Games that had a cool or unique concept/mechanic you really haven't seen elsewhere

bluegate

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Mega Man Battle Network had a combat system where the player and enemies were on a grid but could move around and attack in real time. Meanwhile a bar filled up to allow queuing up new specials. Also, some dungeons and specials effected the grid tiles, usually restricting and/or freeing up movement.
Although I forgot its name ( never paid close enough attention to remember it actually ), there is a somewhat prominent indie game floating around that pretty much copied its battle system.

Not sure if the game has released yet or not.

If you feel like playing more of that kind of battle system.
 

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Feels like they were falling into the same trap NGE did when they tried the same thing. It's like "Oh, we're gonna use all this cool, exotic religious symbolism/metaphor to make this seem deep" and then use it in a way that makes no sense. Crucifixion, yep, that's a clear reference to Christianity. Crucifying a bunch of mechs and a giant stuffed animal, none of which can actually feel pain.....doesn't really have any actual meaning to it. Especially since it's pretty done for "LOOK! RELIGIOUS REFERENCE YOU RECOGNIZE!" value.
Exactly why I could not get into Eva and the secondary reason why I dislike it so much. Xenogears I played a demo of back in the day, but I never bought the full game.
 
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Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Sparing your opponents. Undertale/Deltarune. Sure in a lot of games you can be nonleathal, but it usually involves punching someone in the back of the head instead of hitting them with a sword. It is really rare to see a game where you can not only talk your way out of a fight, but any fight, not just some boss fights. The only ones I can really think of are Shadowrun HongKong/Dragonfall (for specific missions), Persona series (kinda and really just for some normal fights), point and click adventure games (I mean they kinda do mostly have this, but they also only rarely have combat). Anyway, considering how big Undertale got, I'm really surprised a mechanic like this hasn't really shown up in anything else, even in the indie scene.
 
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Exactly why I could not get into Eva in the secondary reason why I dislike it so much. Xenogears I played a demo of back in the day, but I never bought the full game.
I have a Catholic friend who doesn't like NGE because he thinks it makes fun of Christianity. My response was "Well, it might if made any sense and was actually about Christianity instead of pulling symbolism from Christianity, Kabbalah and Freud and jamming them all together"
 
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I have a Catholic friend who doesn't like NGE because he thinks it makes fun of Christianity. My response was "Well, it might if made any sense and was actually about Christianity instead of pulling symbolism from Christianity, Kabbalah and Freud and jamming them all together"
Don't how he jumped to that conclusion. I get not liking it, but it's clear they're not making fun of Christianity. Even as a teenager, I can tell they're just trying too hard to be smart and deep. now I do know he would have disliked this one segment in Gurren Laggan. There's a stupid little twist in one of the last few episodes, where it's a pointless take that to not just Christianity, but any organized religion in general.Even at the age of 19, I literally flipped off the screen. I really don't know what was up the writers butt-holes at that time.
 
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wings012

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The game was a heavy metaphor on catholism i believe for sure. So that image doesn't surprise me.

IIRC they ran either out of budget or out of time to truly finish the game they way they wanted which is why many of the cutscenes in disc 2 were just pages of text and why the ending felt rushed.

I wonder why they never adapted XenoGears systems into future Xeno-games like Saga and Chronicles. Chronicles especially has one of the worst RPG battle systems I've ever fucking played. I HATE Xenoblade with a passion, simply because the gameplay is a fucking disaster. What is even more upsetting is that the Xenoblade stories are actually pretty great.
While I enjoyed XBC a lot, that sure was a super half baked battle system. Any difficulty that came about largely came from how you had almost no control over the other two party members, only being able to issue commands when you filled a bar or something. It honestly just felt like a terrible version of a KoToR or Dragon Age style battle system. And of course characters like Shulk whose entire existence revolves around BACKSLASH and Melia who needs specific spell combos to work well were utter trash in the hands of the AI.

I never played XBX or XBC2 so I have no idea how much they improved things.

I do respect their choice to step away from the usual JRPG system, I think a big part of the exploration appeal was being able to seamlessly run around and enter/resolve battles without all the screen transitions.
 
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CriticalGaming

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I do respect their choice to step away from the usual JRPG system, I think a big part of the exploration appeal was being able to seamlessly run around and enter/resolve battles without all the screen transitions.
Yeah but they could have easily just had a more action-based system like any number of other RPG's.

This is the biggest problem and also one of the best things about JRPGs. They are always trying different shit with their battle systems, and often times they stumble into something really great. But the problem is that those experimental systems usually lead to either a just-ok battle system, or an outright bad one.
 

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Tokyo Jungle. It's an action survival game that has... I don't know if unique but certainly fun gameplay where you select an animal and run out trying to survive by finding water and if you're a carnivore killing prey or avoiding predators and finding plants to eat if you're herbivore. Each one has different stats that you can increase by completing objectives and even find bits of clothing to wear for stat boosts, which means in theory if you stuck with one long enough your little Pomeranian could kill and feast off an elephant in a straight fight... in theory. In practice it's not practical so you have reason to keep switching to stronger and stronger creatures.

TJ is more of a score attack type game though, but it does have a story mode. I wish there were more games like that, ones that tried to replicate the experience of living like a particular animal accurately, but had several animals to choose from. Put that in an open world RPG? HELL YES.

Yeah, I think it was Spore. And Man, Spore could have been the Next Evo(and MAYBE you could say in a very superficial way it might be a spiritual successor) but nothing else was like Evo. And now I'm reminded just how much I was sad that Spore could have been So much more then it ended up being. I've heard someone on this forum(V1, I believe) mentioned it's actually fun for small kids as it is, but it felt like to me as an adult with no kids(at the time) like a huge missed opportunity.
I think Spore is plenty fun as is, even if there is quite a bit they could've added. The problem is it runs out of steam when you reach the Space Age. God, the Space Age has SO many terrible mechanics I don't even know where to begin with that one... the thing that probably annoys me the most is how you have to personally handle EVERYTHING yourself. Ally gets attacked? You have to run out and help them or they get pissed. One of your worlds gets attacked? You have to rush over and deal with the ENTIRE attack on your lonesome or you lose the planet. Worst of all, one of your allies attacks another ally? Now you piss off someone no matter WHAT you do.

It ends up being far more fun to just create a creature and then make it to the Space Age and stop.

Xenogears had one of the most interesting battle mechanics i have ever seen in a turn based rpg. A mechanic that i have never ever seen used ever again in any form.

The way it works was each turn your characters had a set number of points to spend on attacks. Light attacks cost 1 point. Medium attack 2. And heavy attacks 3 points. The cool thing though was that you could combine these attacks in different ways which could end up giving you a special attack if you entered the correct sequence.

For example 1 light attack followed by 1 heavy, would result in a power punch attack.

As the characters leveled up you got more points to spend on your turn thus allow for bigger more powerful combinations of attacks. I think this capped at 9 points.

This system was also used when you got into your mechs, but instead of generic points each attack would pull from a pool of fuel your mech had available. You could upgrade this by buying better engines and other parts for the mech throughout the game.

It was such an awesome system im sad nobody ever used it again.
The Xenosaga series, naturally, had most of the same mechanics. It's kinda a sequel to Xenogears though, and though it has a lot of the same religious "I want to sound deep" images and everything it's plot is actually coherent and the characters are brilliantly done. The second game's combat system and voice acting is terrible though, but the first and third are pretty good.

There's Xenoblade Chronicles too of course, but of the two Xenosaga seems like it has a lot more in common with Xenogears in terms of setting, tone, and combat system. It feels more like a sequel to Xenogears than chronicles does.

While I enjoyed XBC a lot, that sure was a super half baked battle system. Any difficulty that came about largely came from how you had almost no control over the other two party members, only being able to issue commands when you filled a bar or something. It honestly just felt like a terrible version of a KoToR or Dragon Age style battle system. And of course characters like Shulk whose entire existence revolves around BACKSLASH and Melia who needs specific spell combos to work well were utter trash in the hands of the AI.

I never played XBX or XBC2 so I have no idea how much they improved things.

I do respect their choice to step away from the usual JRPG system, I think a big part of the exploration appeal was being able to seamlessly run around and enter/resolve battles without all the screen transitions.
As someone who is a shameless fan of the Tales series of games, it is more than possible to make a system where the player controls 1 character and the rest of the party is controlled by the A.I. actually not only work but be very fun, but you have to make it so that when they aren't in your direct control the party is competent enough to not die constantly or do stupid things like hit the enemy with an attack that heals them over and over again. Tales games generally manage to do this but most games, Xenoblade included, don't. Hell, most of Shulk's Monado abilities are simply to save your party from their own stupidity like putting up a shield to protect them from an attack that if their A.I. was competent they'd simply recognize was coming and avoid by themselves 9 times out of 10.
 
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Dalisclock

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Don't how he jumped to that conclusion. I get not liking it, but it's clear they're not making fun of Christianity. Even as a teenager, I can tell they're just trying too hard to be smart and deep.b now I do know he would have disliked this one segment in . There's a stupid little twist in one of the last few episodes, where it seems like a pointless take that to not just christianity, but any organized religion in general.Even at the age of 19, I literally flipped off the screen. I really don't know what was up the writers buttholes at that time.
I feel like he gets a tad over sensitive about his religion at times, even though he's not a fundie by any means.

Which twist? In series full of them I'm not sure which one in particular you're hinting at.
 
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wings012

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As someone who is a shameless fan of the Tales series of games, it is more than possible to make a system where the player controls 1 character and the rest of the party is controlled by the A.I. actually not only work but be very fun, but you have to make it so that when they aren't in your direct control the party is competent enough to not die constantly or do stupid things like hit the enemy with an attack that heals them over and over again. Tales games generally manage to do this but most games, Xenoblade included, don't. Hell, most of Shulk's Monado abilities are simply to save your party from their own stupidity like putting up a shield to protect them from an attack that if their A.I. was competent they'd simply recognize was coming and avoid by themselves 9 times out of 10.
I'm not sure how well a bonafide action system would work with their no-transition system. Though I remember Tales games allowing you to switch characters and use items from your party members as you pleased anyway. XBC would've been heaps better if they just allowed you to swap party members as you pleased rather than locking 'ally commands' to some sorta 'special bar' that you had to fill. Some sorta rudimentary programmable AI which IIRC Tales also has, though I think Dragon Age had a much more in depth one that allows you to set conditions for item/skill usage would've also improved it heaps.
 
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Which twist? In series full of them I'm not sure which one in particular you're hinting at.
Stupid mobile keyboard. I was referring to another show by Gainax called Gurren Laggan. For some reason it deleted what I typed in earlier this afternoon. I am on laptop now, so I am correcting that.
 
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