes to mind, although refined and updated it's design is still very much used across practically every fighter and it holds up today, albeit with different iterations, the latest being The Final Challengers.

The other obvious choice is Chess, a game that has existed well over 1500 years, itself a refined and perfected form of Chaturanga which existed since the 6th century.

The fact it's still widely played now is self-explanatory and, in more wishy-washy terms, it's design can still widely be seen in many games, even stuff you wouldn't typically associated with it, hell, even Street Fighter for as alien as it has concepts in line with what Chess standardized all those tens of hundreds of years ago.

It's better than Uncharted 2.

Yeah Xenoblade Chronicles has a great battle system. Much better then Xenoblade Chronicles 2 which cancels your charging when you move. It promotes not using the controller during combat when XC1 promotes finding the weak spot. Plus enemies take forever to kill in the game. I really like the battle system in Golden Sun as well. Overall I'll agree and give it to XC1.i agree with the tense battles and chain combos. Great active time combat for sure.

@iambatman7986: did you play X? I never got to play it. Hoping for a Switch port.

Another Monolith Soft game, Baten Kaitos: Origins has a great battle system. It's quite a bit different from the first game, plays much faster to the point that you need quick reflexes. Attacks are tied to cards. You get a hand of 7 cards and have a few seconds to pick them out in the right order to chain a combo together. Even for high level attacks, animations play out very fast, and it gets frantic trying to pick new cards in time to keep the chain going. It's a unique system that never got old in a 75 hour playthrough, which is unusual for me. I rarely finnish jrpgs because of late game boredom.

These two:

@SolidGame_basic: I haven't. I'm also hoping for a port. I have a Wii U so I could get it, but I really want it on the Switch.

I have to give thought more on which is the best but currently the first that pops up is Okami. I loved Okami battle system I think it was such a breath of fresh air back when I played it on the PS2. Probably just nostalgia talking.

Grandia had a very good battle system.

Hybrid Heaven was also pretty good.

I love the pause combat in da, me.

I like combat in Batman Arkham series, DMC and new God of War is also quite entertaining.

It's such a no brainer too. It's gotta happen. Maybe on the Switch Pro lol.

Mass Effect 3.

Kotor.

PSO.

Lost Odyssey.

I like the Monster Hunter combat system. Noobs call it clunky, but that's only because they're used to spamming attacks.

In terms of RPG battle systems, if my partner characters are AI controlled it's a hard out from me.

I tend to enjoy turn based battle systems in RPGs like Dragon Quest or Divinity Original Sin. I like to control and strategize with all my party members.

My favourite is SRPG's like Fire Emblem, Shining Force, Wesnoth, Xcom, Valkyria, etc.

Devil May Cry is excellent for being accessible to someone like me (who can't/won't master style points) while still being super deep to the masters out there.

I just found that neither the camera nor controls were responsive. Happy to get my teeth kicked in while learning a rough system, like Souls, but Monster Hunter just wouldn't show me my enemy or let me hit him when I wanted to. This was Monster Hunter Tri on WiiU, though, so maybe there's better ones.

Mainly referring to MHW. The older ones had major camera issues because they were essentially 3ds ports (controls wise). Now that the series isn't stuck in the past with Nintendo, its a much smoother experience.

A few off the top of my head would be:

- Vanquish

- Bayonetta 1 and 2

- Devil May Cry 3, 4, and 5

- Ninja Gaiden Black

Ah very cool, I'll give that one a go so! Thanks.

Diablo 3, Dragon's Crown Pro, Streets of Rage 4 and God of War come to mind.

I haven't played it for many years, but I kinda feel like you have to put WoW in there.

Yeah, pretty much. If we're talking real time action based combat systems it's generally going to be fighting games > 3d beat em ups > 2d beat em ups, with the occasional odd exception.

From there it tends to be a steep falloff where combat systems are good enough "for their genre" but not really all that great. Which is a non issue if combat isn't the meat of the gameplay.

@ConanTheStoner: when will you play Astral Chain. I demand to know.

Rebel Galaxy and Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. Problem with space games is they are way too sim or too open, and boring. These games keep them basic but awesome.

Rebel Galaxy uses 2D navigation system, and Outlaw makes space dog fighting easy and exhilarating.

As much as I love this game I feel it has flaws.

Unless you learn the map their plenty of times where enemies simply drop and instantly hit the player with little or no time to react. You can, but the chances are very, very low, especially combined with multiple enemies on screen.

I don't agree that this is fair or good design where you're basically expected to be Nostradamus the first run.

Also not a fan of grenades arbitrarily deciding when they are usable rather than a constant. With them sometimes effecting the enemy, and sometimes not such as when being grounded.

This is more nit-picky than world shattering stuff.

Yeah had a ton of nitpicks with SOR4, but still so good. Haven't played it since the balance patch.

And yeah, wouldn't say commissioner was cheap. Wasn't a fan of super armor at first, but eventually can consistently beat him without getting hit on any difficulty.

Then again, apparently they nerfed him into the ground with the balance patch.

@ConanTheStoner said:

Yeah had a ton of nitpicks with SOR4, but still so good. Haven't played it since the balance patch.

And yeah, wouldn't say commissioner was cheap. Wasn't a fan of super armor at first, but eventually can consistently beat him without getting hit on any difficulty.

Then again, apparently they nerfed him into the ground with the balance patch.

@SolidGame_basic said:

@ConanTheStoner: when will you play Astral Chain. I demand to know.

😄😯🤔 I think I know why. Because it's a Switch game and it's not 60 fps lol.

Yeah, I really loved the battle system to Xenoblade Chronicles.

While I thought Okami was a good game, I thought its battle system was disappointing after all that hype. I was expecting to learn some intricate maneuvers with the brush stroke mechanics but it all turned out to be very rudimentary to the overall experience.

The game was too easy, and most of the paint brush mechanics came down to dashing straight lines across various elemental triggers (fire or electricity for example) rather than finding unique ways to implement different elements. Puzzles were nonexistent or too straightforward there was no real puzzle-solving to have even when it tried.

Okami had too much missed potential unfortunately.

RPG- the legend of dragoon,

Action RPG- Soulsborne, So complex yet so simple and intuitive. Shows a good game doesn't need to have convoluted gameplay to be good, gameplay complexity must come from context, not execution, all Souls games get this concept RIGHT.

FPS: Doom/doom eternal- nuff said,

Action: Devil may cry in general.

TPS: Re2/remake gameplay was perfect to me. Vanquish was excellent too

Fighting: Blazblue imo, i don't really usually care for fighting games, so idk, but blazblue was the one i played the most.

Must be the nostalgia then. Back then and probably now, I still consider Okami as the greatest Zelda game ever made, even better than Zelda games itself.

@sakaixx: it's still a pretty good game. I just don't think it realized its full potential with the brush stroke mechanics. It was disappointing because most of the brush inputs boiled down to drawing straight lines rather than having to learn any intricate inputs.

Real-time combat:

• ARPG - Mana series
• Brawler - Streets of Rage series
• Fighting - Street Fighter series
• FPS - Doom series
• Hack & slash - Ninja Gaiden series
• Horror - Resident Evil series
• MOBA - Dota series
• RTS - StarCraft
• Stealth - Metal Gear series
• TPS - Vanquish

Turn-based combat:

• RPG - Chrono series
• SRPG - Valkryia Chronicles series
• Strategy - Chess

@jaydan: cool. I still gonna go with Okami.

God Hand

Monster Hunter

Yeah, not gonna lie, an action game at 30fps is far less appealing. Not a deal breaker, just another factor in why I've been putting it off.

Other than that, not exactly excited over what I've seen. And while general gamer opinions don't sway me either way, the more dedicated action game community isn't that hot on it. Consensus seems to be at the lower end of the good Platinum games. Like MGR or Nier Autotomato territory. 🍅

I know I'll play it, eventually gonna get that itch for a new action game in the roster. But I still have so much more to dig into with TW101 and DMC5, along with plenty of my other favs that seem endlessly replayable.

Astral Chain doesn't look bad, I'm sure it's actually pretty fun. That genre is just stacked with strong gameplay and replay value, need to carve out some dedicated time for it.

I hated the battle system in both the xenoblade chronicles. If we're mostly talking about RPG I love Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler's battle system.

Damn. I'm not seeing the MGR and Nier comparison. The amount of crap you can do is pretty extensive. I'm no pro tho lol. You gonna get DMC 5 Special Edition?

Yeah xenoblade 1 had a great system. kept the player engaged. not too slow but not too hectic either. i think chronicles X may have been a bit better but its been years since i played it.

the only thing i found was that i generally just stuck with the sharla/shulk/reyn combo for the whole game. got the job done. there are probably perfectly viable alternative setups but i never really found a need to check them out.

Xenoblade 2.....*sigh*....no i wont get started.

Anywho monster hunter is definitely up there for me. brilliant series. just scratching the surface of world at the moment and trying to get someone else hooked in the process :P. i remember originally playing tri on the wii and i though it was nonsensical gibberish. the only weapon that made some sense was the SnS. but then someone dropped the bombshell on me: "put the weapon away". now the SnS makes no sense.....because im still too much of a noob to understand its true power :P.