What are your favorite game mechanics? especially RPGs

[Marisanocean]

I was looking at some content about game design, game mechanics, etc., and I was trying to find inspiration for fun mechanics in old turn-based RPGs.

 

[BobbertMoss]

I really like the press turn system and the one more system from SMT and Persona, it's just really fun getting more actions for exploiting the enemies weaknesses. Also the skill equipment system from Devil Survivor, being able to make my character immune to fire before the fire boss was great, or the synergies from being able to move after each attack and having multiple attacks per turn. I think that system depends on the difficulty being really high though, feeling like you're breaking the game is best when it feels like you need to do it

 

[RustySK]

I'm not sure this qualifies as a mechanic per se, but I'm a sucker for any turn-based RPG that manages to make the managerial gameplay elements of the genre (inventory management, resource management, that sort of thing) feed into direct gameplay (primarily combat, though exploration could qualify as well) - so games where your Attack command changes on a functional level depending on your equipment (single-target to AoE, or maybe even a sort of Mario & Luigi-style minigame) or where different party member skill setups can interlink and result in new attacks or spells for example.

 

[Tengu Plant]

I really liked being able to mix class abilities in Final Fantasy V and Tactics. I'm sure there are other games that do this well that I'm forgetting but those are my go to example.

 

[Marisanocean]

I really like the press turn system and the one more system from SMT and Persona, it's just really fun getting more actions for exploiting the enemies weaknesses. Also the skill equipment system from Devil Survivor, being able to make my character immune to fire before the fire boss was great, or the synergies from being able to move after each attack and having multiple attacks per turn. I think that system depends on the difficulty being really high though, feeling like you're breaking the game is best when it feels like you need to do it

I love the persona and SMT system, fusion of personas, weaknesses. Before I knew about persona, it was already an RPG system that I wanted to achieve, it's very interesting.

 

[ciro64]

Here's a few mechanics I like from Mega Man Command Mission.

• All characters had a special move. You had to wait for their respective bars to fill up to be able to use them.
• Axl could briefly transform into one of the bosses you defeated to replicate one of their attacks
• Marino could steal the next few turns for herself, being able to do several actions in a row.
• She could also steal items from enemies, depending on which enemy it could be a rare item
• This game had a dedicated menu for healing, the energy tanks. You only had a predetermined amount of them for each battle. The only other way of healing was through the healing character, Cinnamon, through her special move.
• All characters also had a special transformation that lasted for a few turns. You could use it once in a battle.
• Spider's special transformation was to become intangible to enemy attacks for a few turns, instead of focusing on strength
• Only 3 out of the 7 (?) characters at a time during a battle, so you had to choose wisely what kind of abilities you would want at your disposal.

Funnily enough I never played this game for myself. It's one of those games you have nostalgia for because you saw someone else playing it for prolonged periods of time.

 

[Teberu]

FFV job system, it gives so much freedom to make any kind of build and party combination and adds so much replayability to the game

Ain't nothing like making an all ninja party with summoner skills and some buffs and demolishing everything that goes against you
The only problem with this system is that it's very very grindy sometimes...

 

[sun0wl]

Esoteric, seemingly irrelevant personality quizzes at the beginning of the game with unknown consequences (but 3 out of 5 times impact your stats or other personality traits).

Also fun when these choices pop up throughout the game as well. It's a simple but charming way to add a little flavor and mystery to a game, no matter its other mechanics or complexity. Can be narratively relevant, but usually isn't in my experience (off the top of my head, anyway).

See: Ogre series, Dragon Quest, etc.

 

[Glimbo]

I love the materia system. It gives a bunch of customization options. Not many games do it though. Final Fantasy 7 (obviously), The Legend of Heroes series, and Growlanser IV are the only ones I can think of.

 

[Muklas]

Skill trees and putting points into things, there's nothing quite like making a number go up.

 

[Stingy Perry Stingy Perry]

FFV job system, it gives so much freedom to make any kind of build and party combination and adds so much replayability to the game

Ain't nothing like making an all ninja party with summoner skills and some buffs and demolishing everything that goes against you
The only problem with this system is that it's very very grindy sometimes...

Too bad that’s the last time that they used that awesome mechanic.

Post automatically merged: Feb 8, 2025

The dating mechanic in Thousand Arms is really something else.

 

[Octopus]

games where your Attack command changes on a functional level depending on your equipment (single-target to AoE, or maybe even a sort of Mario & Luigi-style minigame)

I love that kind of stuff, equipment and weapon choice should have a bigger impact than just different numbers.

Most of my knowledge comes from action-RPGs or just action games (never really been a big JRPG guy). I've been replaying Mass Effect and the "barrier, armour, health" defence system they implemented in 2 and 3 I think is really great. Different weapons and powers are better against different types of defence, and some enemies have more or less of one or the other. Really makes you think about your weapon loadout since you want something for each of the defences, especially on the harder difficulties.

 

[PaleFolklore]

OMORI had a few mechanics I was pretty fond of, IIRC. I felt it had much more to offer than a simple "Earthbound clone", the best example being the influence of different moods in your stats.

If your character was SAD, it'd perform different in battle than if it were HAPPY or ANGRY. I really felt it had an actually relevant connection to the plot's themes, and even sort of foreshadowed certain moments in the story, to a certain degree.

 

[nexy]

I like when the RPGs have a macro system and combination skills. like Phantasy Star 4 or Persona 2.
Also, the action progress bar of Grandia, its top tier

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

I like the GF and junction system from FF8 drawing magic and investing magic to improve your stats and the GF thing is pretty fun in fact I think the whole system became a thing cuz square looked at the sort of crazy animations they made for GFs and went "man it would be a waste if shiva and ifrit become useless in the late game why not come up with a system that prolongs all summons usefulness" also the gunblade being able to deal more damage when you press R1 was very cool I figured this Interaction with the gunblade at disc 4 realized what made gunblade so cool and why everybody wanted one.

Also the materia system from ff7 allowed for more specialized spellcaster builds you can't just cast all spells so you end up with a small and powerful collection with spells it does help that you are playing as cloud a jack of all trades protagonist a decent spellcaster not the best but works.

WarCraft 3 hero system is pretty engaging along with the mercenaries mechanic and shops around the map make for a very intractable world.

Red alert 2 super weapons I think they can be considered a mechanic of their own but we have whats a mechanic in the first place?

Age of mythology mechanic of advanced to the next age through offering 2 choices to choose from that suit your playstyle unless you play RTS without a plan then idk what to tell you but to at least figure what units you want to make in the game.

And the toggling of first person and third person in metal gear solid and the radio mechanic I forgot the exact device name but its basically an advanced radio that allows you to speak with different characters throughout the game not using this mechanic means you will get a worse experience playing metal gear solid.

The radio mechanic from silent hill 1 a way to spot monsters but adds to the fear and tension double edged sword lol.

Also shooting in silent hill 1 unlike resident evil where your shots never miss you play as your average dude in silent hill not exactly a police officer so your aim kinda sucks shooting a target far away results in missing the shot , shooting multiple times in rapid succession also makes you miss.

These are enough to satisfy the reader I think.

 

[snoonch]

I really liked the gambit system from FF12. Kinda tedious at first, but once you get the hang of it combat becomes seamless.

 

[MrJeffy]

I love when the enemies become scared of you and don't want to fight you like Dragon Quest XI, or you just simply kill them instantly like Earthbound. Makes you realize how strong you have got.

 

[Cu-Neo]

The affinity system in the SMT games and it's spin offs, is really fun learning the enemy weakness and then using that knowledge to get free turns.

 

[freebie#47]

Lufia 2 game mechanics were great for the time. Your weapon and gear can use special attacks. You had a customizable extra party monster. Even special items to complete a dungeon puzzle.

First Seiken Densetsu also had a cool mechanics too, but they never implemented it for later series....though vision of mana does have a collectathon vibe to it.

 

[Sir Auriel of Lionel]

FFXII's gambit system is great so you don't have to direct every party member for every command than relying on computer and you still can usurp direct control of a character with no awkwardness. I love that surprise battles were removed to make the entire dungeon a battle ground but I'm also okay with battle encounters being initiated by overworld sprites colliding with the player sprites and setting battle in an enclosed battle screen.

This isn't a great system but I think it's a nice showcase of how not to do a magic system: Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song. Magic is not confined to a class/job but is easily learned by all if you pay for it. You can have every character able to cast spells to revive, heal, cast extra life (phoenix), cleanse but the only real difference from a magic class from a physical one is that job#1: allows more efficient spell casting (which some characters are just not meant to be magic users) or job# 2 and 3 allow you to combine spells which can break the game early on if you invest heavily in that direction from the get go. Honestly I think the worst part is that the magic system feels very hollow and cheaty to invest than something you naturally progress if you hit up guides which you will since the game does not like to explain much.

Environment on a map like Fire Emblem and FF Tactics to hamper movement are great obstacles themselves on top of enemies. Nothing beats humbled me faster than throwing me into a desert map after investing only in mounted unites due to their speed on plains and interior maps. Final Fantasy Tactics also had 2 things I also like to add one is the geomancy job that takes advantage of the terrain being the limiting factor of your spellbook but can be fun to implement also take in FFA and FFA2'a leveling system and mix matching of job abilities/armor/passive skills than locking jobs from the start for massive replayability. And the last thing I liked about FFTactics was it's faith system, a nice way to add an extra layer of difficulty of tying magic effectiveness instead of just magic defense and intellect stats worry about where the most faithless can't take a heal spell but can be effective mage killers to make up for it or high faith leading to high risk for your mage builds that is if they don't leave your war party to answer god's call. I didn't take advantage to the zodiac system with character effectiveness in damage delt and was glad they dropped it.

 

[cruelcumber]

For one I've been playing recently, I really like Wild Arms 3's mediums. Basically, during the course of the game you will get a total of 12 mediums, and each of your 4 characters can equip 3. Each medium comes with it's own set of percentage stat increases, passives (referred to as personal skills), and fully unique set of 4 spells. You also have the ability to use items to attach up to 5 more personal skills to each medium.

What makes this so good is that most mediums are flexible enough that there's multiple useful roles they could fill that could be useful for different characters. I.E. Fiery Rage gives a pretty hefty attack boost and has a personal skill that increases critical damage, giving it very strong reason to be put onto Clive or Jet, your two physical attackers. But, said attack boost only affects your base stat, so it becomes less useful as you upgrade your ARMs and get access to the attack buff valiant (though it is still a decent boost, especially in a game where every point of attack equals 2 points of damage), and the spells on the medium include fragile, which is the defense down debuff and would be better served on the characters who don't need to attack so you can squeeze out a bit more damage while it's active, and devastate, which is the only damage spell in the game that does good damage unconditionally. Remember, the spells on each medium are fully unique, so you can't get these spells anywhere else, so maybe it would be better to put them on Virginia or Gallows, your two magic users.

And even if you decide what type of role you want the medium to fill, the exact character will further affect decision making. If using it on a physical attacker, do you put it on Clive since he has the highest attack in the game, or Jet because his Accelerator force ability lets him ignore defense and can still crit? If you're using it for the spells, do you give it to Virginia who is the fastest character so she can nuke an enemy immediately in a random encounter, or Gallows who will do even more damage, though much slower. What other mediums you have equipped will even further affect decision making, and I absolutely love it.

 

[Jeff]

The timing mechanics from Super Mario RPG, they give the player more defense and more attack boosts.

-No permadeaths mechanic in later Fire Emblem games. It's a good idea for newcomer Fire Emblem players who do not want to see their favorite character gone forever. That permadeath mechanic belongs in Oregon Trail, not in a fantasy RPG that stars anime warriors.

 

[E0N]

I really liked the system in Metaphor where you can defeat the weak enemies through hack & slash. As someone who loathes grinding it was a breath of fresh air. I hope more JRPGs adopts this.

 

[MasterEn]

• Only 3 out of the 7 (?) characters at a time during a battle, so you had to choose wisely what kind of abilities you would want at your disposal.

there are 7 characters total for your party, but you only have the max amount for half of one chapter, chapter 6 if i remember correctly. i'm replaying the game in brief small parts, so at some point, i can reconfirm that.

 

[RetroLuvr]

I love encounter chaining in Bravely Second. Basically, if you beat a random encounter on the first turn, you can immediately go into a second battle. You retain all the hp, mp, and bp lost but you get a multiplier to exp, gold, and job points. You can continue the chain as long as you keep winning battles on the first turn.