Battle Systems

Just a thread for general discussion of the battle dynamics in the series. Which games have your favorite battle systems? Which do you dislike? Do you prefer Active Time Battles or a Turn-Based system, or do you prefer one of the other types? And so on.

Myself, I prefer ATB, and I think FF X-2's battle system is one of the best. It's one of the only things this game did really well. It's fast paced and I enjoyed being able to switch jobs whenever I felt like it.

I liked some aspects of X's Conditional Turn-Based system. It let you plan ahead, and I loved being able to swap in characters when I needed to. But at the same time, being able to see when characters' and bosses' turns were coming up, and having everyone wait to make a move in some ways made the game easier than it could have been. There were lots of times when I'd swap Yuna in right before a boss was going to get a turn and I knew my characters couldn't survive it, then summon an aeon to shield us. And maybe this is good strategy, but it's also a little cheap.

And I thought XII's battle system was interesting, but it made me really lazy. I could turn the gambits on and pretty much not even pay attention to what was going on, and still win. But I liked how you could see the monsters in the world and choose whether or not to engage them, and the game flowed really well between exploring and fighting. And I also liked being able to run around and control my characters while fighting.