Support NeoGAF

[3March]

I once asked this forum about the best Combo Action series, but let's take a step back, and just look at the best combat systems in games, period. If possible, please elaborate.

Here are my picks:

Ninja Gaiden
If you know me at all, this answer would be a no-brainer. Absolutely love this series' brand of combat. Insanely fluid, satisfying, varied and difficult. As for the best in the series? Well, when Razor's Edge actually works, and we're actually fighting against decent enemies, NG3RE's combat is unparalleled. But it is held back by the times it DOESN'T work... You know, when there's input lag, annoying enemies (Like the dogs), low-level weapons... Yeah. But man, Razor's Edge is AMAZING when you manage to find a rhythm. It's a shame that it can't keep it consistently enough, though. Ninja Gaiden 2's combat is really consistently good, though. But the highs don't quite reach Razor's Edge.





Devil May Cry
Oh come on, there was no way this couldn't be mentioned alongside Ninja Gaiden. While not as difficult as Ninja Gaiden, the combo potential is nigh-unparalleled. So many ways to chain attacks together, and that stays consistent throughout the entire series, with the exception of 2. Even the reboot stuck to that principle.





I could go on, but I'd rather see your opinions as opposed to me just writing about mine.

 

[Mihos]

Streets of Rage 2.

Intuitive, responsive, satisfying

 

[Danjin44]

Bayonetta series


NieR Automata


God Hand


Sekiro

 

[Exentryk]

Bravely Default and Bravely Second have the best turn based combat system. It has so many options!

Bravely Default - 336 Abilities (24 Jobs with 14 abilities each)
Bravely Second - 330 Abilities (30 Jobs with 11 abilities each)

And you have 4 characters in the party, and each one of them can take up to 4 actions in a single turn. This means you can plan up to 16 unique actions in a single turn!!!
If you love crafting meticulous and unique strategies in your turn-based games, then you must give these games a try.

The follow-up game from this dev (Octopath Traveler) also had a very good combat system, even though it was a bit limited compared to above.

 

[SlashBringingHasher]

Dark Souls II was almost perfected (they messed up a few weapons combat along the way, overall better than DS1 tho). other games that have great combat prob GoW 3. at least from what I remember there are other games I just have awful memory

 

[Danjin44]

Bravely Default and Bravely Second have the best turn based combat system. It has so many options!

Bravely Default - 336 Abilities (24 Jobs with 14 abilities each)
Bravely Second - 330 Abilities (30 Jobs with 11 abilities each)

And you have 4 characters in the party, and each one of them can take up to 4 actions in a single turn. This means you can plan up to 16 unique actions in a single turn!!!
If you love crafting meticulous and unique strategies in your turn-based games, then you must give these games a try.

The followup games from this dev (Octopath Traveler) also had a very good combat system, even though it was a bit limited compared to above.

Oh if Turn based combat counts then I go with Press Turn combat system in SMT/Persona.

 

[3March]

Oh if Turn based combat counts then I go with Press Turn combat system in SMT/Persona.

SMT 3 combat kicks ass.

 

[Dr. Claus]

For FPS games, I would go with DOOM 2016.
For Character Action games I would go with Devil May Cry 5 (previously 3, but 5 is better in almost every way).
For JRPGs, I would say Final Fantasy V.
For Strategy Games, it is easily Final Fantasy Tactics.

 

[Danjin44]

SMT 3 combat kicks ass.

YES it does, one of my favourite turn based combat.

 

[Ol'Scratch]

I will say Godhand for just the most fun, but as for technical probably the new Devil May Cry

 

[Paltheos]

Tales of Graces F still stands at the top of action RPGs as the king. Brilliantly chained arte links for everyone, an unlock system that incentivizes players to try out everything and rewards them for doing so, and a combat system that keeps surprising with new features in the damn epilogue chapter. Bamco's tried many permutations since Graces but none of them have matched up. They all have some flaw or another. Zestiria had uneven ground and narrow arenas along with some uneven damage output outside of its armatization gimmick, Berseria didn't provide enough structure to its artes and the Soul system was generally too busted in the player's favor, and neither adequately rewards the player for switching between characters (they actually incentivize you to stick to one). And there's Xillia of course which tried to go back in time but as always we don't talk about Xillia.

There are improvements to be made to Graces' combat - A change Bandai made post-Vesperia is hard combo caps to avoid the infinite shenanigans that plagued that game in particular I think, and these always felt kinda weak and arbitrary. It doesn't even feel like reduced hitstun on long combos, it feels like enemies just drop out and decide to be stun invulnerable for a few seconds.

 

[Bakkus]

Damn, I should clear up the backlog and play all of these game i've yet to play.

 

[Northeastmonk]

Golden Sun. Combat wasn’t frustrating, animations were fluid, and everything looked flashy and alive.

My other ideas were mentioned in the OP. It reminds me of the dream sequence from MGS3.

 

[SegaShack]

Streets of Rage 2.

Intuitive, responsive, satisfying

Completely agree. The button presses and responses are absolutely perfect feeling.

 

[Punished Miku]

Soul Calibur II

Ninja Gaiden 2

 

[12Goblins]

God hand, Dark souls 2, MGR, Nioh

 

[danielberg]

The closest to perfection to me is Ninja Gaiden 2 and it had the aggressive enemies you need for it as well, the only thing that i would change is removing UT chains they are basically just cheese.

 

[Myths]

FF12 has an amazing ADB system, the perfect cross between ATB blended with strategy. It rectified many of its issues from its proper release with IZJS while the Gambit system streamlined the monotony of selecting/issuing obvious, you-should-know-by-now commands.

FF5 comes very close with its solid job system and mechanics. It’s not quite a pushover, and every playthrough feels fresh from the jump with new opportunities of approach.

Never played any of the Bravely series but if it’s somewhat of an evolution to FFV’s ATB/Job system just with more job abilities and the power to chain multiple commands through a stricter turn-based system, l’ll have to check it out one day.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

Streets of Rage 2.

Intuitive, responsive, satisfying

But SoR3 was superior in that aspect. (alone)

 

[Exentryk]

FF12 has an amazing ADB system, the perfect cross between ATB blended with strategy. It rectified many of its issues from its proper release with IZJS while the Gambit system streamlined the monotony of selecting/issuing obvious, you-should-know-by-now commands.

FF5 comes very close with its solid job system and mechanics. It’s not quite a pushover, and every playthrough feels fresh from the jump with new opportunities of approach.

Never played any of the Bravely series but if it’s somewhat of an evolution to FFV’s ATB/Job system just with more job abilities and the power to chain multiple commands through a stricter turn-based system, l’ll have to check it out one day.

Yeah, love FF12 too. Playing the recent TZA release was great fun. Made short work of Zodiark (see gif below, and don't blink )

Spoiler: Zodiark in 3 secs

I haven't played FF5, but heard it was the inspiration for the Bravely games. Due to the number of options you have, the game always feels fresh and you can always think up new strategies. The best thing is how most abilities interact with each other. For example, you might have one ability that deals 4x damage but costs 50% of you total MP. Then another ability that reduces your MP cost to zero for two turns. Combine these two for awesome results. This is just a basic example, but in the full game you can do some crazy complex stuff. Highly recommend you try these if you get a chance. Perhaps remasters of these are being worked on.

 

[Bogroll]

I remember enjoying the combat in Sleeping Dogs.

 

[RiccochetJ]

Warframe has the best second to second combat.

Sekiro has the best overall combat.

 

[MrRogers]

Max Payne 3 for gun combat. RE4 for tension, crowd control, enemy variety, ammo conservation (moreso on pro diff), dragons dogma for action rpgs

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

Difference of opinion: The Thread

 

[Melubas]

Street Fighter 3: 3d strike or any iteration of SF4 for me. The hits have weight behind them and it is immensely satisfying landing a big punish combo. SF5, aside from being a bad game, does not have that weight, it feels like you're hitting paper towels. Aside from fighting games I'd say Nioh or Dark Souls 1-3 / Bloodborne.

 

[GreyHorace]

The Batman Arkham games. Yeah yeah. People will say the freeflow combat is simplistic and doesn't require much expertise. But you know what? I had fun with it and it fit the character well. So I think that's all that counts.

Sekiro has great combat though do note that this is the first From Software game I've played so I can't compare it to the other games in the Soulsbourne series.

Someone already mentioned Ninja Gaiden and I agree. I wish Team Ninja would make another game in the future.

I hear people say For Honor has some great melee combat. But I haven't played since it's a multiplayer game.

 

[JimiNutz]

Other than the ones that have already been mentioned I'm going to say Spider-Man.

Sure it's very similar to Arkham but it's so damn fluid and just looks incredibly cool. Once you add in the various web gadgets and advanced moves that you unlock it has a fair amount of depth and allows for creativity as well.

Another shout out for DOOM (2016) as well. Incredible gunplay.

For Honor also is unique and satisfying.

Sekiro is probably the overall best though.

 

[Enzo88]

Ninja Gaiden Black and Nioh immediately came to mind, not a coincidence that are made by the same team.

 

[Larsowitz]

NGB has the best combat system imo.

When it comes to shooting I really like VANQUISH.

 

[Larsowitz]

Just re-played a few levels of Max Payne 3 yesterday in 4k. What a brilliant game. Music is excellent too.

 

[KàIRóS]

The question is way too complex (or rather too generalized) to give a single answer, you can't compare RTS games combat to the combat in Hack and Slash games for example.

In any case I guess I can at least name the games with the best combat in some genres (in my opinion of course)

Platformer: Viewtiful Joe

Action/Adventure: TLoZ: Breath of the Wild

Fighting: (This one is really really hard to answer, I prefer to leave it blank but my favorite fighting game is still Street Fighter II)

Beat 'em up: Dragon's Crown

Shoot 'em up: Radiant Silvergun

Hack and Slash: Devil May Cry 5

Survival Horror: Resident Evil 6

Metroidvania: Touhou Luna Nights

Turn Based RPG: Grandia 3 (I would normally choose Grandia 2 but 3 still has the most evolved battle system in the series)

Action RPG: Dragon's Dogma

Strategy RPG: Final Fantasy Tactics (although there are a few newer games that improve on the formula laid by FFT, but I'll give it to FFT still)

MMORPG: Phantasy Star Online 2

RTS: Total War: Warhammer 2

FPS: Battlefield 1

TPS: Gears of War 3

MOBA: It's either Dota 2 or League of Legends (there are some differences here and there but they are basically the same thing)

I've obviously left out some genres but I think most people will think of these genres when they are looking for combat in games, and sorry for not giving details but I've already spent like 2 hours just deciding these games.

 

[Codes 208]

Bloodborne combat > dark souls trilogy combat
dark souls still has pretty good combat though, DS2 and DS3 have some of the bet combat in many fantasy games imo

 

[DESTROYA]

God of War games has some crazy combat





Metal Gear Revengeance

 

[Hoya Destroyer]

Of the recent games I've played, I really liked the combat in Nier Automata and The Technomancer.

 

[DW74]

The original desert combat mod for battlefield 1942. Man was that a fun time. I spent endless hours in that shit. Also unreal tournament. Also demon's souls. Also mortal kombat 2. And just for funsies, the latest version of brutal doom.

One must view my comment in the context that I'm looking at how each of these games made me feel at the time they were released, not necessarily how they hold up today.

 

[highrider]

No mention of Halo? Man to me that’s kind of the gold standard. Agree about NGB or Bloodborne in the more 3rd person action games.

 

[Skyr]

Unreal Tournament 99 and Quake III

It’s a goddamn shame that arena shooters are dead.
These games had a humongous skill ceiling and required great timing, movement, aiming, strategy at a high level.
Arena shooters are like the perfect games for twitch and yet they are dead.
Part of the problem are devs tho who screwed up the successors like quake champions by making it hero based and trying to make it “modern”

 

[KonradLaw]

Jedi Academy (Blade Symphony too, since it's bassicaly copy of it plus combos). I've never had as much fun with melee based combat in any game as in Jedi Academy, both in SP and MP

 

[Skyr]

Jedi Academy (Blade Symphony too, since it's bassicaly copy of it plus combos). I've never had as much fun with melee based combat in any game as in Jedi Academy, both in SP and MP

Jedi Academy is a great one.
It boggles my mind those dense pricks from EA still haven’t picked up on it.

 

[DW74]

Yeah, still waiting on another Kyle Katarn game. Probably always will be.

 

[Cr1ptkeeper]

I really liked the combat system of Heavenly Sword on PS3 even though most hated it.

 

[dirthead]

You can make strong arguments for the original Doom, Street Fighter 2, Samurai Shodown 2, Guardian Heroes. Sekiro's got too much input queuing to feel truly perfect.

Never liked any of the Streets of Rage games. I like high floaty jumps. I always felt that SOR's tiny hops were lame, and you can't really do anything in those games half as cool as pile driving someone with Haggar. Can you even move while carrying someone in SOR2? I don't think so.

 

[JimiNutz]

Unreal Tournament 99 and Quake III

It’s a goddamn shame that arena shooters are dead.
These games had a humongous skill ceiling and required great timing, movement, aiming, strategy at a high level.
Arena shooters are like the perfect games for twitch and yet they are dead.
Part of the problem are devs tho who screwed up the successors like quake champions by making it hero based and trying to make it “modern”

I miss proper arena shooters so much.
I was really hoping that Doom Eternal would have just a basic deathmatch mode. Nothing fancy just multiple Doom Slayers running around the map picking up the existing guns from the single player.

Seems like it would be such a really simple mode to add that wouldn't require much work to be done but maybe I'm underestimating the amount of work that would need to go into the maps.

 

[HoodWinked]

Fills me with joy seeing Godhand being mentioned

I also would like to point out dmc4 which may seem odd considering dmc3 is more universally liked.

But dmc4 had this unique rev mechanic which mapped to the trigger which gave it a surreal sort of immersion. the audio feedback was also perfect. Anyways the timing for this was pretty brutal but once in a while you'd string multiple perfect revs and do some crazy shit which would be far more rewarding since you knew how difficult that was compared to some flashy finisher that was triggered by qte.

 

[molasar]

Beat'em up - AvP by Capcom, SoR3, Return of Double Dragon, Golden Axe 3
FPS - Syndicate (2012)
Fighting - SF3Alpha, SF3:3rd Strike, Killer Instinct Arcade (1994), KI2, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
TPS - MGS5, Resident Evil 1-3, Dino Crisis 1-2, Ace Combat: Assault Horizon
Twin stick shooter - Hotline Miami 1-2, Resogun, Super Stardust HD

 

[Kadve]

Beat'em up - AvP by Capcom, SoR3, Return of Double Dragon, Golden Axe 3
FPS - Syndicate (2012)
Fighting - SF3Alpha, SF3:3rd Strike, Killer Instinct Arcade (1994), KI2
TPS - MGS5, Resident Evil 1-3, Dino Crisis 1-2, Ace Combat: Assault Horizon
Twin stick shooter - Hotline Miami 1-2, Resogun, Super Stardust HD

Mind elaborating on how tank controls translates to a good TPS? I just find them outdated and frustrating.

 

[Kadve]

The free flow combat from The Batman; Arkham series is so satisfying, i don't care how 'simplistic' people accuse it of being.

Otherwise i have a sweet spot for this somewhat hidden gem. One of the few arcade style Beat'em up's that i actually finished if just because of the satisfying combat.

 

[zcaa0g]

F.E.A.R.

 

[molasar]

Mind elaborating on how tank controls translates to a good TPS? I just find them outdated and frustrating.

I just prefer them personally in mentioned games over 'over the shoulder' ones which feel closer to FPS action shooter games spoiling a mood.

 

[harry04]

Monster Hunter (perfect man v monster concept)
Doom 2016 (the bossfights is smth special)
Dark Souls 3