JRPGs with interesting systems

[lightbane]

There's the Metal Saga/ Metal Max series, jrpgs about a post-apocalyptic setting in which shit happens (although it's more similar to Wastedland than Fallout). Pretty much all of the games are open-ended and have multiple endings, for not to mention they're different compared to the standard jrpg (no magic, limited inventory for each character, focus more on gear than levels and your main weapons are several kind of tanks that can be fully customized). Also, it is quite obscure saga but long-running, the first game was done for the NES while the last entry was launched for the DS a few years ago. Unfortunately it is completely unknown out of Japan, only Metal Saga (PS2) was officially translated, there's a fan-translation for Metal Max Returns for the SNES and that's it



Another game I could recommend you is Cyber knight 1 and 2 (SNES). It's a sci-fi game in which you use power armors and lots of different weapons to progress. Notable features are the fact that you cannot heal in mid-combat, combat emphatizes position and gear (for example you can't use ranged weapons while in melee so you must be wary when enemies move during their turns), ammo is limited and there aren't shops (instead, you must research the scraps from destroyed enemies to obtain new gear). Cyber Knight 2 also allows you to fight out of your armor and is generally more polished. In addition, it's only of the few games I know about in which the non-active members of your party actually do something instead of fading into the background. Sadly they're quite short and Cyber Knight 1 is rough and clunky.


PS: IF you liked Chrono Trigger, you then will love Black Sigil, a jrpg done for the DS so you'll need an emulator to work (although it's quite easy to simulate). It's clearly inspired by Chrono Trigger and uses some ideas, but sadly it suffers from an insane number of random encounters. Curious enough, it actually it's not a japanese game, it was produced by a western developer.


PPS: Magical Starsign may be of your interest if you wish to try something different. Standard jrpg fare although since all of your party characters are mages there's more focus on magic attacks. Also, don't mind its cute style, this game quickly becomes really grimdark later on (stuff like implied mass genocide, child murder, fates worse than death and so on).

 

[deuxhero]

I liked how Wild Arms 3 had the characters stick to a single (or two that act as one in case of Virginia's two pistols) weapon the entire game that you upgraded (non-linearly with trade offs for upgrades) instead of replace. With the exception of Gallows, who is pretty crap with his gun (who would have thought the buff rebellious guy would be the best magic user while the older scholar in glasses would be the best at physical combat?), all of the weapons are plot relevant.

(stuff like mass genocide, child murder and fates worse than death and so on).

There's another Nintendo game like that? I thought Custom Robo was the only one.

Spoiler

After fighting a mysterious monstrous murderous robot, the main character notices the arena it created had trees and grass that weren't made of plastic or metal, something he has never encountered before. At that point, the plot becomes about how that robot destroyed the world and the survivors settled in a domed city, wiped their minds of the idea that there was anything beyond the city and taught all their decendents that the world was flat

Does it keep making jokes in the face of this? Because Custom Robo was great at that.

 

[Krraloth]

There is also a totally random game on the DS, namely Super Robot Wars OG Saga: Endless Frontier.
Basically it's a JRPG with beat-em-up combat system...I don't really know how to explain it, so I just leave this here:

(Full party battle)


Edit: actually you obtain one more support character after this.

 

[lightbane]

I liked how Wild Arms 3 had the characters stick to a single (or two that act as one in case of Virginia's two pistols) weapon the entire game that you upgraded (non-linearly with trade offs for upgrades) instead of replace. With the exception of Gallows, who is pretty crap with his gun (who would have thought the buff rebellious guy would be the best magic user while the older scholar in glasses would be the best at physical combat?), all of the weapons are plot relevant.

(stuff like mass genocide, child murder and fates worse than death and so on).

There's another Nintendo game like that? I thought Custom Robo was the only one.

Spoiler

After fighting a mysterious monstrous murderous robot, the main character notices the arena it created had trees and grass that weren't made of plastic or metal, something he has never encountered before. At that point, the plot becomes about how that robot destroyed the world and the survivors settled in a domed city, wiped their minds of the idea that there was anything beyond the city and taught all their decendents that the world was flat

Does it keep making jokes in the face of this? Because Custom Robo was great at that.

Never heard of Custom Robo. Which one are yout alking about? It seems it is a saga of several games.

Spoiler

Actually, Magical Starsign becomes even more tragic by the endgame, you learn that for once the main bad is actually trying to (sorta) save the galaxy from an inevitable robotic apocalypse. Then, during the final battle one of your comrades (one of these killer robots which refused to follow its programming) goes insane and tries to murder you, but at the end decides to self-destruct to spare the main character from a certain death

By the way, the game was made by the Mother 3 guys, a fact which explains many things.

 

[deuxhero]

The Gamecube one known as just "Custom Robo" in the US (it was never released in Europe because NoA decided the middle of E3 would be a perfect time to release a game and sales suffered).

It's a game about fighting tiny robots and not a jRPG, but does give an interesting play on one jRPG mechanic: If you repeatedly say "no" when asked to save the world (or "yes" if you want to give away your plot important watch) you can actually do it. It causes a game over or lots of back tracking latter, but it's hilarious.)

 

[Damned Registrations]

I am also after something called ryuu tama,

Dragon Ball? o_O

Someone mentioned Dark Sigil. I recall enjoying it at first, but later on it became a drudge going through the combat, and eventually a bug made it impossible to progress in the game so I dropped it and never picked it back up. A pity, they did manage to capture a lot of CT's charm.

A few more games:

Vandal Hearts 2: I didn't care much for the game (awful pacing) but the combat system involved simultaneous turns. It was rather gimmicky and easy to abuse (moving your character to behind where the AI was going to move, dodging their attack while getting a backstab) once you became competent, but it was certainly a neat idea.

7th Saga: When you start the game you pick one of 7 or so characters. During your travels, you can encounter the other characters you didn't choose, who are all on the same quest as you, to retrieve a number of powerful magic runes for the king. If you're strong enough, you might convince one to become your partner in battle. If you have a rune, one might attack you, and if they win the fight they'll take it from you and you'll have to win it back at a later point. And their level scales along with yours, which actually makes sense in this case, since they're doing the same shit you are. I love the idea of other entities in a game actively interfering with your efforts in dynamic ways, as opposed to just being preset roadblocks at a specific place at a specific level of strength.

SaGa Frontier: You mentioned the game in the OP, but you didn't mention the LP system (which I think is a staple in the series.) While characters have HP and MP (sometime two kinds of MP, one for magic and another for weapon skills) they also have LP. HP are automatically restored after every battle. During battle, if HP reaches 0, the character isn't dead per se, they're out of action, but any kind of hp restoration will bring them back to fighting form. However, each time they hit 0 HP, they lose 1 LP (characters generally get 5-10 LP, and this maximum never increases) which can only be restored by resting at an inn or using very rare consumables. Certain special attacks can also drain LP directly, and if a character is already at 0 HP takes normal damage, they lose 1 LP as well. It makes for an interesting battle system, and takes away the tedious after battle healing phase so common in jrpgs, while still making resource management an issue in long difficult dungeons.

Phantasy Star 4: The Macro system for battles. Done decades before and far more skillfully than the clunky awkward gambits from FFXII. You simply set up a macro for what you want each character to do (and even in what order, overriding their speed scores so you don't get that stupid disadvantage for having a character be too fast to do something effectively, like attacking before a debuff hits) and save it, so at any point in the future you can activate the macro and have them perform those exact commands. Helped greatly in performing the tech combos (which weren't automatic like in Chrono Trigger, you had to have the two characters successively cast the correct spells in the right order to trigger the combo) and generally saved you time and effort during battles of all kinds when you already know what sort of actions you want to take. Oh, and you could set up like 20 different macros or something.

 

[Rahdulan]

Vagrant Story 2: I didn't care much for the game (awful pacing) but the combat system involved simultaneous turns. It was rather gimmicky and easy to abuse (moving your character to behind where the AI was going to move, dodging their attack while getting a backstab) once you became competent, but it was certainly a neat idea.

That better be Vandal Hearts 2, man. Made my heart skip.

Also yes, fights basically boil down to exploiting the enemy AI which will ALWAYS without a doubt go for a backstab. It makes me wonder how you're meant to survive certain 1v1 boss fights if you don't rely on that.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Vagrant Story 2: I didn't care much for the game (awful pacing) but the combat system involved simultaneous turns. It was rather gimmicky and easy to abuse (moving your character to behind where the AI was going to move, dodging their attack while getting a backstab) once you became competent, but it was certainly a neat idea.

That better be Vandal Hearts 2, man. Made my heart skip.

Err, yeah, my bad.

 

[Alex]

Horus

I remember seeing this Dark Cloud game back in the PS1 era. I never tried it out, though, so thanks for bringing it up! Do you know how the town building aspect compares to Breath of Fire 2 (the only jrpg I remember with this kind of mechanic)?

lightbane

Thanks! I haven't tried out any of these games, so this helps a lot!

deuxhero

Wild Arms really slipped from my mind. Being able to upgrade your weapons in the way you want at least added a non linear element to it. Did the third game expand this so all characters had weapons like that (in the first, it was only the main character)? That sounds like a good idea, thanks!

Never heard about custom robo before, but this reminded me I need to add Robotrek to this list.

Krraloth

Wow, that looks interesting... and a bit confusing. Thanks!

I am also after something called ryuu tama,

Dragon Ball? o_O

Well, the page I found about it translated that as "Dragon Egg". Here, have a look for yourself! I know, the game looks a bit like weird, but I figure I should at lest give it a chance. Well, if I can find it for a reasonable price, at any rate.

(...snip)
A few more games:

Vandal Hearts 2: I didn't care much for the game (awful pacing) but the combat system involved simultaneous turns. It was rather gimmicky and easy to abuse (moving your character to behind where the AI was going to move, dodging their attack while getting a backstab) once you became competent, but it was certainly a neat idea.

I actually played it a bit, but I was also playing Final Fantasy Tactics at the time, so it looked very non customizable in comparison. I remember thinking you needing salt sticks to kill slugs was a nice idea, though. I will see if I can find it again.

7th Saga: When you start the game you pick one of 7 or so characters. During your travels, you can encounter the other characters you didn't choose, who are all on the same quest as you, to retrieve a number of powerful magic runes for the king. If you're strong enough, you might convince one to become your partner in battle. If you have a rune, one might attack you, and if they win the fight they'll take it from you and you'll have to win it back at a later point. And their level scales along with yours, which actually makes sense in this case, since they're doing the same shit you are. I love the idea of other entities in a game actively interfering with your efforts in dynamic ways, as opposed to just being preset roadblocks at a specific place at a specific level of strength.

That looks very interesting too! Thanks!

SaGa Frontier: You mentioned the game in the OP, but you didn't mention the LP system (which I think is a staple in the series.) While characters have HP and MP (sometime two kinds of MP, one for magic and another for weapon skills) they also have LP. HP are automatically restored after every battle. During battle, if HP reaches 0, the character isn't dead per se, they're out of action, but any kind of hp restoration will bring them back to fighting form. However, each time they hit 0 HP, they lose 1 LP (characters generally get 5-10 LP, and this maximum never increases) which can only be restored by resting at an inn or using very rare consumables. Certain special attacks can also drain LP directly, and if a character is already at 0 HP takes normal damage, they lose 1 LP as well. It makes for an interesting battle system, and takes away the tedious after battle healing phase so common in jrpgs, while still making resource management an issue in long difficult dungeons.

Yeah, the LP was a good point of that game too. Thanks for bringing it up. Didn't character who were reduced to 0 lp die for good as well? Hard to find a game that would allow that to happen nowadays, much less a JRPG.

Phantasy Star 4: The Macro system for battles. Done decades before and far more skillfully than the clunky awkward gambits from FFXII. You simply set up a macro for what you want each character to do (and even in what order, overriding their speed scores so you don't get that stupid disadvantage for having a character be too fast to do something effectively, like attacking before a debuff hits) and save it, so at any point in the future you can activate the macro and have them perform those exact commands. Helped greatly in performing the tech combos (which weren't automatic like in Chrono Trigger, you had to have the two characters successively cast the correct spells in the right order to trigger the combo) and generally saved you time and effort during battles of all kinds when you already know what sort of actions you want to take. Oh, and you could set up like 20 different macros or something.

For some reason, I never got very far on PS games. I will try to look it up again.

Anyway, some more entrances I think deserve to be mentioned as well:

Robotrek

This fun little RPG cast you as a boy inventor, trying to solve a city's problem with a gang. Instead of fighting yourself, you build robots to do your bidding (as well as a couple of inventions to solve a few plot points). The game is pretty fun. It has two systems I consider particularly interesting. First, it has an interesting crafting system. Well, the system itself actually isn't that interesting. You can build items you have found the schematics for. And you can combine items to make new ones, through trial and error. Still, this keeps you on the lookout for schematics, as well as trying to combine a lot of things.

The other interesting system is the robot configuration. Robots can be assembled from the parts you build in item crafting, and the game gives you a good number of options to play with, with different weapons actually having some pros and cons. Again, this isn't so interesting by itself, but thanks to the other aspects of the game, if you always keep trying item combinations, you can end up with much better equipment at some games stages than you would otherwise have, adding a non-linear aspect to the game.

Terranigma

Terranigma is a bit different from the "standard" rpg for Snes, although I guess you could say it is a culmination of the principles set up in other Quintet RPGs. Like other RPGs by that company, this is an action game with a strange story surrounding the (re)creation of the world and reincarnation. There are two reasons for me to bring it up. First, it has an interesting world assmbling aspect, that is unfortunately cut a bit short. Your objective in this game is to reasemble the world. You start in the underworld, where you have to free up the continents. Later you go up to oversse the plants, the animals, and eventually the humans retaking their place. This all is unfortunately, very linear, with I think the only non linear aspect being when civiliation begins to come back, and you can help different towns reach "higher levels". Yeah, I know, not much of a system, but it kind of inspires you to think of a cool game that didn't get made. A "hey, imagine all that world building had somehow been sandboxy rather than railroaded".

The other system that deserves attention here, and this time, unqualified attention, is the actiony combat system. Terranigma's combat is, in my opinion, even more fun than Secret of Mana's. While the game actually onle feature one weapon type (spear) compared to SoM's 8, it makes playing with that weapon a lot more interesting. The main character can use the spear in many different ways, such as raining down strikes on an enemy or jumping and diving with it.

Shining Force

I actually played only Shining Force 2, but I understand the 2 games are very similar. Shining Force's character management aspect is pretty standard for this kind of game, but the class upgrade aspect still managed to be somewhat interesting. First, the more you delayed the class upgrade, the stronger your characters would be in the end, as the upgrade shifted their levels back to 1. Second, there were items around that allowed you to get a better class promotion, but these required searching the gameworld for. In fact, this game had a nice exploration aspect, which was somewhat hampered because the english version, for whatever reason, removed the ability of units to open chests during battles (making a few chests completely unreacheble).

The game's combat is also a lot of fun to play, although it doesn't have any single, specific feature that stands out in my mind.

Also, it has been too long for me to make a good write up of what I like about it, but I think Front Mission, or at least one of its sequels deserve to be here. I remember playing around with the 3rd game, and it had an awful lot of customization. It had all kinds of different parts to your bots, each with different tactics associated with them. Missile launchers could hit from far, and hit hard, but they had little ammo ad were a bit slow. Robots could be given legs that could run, so if you went in a straight direction, you could reach further. The game also had pilots with different skills, so they would use different equipments better or worse than each other, and could learn skills with them more easily or not. I actually think tactical RPGs like Front Mission and FFT spoiled me, because whenever I try this kind of game, I kind of expect a good amount of customization.

 

[Horus]

Horus

I remember seeing this Dark Cloud game back in the PS1 era. I never tried it out, though, so thanks for bringing it up! Do you know how the town building aspect compares to Breath of Fire 2 (the only jrpg I remember with this kind of mechanic)?

Sorry,i didn't played BOF2 so i can't compare compare them.
But this might help you compare.

 

[Krraloth]

Dark Chronicle (Dark Cloud 2) has Spheda and Fishing in it.
It can feel a bit grindy sometimes but the weapon upgrade system is quite nice.
Not as insane as Rogue Galaxy tho.
There's a guy in gamefaqs who tried to make a complete faq of that but went insane.

 

[dnf]

Mother 3 is one of the most emotionally engaging games ever.

 

[Lorica]

I'm not well versed in jRPGs at all, so there may be one that does this better that I'm simply unaware of, but I rather enjoy the system in Golden Sun/GS: The Lost Age.

At its most basic, there are a number of (alchemical) elemental-themed djinn present in the game that you collect. Each djinni can be 'set' to an adept (player character), each of whom also has a basic elemental affiliation. When a djinni is set to a character, it provides basic stat boosts, increases elemental power and resistance in its area, and is available for unleashing in battle. Unleashed djinn do not provide stat benefits, but have a particular effect in battle (some are straight attacks, some buff, some provide one-turn damage resistance, debuff, i.e. the usual suspects) in the turn in which they are used.

Unleashed djinn are considered ready for summoning. Having more djinn in this readied state allows access to increasingly powerful summons, usually dealing direct, AoE damage but with a few that offer other benefits (healing, debuffs, etc.). Once used for summoning, they re-set on the character they 'belong' to. Alternately, you can use a turn to reset a djinni without summoning at all.

Where this gets really entertaining for me is that the kind and number of djinn that you have set to a character combined with his base class and elemental disposition changes his class. This represents major stat boosts (at least for upper tier classes) and access to psyenergy (read: magic). Not only is experimentation with djinn and adepts a pleasure in itself, as you work out combinations that grant good stats and magic while balancing out your team (characters share a djinn pool after all and no character can have more than one djinni more than any other), it also adds a nice tactical consideration. Unleashing djinn and using summons dramatically reduces the combat effectiveness of your characters. The most powerful classes are especially 'fragile' in that unleashing a single djinni can knock a character out of that class to a lower one.

Additionally, elemental disposition comes into play. Characters with a naturally high affinity for an element will have stronger djinn unleashes and better magic in that area. A water character unleashing an earth djinni won't get the same amount of power as an earth adept would. His earth spells will also be weaker, as will any weapon effects that are elemental based. However, the classes with the best statistics are multi-elemental classes and if you're fighting a water based enemy, a straight water based adept will be at a distinct disadvantage. Furthermore, using a summon will actually increase a character's affinity for a particular element during the course of a battle, making that character progressively more effective if you use the summon system well.

So as you progress through the game, you're constantly able to tweak your party and you have some really nice tactical options. There's also a small bit of party tweaking involved in solving the game's magic based puzzles, as you need to ensure you have access to the right magic to advance, though this is a secondary consideration due to the ease of re-tweaking your party.

Where the GS games fall down is that they're rarely so difficult as to require you use this system to its fullest extent. I think it's balanced to allow people to progress through with their preferred strategies--if you want strong classes and no summons, you can beat the game that way; if you want a summon based approach, you can do it that way; if you rely on magic or on physical attacks and weapon effects, you can get through this way. There are some great optional boss battles that test you and using the most effective setups will allow you to run through the game avoiding all trash mobs and only confronting required bosses, but this nice system isn't required. On the other hand, most cRPGs run into this problem when they allow a variety of party setups and tactics, so I'm not too hard on GS.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Horus

I remember seeing this Dark Cloud game back in the PS1 era. I never tried it out, though, so thanks for bringing it up! Do you know how the town building aspect compares to Breath of Fire 2 (the only jrpg I remember with this kind of mechanic)?

Sorry,i didn't played BOF2 so i can't compare compare them.
But this might help you compare.

BoF2's town building was pretty basic - an endgame sidequest that has you finding NPCs in the world who are looking for a home, and you'll be able to direct them to your town. Some will provide services, others just lazy about. Sadly some are clearly superior options, so if you want the town to be really useful instead of a minor distraction you'll have to follow a guide (for example, one of the carpenters is also a cook and will make great items for you, the other two don't do anything of note). It was somewhat interesting for the time though, even BoF3's town-building was simpler.

 

[The Last Blackguard]

Surprised none of the Persona series has been posted yet. It's a spinoff of the Shim Megami Tensei series, a couple of which have already been posted, but, instead of collecting demons, you fight with aspects of yourself, which are made more powerful by making friends with people, requiring you to make a balance between that, and fighting evil. I've only played 3, and a small bit of 4, but they're both a lot of fun, with entertaining characters, a collecting element where you unlock Personas by fusing them, and a pretty involving experience overall.

Another decent series is Disgaea. A grid based SRPG where the main gimmick is the abiloty to grind to absurd levels (up to 9999). Made less tedious by things like a large amount of content past the main story for high level characters. Other than that, there isn't much to say besides the pretty decent story , and the fact that the majority of the classes and monsters can be recruited to your party.

 

[felipepepe]

They are good games, but they have nothing that unique or interesting... sure, dealing 5 billion damage to a lv 5.000 demon in Disgaea is funny, but little else... you'll still beat the main game at ~lv60-80 and there's few changes from lv 100 to lv 10.000 besides bigger numbers...

And most mechanics in Persona are already in SMT games, except for the social links, that aren't that great to begin with...they are basically an evolution of "loyalty missions" from Bioware games...

 

[The Last Blackguard]

Honestly, I kinda dug having to balance Social links and Tartarus, at the end of the day, it wasn't that hard, but still. I also thought the Social Links were pretty entertaining. Not hugely engaging, but I thought they had their moments.

 

[deuxhero]

You hardly had to balance them though. Dungeons were night time only, and by the time you can actually do some night time social link, you'll have maxed all your social status and be clearing entire blocks in one night.

Persona 4 is a little harder, but past the first dungeon, it was entirely reasonable to clear them all in one day too.

 

[Niektory]

They are good games, but they have nothing that unique or interesting... sure, dealing 5 billion damage to a lv 5.000 demon in Disgaea is funny, but little else... you'll still beat the main game at ~lv60-80 and there's few changes from lv 100 to lv 10.000 besides bigger numbers...

I think there are quite a few interesting mechanics in Disgaea. The ability to pick up and throw other characters for example. It had a lot of neat uses. You could stack all your characters in a tower by making them pick others up in a sequence, and then reach the other end of the battlefield in one turn by throwing. One type of monsters would blow up when thrown. You could even fuse monsters by throwing them at each other, or capture them by throwing them at your base panel.

The geo pyramids were also pretty unique. They made some battles more puzzle-like. The battlefield was divided into fields of various colors, and if a pyramid was present on one colored tile, all tiles sharing its color would gain the pyramid's effect. Effects would range from basic ones like increased damage to dramatic ones like invincibility. You could pick them up and throw them on other tiles allowing you to greatly change the battlefield conditions. You could also destroy them, which would change the color of the tiles affected by the pyramid to the color of the pyramid, damaging everything standing on them in the process. It was also possible to setup a chain reaction where destruction of one pyramid triggered destruction of others.

Then there's the senate, where you could hold a vote where senators would vote for or against your proposals. If they were against you, you could try to bribe them by giving them items or 'convince' them by force which would result in a battle in the senate room.

 

[Jasede]

You hardly had to balance them though. Dungeons were night time only, and by the time you can actually do some night time social link, you'll have maxed all your social status and be clearing entire blocks in one night.

Persona 4 is a little harder, but past the first dungeon, it was entirely reasonable to clear them all in one day too.

I really don't see how this is possible easily on Expert difficulty. I really had to struggle in both games - much more in 3 than 4 - to schedule social + dungeon. Especially in 3 with the Fatigue mechanic it was often a matter of planning every day meticulously to finish dungeons in time and still have time for getting all the SLinks maxed in one run.

 

[Mangoose]

Speaking of Sanity points, if anyone knows good tabletop rpgs in japanese, feel free to mention them too. I already got something called Blade of Arcana here, where each character skill is associated with a major arcana from the tarot. I probably won't translate it anytime soon, but still it is nice to have, and I guess getting the basics of the rules shouldn't take that long. I am also after something called ryuu tama, which is aparently a game that focuses on characters cooperating to overcome obstacles in journeys, rather than combat.

Not exactly featuring Sanity points, but Sword World RPG is apparently one of the big ones over there, although it's basically your typical fantasy with various anthropomorphized animals as races or something. I should probably get around to actually reading the English translation before commenting.

It is? I haven't read into Sword World, but I know Record of Lodoss War (anime) is set in the Sword World setting, and it's actually almost a traditional D&D setting. Wizards, clerics, rogues, fighters, rangers, elves, dark elves, dwarves, berserkers, etc. Maybe SW 2.0 changed it? Ionno

Edit:

The newest edition Sword World 2.0 (SW2.0 for short) was released in April 2008. It has a new campaign setting named Raxia. There are 15 classes (Bard, Conjurer, Enhancer, Fairy Tamer, Fencer, Fighter, Grappler, Magi-tech, Priest, Ranger, Rider, Sage, Scout, Shooter and Sorcerer) and 8 races (Human, Dwarf, Elf, Rune-folk, Tabbit, Nightmare, Lilldraken and GrassRunner) in the rulebooks #1-3. It uses only two 6-sided dice as with previous editions.
Original races in Raxia

• Tabbit - A bipedal rabbit race who are travelling around the world.
• Rune-folk - An artificial humanoid race who has a hunger to serve other races by instinct.
• Nightmare - They are mutants of other races and are born with the gift of both fighting and magic. However, because it is believed that their souls are distorted and polluted, Nightmares are looked askance.
• Lilldraken - A race of bipedal dragon-folk who like commerce and peddlery.
• GrassRunner - A diminutive race similar to a hobbit and halfling. They are curious and hilarious fairy folk dwelling in the grass. GrassRunners have a lack of affinity for mana, they mostly can't use magic. Instead, they have an immunity to magic.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Valkyria Chronicles has a pretty fun tactical battle system that manages to be action and turn based at the same time. Its probably one of the best games on the PS3

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume is also pretty interesting, with a combat system that's pretty distinct from the original. It consists of a series tactical battles on a grid field. The combat itself is interesting because on each character's turn they can choose to move and then attack an enemy in range. If allies are within attack range, they will join in allowing you to execute combos. However, if it is the enemies turn the same rules apply - leave a character in the wrong position and they will be demolished. Different characters have different movement rates and attack ranges - the thief will be able to move far, but can only attack four squares. The warrior has average movement and can attack all 8 surrounding squares. The lancer is slow, but can attack two squares out. The archer can attack far squares, but not those in melee range.

Your performance in battle depends upon how effectively you are able to use combos on each enemy to overkill them. If you attack and just kill them, you get a low score. So essentially so have to coordinate you combos to do significant damage on the same turn the enemy is killed. At the end of every battle your evil goddess patron will reward you according to your score. If you score well, you receive powerful and unique equipment. You pick up various allies as you progress through a branching story. Once per battle you can use the plume on an ally to make them incredibly powerful, but at the end of that battle they die permanently. The battles become very difficult to beat if you don't have the powerful equipment you gain from getting the top rewards, so if you don't focus on getting the top score on every enemy, you are pretty much obligated to sacrifice an ally eventually.

The particular battles you face are determined by the story branches you choose to follow. The story branches available (and the allies and endings you can get) are determined by whether you have sacrificed an ally in the previous chapter.

 

[Shaewaroz]

Shadow Hearts with the wheel system, maybe? Depending on how good you are at timing, you hit 'critical areas' and do bonus damage or receive bonus benefits. It also uses sanity points.

This.

 

[SCO]

Metal Max returns is a fairly decent FFVI clone with tanks and fuel that has a open world - you can even go to the final boss nearly from the start

Hoshigami Remix is a interesting FFT/tactics ogre clone crippled by a few major flaws.
First, interesting things:
It has a Initiative Bar which you can manipulate - this is even essential to the combo minigame, which requires you to solve a puzzle so you make a 8 person combo before the enemy moves once on 40 combat maps, which let me tell you, is absurdly hard and requires much thinking about positioning, delays, spears&frails (for range and attacks over a obstacle) and self-knockbacks.
It has a absurdly complex magic system and affinity that is very useful during combat and to create new magic (very complicated)

Then, the flaws, which caused me to stop playing it (and the slow DS emulator didn't help either):
First; this is a game where the 'best' treasures require to grind absurdly, i'm not kidding that you have to do 80 combats to get the chance for it (and you have to use the combo for 8 characters on the enemy with the item).
The horrible decision to make every turn give out 'XP' at the end of every single npc attack turn, complete with a non-threaded animation that lasts 4 seconds
Being underlevelled makes your damage go down to 1 or 0, leading you to grind on your own characters to ala FFT (ughhh). BTW this + the xp only from combat strikes means some of your team will probably be underlevelled unless you take boring corrective measures.
It has a timing component to the critical strike/knockback strike mechanic.
It has a absurdly complex magic system and affinity that is very useful during combat and to create new magic (very complicated):
Magic 'seals' (materia of the place) are consumable. And worse, the production mechanisms are so absurd that you're constantly juggling one or more desirable qualities and risk your valuable stuff turning to trash if you fuck up too.
You need to memorize which 'gods' are strong/weak/assist against each enemy and organize your party appropriately. This means that you more or less have to check your enemies stats on each and every combat (the sprite of a npc doesn't denote its god) and that your npcs are using a magic/weapons appropriate to their god (which you can and should change).

This game is fucking autistic.

 

[felicity]

Seinarukana(SRPG)
BEST COMBAT SYSTEM EVAR. An eroge by a small team that outdone almost every "real" JRPG. The system is complicated and kind of hard to explain so bear with me. Combat is split into phases. Approximately {Combat Start Phase -> [Turn Start Phase ->(Attack Phase -> Defend Phase -> Magic Phase)->Turn End Phase]->Combat End Phase}. Actions and skills are performed during their specified phases. Combat is a duel of 10 rounds between 2 squads; each squad is made up of 3 characters and each squad has 3 roles, Attacker, Defender and Support. Characters in their respective role can only use skills of that role e.g. Attacker can only use attack skills etc. Attackers... well use attack skills which usually target Defender. Exceptions being some skills target Attacker or Support in which case they take full damage even if Defender is presence. Defender uses defend skills which reduce damage. If Defender dies the other squadmates take full damage because they can't use defend skills so it is critical to make sure your Defender is healthy, by swapping roles if necessary. Support is the most tricky role out of the 3, they mostly cast spells during the Magic Phase, but can be in other phases as well. You can swap roles in combat and you should do often. There is no dedicated tank/support/dps character. Even characters that are more skewed to one role have skills that are useful in all 3.

Some skills can interact with other skills like the Contingency spell in BG2. For example the Vanish spell is used to counter-spell. It only fires during the Magic Phase, and it only targets enemy's Support. It triggers when the enemy's Support tries spell casting. Some skills can be used to set up a 'Spell Trap'. It doesn't do anything immediately but will trigger on specific actions in following turns then which will be consumed. It opens up some interesting tactical plays. For example you have an Ultipwn spell and you know the enemy will counterspell you. You may set up a spell trap first and then in the next round cast your Ultipwn. The spell trap will draw the enemy's Vanish spell which allows your Ultipwn spell to go through.

Every action is a skill. There is no generic Attack/Defend command. Yes even defending you have to specify a skill and if you choose incorrectly you will be swiftly punished. Each skill can only be used a limited number of times aka uses based instead of MP. Additionally every skill has a mana(or you can call it AP) cost. You gain 2 mana each turn; this is innate and does not grow with level which I am in favor of because less beans counting. Most basic skills cost 1 mana, stronger ones need 2, the powerful ones need 3 or higher. This combination of uses based and AP system is very elegant. You can't just spam the most powerful move at every opportunity like you can in DND, and you don't spam boring Attack and use MP only for the Ultipwn spell like in MP based games. There are rare skills that boost your mana or lower enemy's mana. Using them efficiently is difficult but rewarding.

tl;dr
Each squad made up of 3 characters. Combat made up of different phases like Magic the Gathering. Skills are role/position specific like Ogre Battle/Soul Cradle. Skills are interactive like Contingency in BG2. No generic commands; all actions are skills. No MP, uses based mixed with AP.

Translations(Yes/No):
Being done by Jast USA but they seems to take forever.