Favorite Battle System

I've wanted to start this thread for a while, mostly because I believe that my favorite FFs are balanced by good stories and crappy gameplay, or vice versa. So, in short, what is your favorite Final Fantasy to play based on the gameplay alone. An, if you wish, give a brief explanation as to why. Spin-offs are included, so talk about the entire series, or just the ones you enjoyed playing.

1: XIII
Incredibly fast-paced, forcing you to make split-second decisions that could determine whether you live or die. Pressure is precisely what I believe to make a game epic. Granted, there are certain things that royally piss me off, but in the end, it makes the game all that much better. Bosses all have defenses and health bars that are ridiculously high and sometimes outrageously powerful stats like Strength and Magic. But, If you use your Paradigms correctly, switching in your Medics and Synergists when the need calls for them, you can overcome these challenges and the epicness will be astronomical. I give XIII's battle system a full 10 out of 10.

2: X
This is what I call the easiest, and at the same time, perfect battle system. Unlike most games, it allows you to play at a pace that is perfect for you, and allows you to play fast paced, while giving you the time to make rational decisions without screwing yourself over. Bosses, like XIII are sometimes ridiculous in strength and will make you tear your hair out trying to develop the correct strategy to defeat them. The ability to switch party members in and out mid-battle is also a terrific saving grace, you can have a full tank team one moment and switch in your mages and healers when the situation turns dire. Overdrives can be your most used attack at times, because they deal significant damage and never, ever miss if your opponent is in range. X receives also, 10 out of 10.

3: I and III
The most frustrating, yet one of the more fun battle systems in the entire series, imo. Selecting your commands without having a clue what order they will commence and even not knowing what your opponent plans to do is the most original concept of gaming, it's what started Final Fantasy and what makes it the greatest game in history. There are subtle differences between I and III, given the job system available to you in III makes a huge difference in how difficult your gaming experience will be, but the systems are still similar, and you are guarenteed a great game in the end. 9 out of 10.

4: VII
This battle system is difficult to learn, and if you make the wrong decisions with your materia setup, you're screwed. Pressure, again, makes this game very amusing to play. Also having to level up your characters seperately without the option of carrying all your team members with you 24/7 makes it frustrating, but if you know what's coming, or just have a good instinct, you will have the perfect battle system. Although, much like the job system in III, if you make the wrong decisions and use the wrong materia in the wrong battle, or if you haven't leveled them up properly, this game will most likely cause mass suicide. 8.5 out of 10.

5: IV
Not my favorite, could be better, but it is adaptable and with proper levelling, it isn't too difficult. Bosses are completely random in stats, but, your party members are chosen by the story, so there's no worry about levelling them up seperately or making the wrong preperations. 7 out of 10.

6: Dirge of Cerberus
Not Final Fantasy based in the slightest, but I had fun playing it and would probably play it again, if it had better replay value. The Materia system was completely unnecessary, imo, I found I rarely used it and kept to using long barrels and occasionally would use the machine gun, but other than that, the game had a very limited variety of attack systems. 6 out of 10.

7: IX
My biggest problem with this particular system is the reason I hated playing it for more than a couple hours at a time...levelling up. It felt that there was little to no reason, because the only thing that would increase by levelling up would be a minor change to health, when I really needed defense and a little of strength. Even common enemies would do critical damage and I would spend most of every battle trying to keep my health up instead of attacking. Everything other than that resembled VII, in a way. Keeping your abilities in check while levelling them up and preparing for boss battles made it fun to play. 5.5 out of 10.

8: Dissidia
Much like everyone else, my reason for such a low rating is the fact that is a fighting game and most of the edge that goes with playing it dies little by little over time. When I first played it, it was completely original, easily adaptable and in some cases, broken. I still play it off and on to keep my skills honed in case I get challenged by another player, but battling becomes stale pretty quickly. Easily 4 out of 10.

9: Crisis Core
I find it very difficult to enjoy this game anymore when I'm just battling. The story was great, but the battle system can easily be described as unexciting, doesn't flow very well and gets boring rather quickly. Especially with the inclusion of the New Game + option, which makes the story enemies extremely easy without switching to Hard Mode, and even then, until you get to the very end of the game and start on Missions, it's still the same thing over and over. Solid 2 out of 10.

What about the Junction system from VIII?

Anyway my opinions on the battle systems would have to be

1) Materia System VII - I rather found this simplistic and it forced you to think ahead, when I first started off playing VII I discarded Enemy Skill because it had no use to my young eyes and like an idiot only stuck to the 4 elements. Naturally I found it difficult to get back into Midgar by doing this but now that I'm older and a bit wiser it made me consider each piece of Materia and what use it could have, allowing me to be the final boss with pretty much ease thanks to advanced planning.

2) Sphere Grid X - Fairly great system, the added touch of allowing you to change characters in battle was a nice touch (though a part of me feels that it made the game too easy). The sphere system was a nice way of leveling the characters up too, especially when you would reach an skill sphere with no spheres to unlock it and decide if you should move on to up more stats and come back for it later or stay put untill you got the spheres you would need.

3) Junction System VIII - I'll be honest when I first played VIII I thought this system blew ass, as I had no real idea on how you got your hands on better skills. Again though I later learnt to take everything into consideration, including Cards. Like VII this forced me to think well ahead, and by keeping hold of key skills and saving them only for when I truly needed them I found it to be an enjoyable experience. (Maybe I'm a sucker for system styles that force you to plan ahead)

4) Crystal Grid XIII - In all honesty I began to like this system to begin with, but the amount of points needed to continue and not really being able to choose the stats you wanted began to p*ss me off near the end. It was most frustrating when I was at a point where I couldn't back track for more experience and needed some more HP before a boss. Another thing about it is that as soon as you have learnt which are the best moves to use against as certain boss it just becomes a straight cut chase of Lather rinse repeat. However I did like the fact that you could change their class type during battle and create class sets with certain effects.

This is a tough decision as they all have their strengths and weaknesses.
My fave is probably FF9.

FF7=loved the materia system, and the classic battle ATB system as well, I thought where it became confusing was the growth rates of some materia when paired with certain materials, but you got the hang of it with time. And like said earlier, the fact that your characters didn't all level equally made me mad and you could possibly miss a limit break

FF8=all of it, just stupid imo


FF9= a nice blend of leveling up and using the crystals to learn skills. Once you learned that skill, it was permanent and you could spend your points elsewhere, same with summons and skills, I loved that about this game.

FF10=I liked the battle system, and how you could switch party members in and out at will. I thought it was a bit too easy at times however, and the sphere grid was garbage. I loved how the summons were utilized in this game, but the magus sisters are to this day, probably the gayest summon i have ever seen.

FF12=loved the license board, quite possibly my favorite was of leveling up if you will. I understand some ppl didn't like the gambit system, it didn't bug me much, however you did feel like you lost some of that fun of making decisions on the go, since you simply watched the battles with all of your presets enabled.

FF13=modern with a touch of that classic feel. Fast paced with lots of action as well, which was a ton of fun. However the more you play with this system, the more you see its flaws. When you change paradigms, it takes precious time and you can be attacked while switching. If your leader dies, its game over=stupid. Also, I want to be able to control all three players, not just one....it just felt computerized at times with little freedom. I enjoyed the crystarium, good way to level up, but it takes forever...........

@RY, I never got the chance to play VIII for more than ten minutes, the disc I had was scratched and it would freeze whenever I'd enter a battle.

I see everybody's beef with the Sphere Grid, but I thought it was considered broken and limitless in potential. Any one of your characters can be tanks, healers, or all round ultimate fighters. Hell, Rikku continues to be my best character. Hitting 99,999 to every enemy regardless of defense.

IX's was like any other battle system before VII. You bought strong armor and weapons and your stats were better. Leveling up would raise a few stats depending on the character. I've never had a problem with low stats in this game. Ever. Character leveling was super simple. The only problem was how long some of the abilities took to level up but by the time abilities need like 100 or so AP to level up, you should have learned Ability Up so you'll learn your skills twice as fast.



I like IX's the most (BIG SURPRISE). I liked the equipment system and there was hardly a penalty for learning some skills. The crystal system was also fun so you could make your character at least customizable since the game follows the Class system and you can't change a character's class.

I liked the materia system. It was a good way of combining skills and whatnot. V's job system was fun and made clashing skills fun as well.

License Grid was amazing. You could make your character become anything. It just annoyed me that I had to buy spaces to wear fucking armor but that was the challenge side to the game.


Still hate Junction the most. It was the most annoying and the cheapest system in FF to date. Drawing your magic in battle and putting it into your HP or Speed was just needlessly complicated for me at first and it was annoying as fuck spending a good hour or so trying to junction the best spells and then try and not use them in battle so my stats aren't decreased. You could learn Firaga within the first HOUR of gameplay so the only challenge you get is from Omega Weapon and Ultimecia but even then you can just spam Renzokuken and Lion Heart and finish each boss within 30 seconds.

LMFAO!!!! The only way to Beat Omega Weapon is to spam Renzokuken, and still it takes a good 15mins to beat it without hero's drinks...so don't even give me that bullsht. And to even effectively beat him you need to have Aura which is hard as hell to get. Ultimecia isn't even a challenge even if u do play FFVIII without getting early magics...draw apocalypse and cast it and easy victory..u just have to watch out for some of her hard hitting moves

Also the Junction system is way more complicated than what you may think.

Forgot to add one, but I'm not going to rate it. :p

X-2, much like III, but with an ATB bar. Although being able to change jobs mid battle made it feel a little too easy. The system became broken after a while after getting Dark Knight and Alchemist, since a team of 2 Dark Knights and 1 Alchemist can take down everything without much effort. Bosses felt a little stale and predictable. Even Angra Mainyu has a predictable and easily beatable pattern. The Via Purifico was a nice time waster, but the only challenge is really Trema.

Cause Trema is the superboss of the game..people think its Angra Mainyu, but its not. And Trema cannot be beaten with the two dark knights+alchemist combo..its nay impossible that way

I haven't even fought him yet. I haven't barely bothered with the Via Purifico since it's just way too much work and I have way too little patience.

so are we all in agreement that VIII's battle system was the worst?

<.< the worst was 9's

^Disagreement!

I haven't even watched gameplay vids of VIII, so I have no say on whether it's bad or not.

Leonknight wrote:<.< the worst was 9's

Elaborate plox.

lol I would like an explanation of why IX's was so bad...9,10, and 13 seem to have a lot of popularity from what I have been seeing

I only had a problem with the lack of defense for all my characters. >_>