RPGs with Conditional Turn-Based Combat (eg Final Fantasy X)

[Apollo Chungus]

If there's a genre I've tried getting into multiple times but can never get truly invested in, it's turn-based JRPGs. My problem with the majority of them is that the combat is very stationary by just having you pick what the characters are doing and hoping you'll get a hit in first, you're provided very few characters/abilities at the start, and not that much incentive to strategize until several hours into the game. There's nothing wrong with those decisions, but unless the game is difficult enough to encourage you plan your fights or provides plenty of options from the start (such as Etrian Odyssey) I feel like I'm watching the same fight over and over again when I'm trying to get interested in the game, which causes me to lose interest pretty quickly.

However, there's one area of turn-based battles that I really dig, and it's know as Conditional Turn-Based Combat (or CTB). This is a style of combat where there's a list on the side of the screen, showing which character is about to make their next move (be it one of your party members or one of the enemies), and a character's place of that list changes depending on the action they take. So Guy A using an item will mean they can act sooner than if they used a powerful attack, and you can see exactly where they're going to go. This gives you the chance to strategize and plan in a way that I find more satisfying and engaging than your typical turn-based combat.

(Here's a screenshot to better visualize my point, featured from the most famous game to feature this combat system - Final Fantasy X.)

I'd love to play more games with this style of combat, but I don't know too many. Off the top of my head, I know this exact system shows up in:

Blue Dragon

Lost Odyssey

Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (yes, seriously)

But that's about it. If anyone can tell me about other games that used Conditional Turn-Based Combat, that would be really awesome.

[dsparil]

Any turn based RPG that has you give orders one at a time is potentially like this, but they just don't necessarily show the turn order. I'm pretty sure CTB was just a term invented for FFX and doesn't have any real meaning otherwise. Square just wanted to give the battle system a _TB name à la ATB.
—
Radiant Historia does show the order and includes directly manipulating the turn order as a major gameplay element.

[kaoru]

The Grandia games show you the turn order of the battle's participants and have longer acting-wait-times depending on what kind of moves you select to do. I think Shadow Hearts, at least the meh third game, does so too. I'm sure there are more, even ones that I played, but nothing comes to mind right now - it's not really that different from straight up normal turn based combat after all.

[Digitalnametag]

Most of the Gust RPGs do this. Pretty much all of the Atelier games with the Mana Khemia series on PS2 being a high point for combat. Wild Arms 4 and 5 also display turn order.

Probably a lot more I’m not thinking of at the moment.

[mainpatr]

Sting's Hexyz Force for the PSP did this too. Same with the similar Evolution series.

[ZenithianHero]

Octopath Traveler - which makes a lot of sense because the goal is to break opponent's defenses.
Brave Dungeon - Also on Nintendo Switch. Not much of a story here, the game is designed for quick dungeon play but the game is fun.

[Digitalnametag]

Oh yeah duh the Legend of Heroes games too. At least the Trails ones. Manipulating turn order is important to the battle system.

Edit: I think all the Xenosaga games display turn order as well. And a lot of Idea Factory games do i.e. Neptunia, Fairy Fencer F, Death end re;Quest. Not that I would recommend playing them...

Edit 2: And the newest Digimon Story games also. Man am I excited to be talking about JRPGs.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions too. One of my favorites.

[kingmike]

Xenosaga? I only played some of Episode 1 and it had then.

(although it can be argued Xenosaga is a movie with occasional gameplay interruption. )

[shelverton]

I think Child of Light has exactly this?

[retr0gamer]

Child of Light is basically a copy of Grandia's system.

Final Fantasy Tactics is another one where you can see turn order and it makes a massive difference to how you approach combat.

Xenoblade games kind of have it as well where you can interrupt enemy attacks with topple moves.

Recent Shin Megami Tensei games are very like this as you can give yourself extra turns or lose them depending on what moves you make and the enemy can do so as well.

I love RPGs where you can affect turn order. FFX is actually one of the worst as there's actually very few moves to take advantage of turn order. Other games like Grandia, SMT, Atelier etc are far better at it.

[excelsior]

Star Renegades is like this, but I don't think the combat is very well explained.

[retr0gamer]

I'm playing Beyond the Labyrinth on 3DS and it's a very simple battle system made a lot more complex by being able to trade power for turn order.

On another note I kind of find FFX a really bad version of this combat. There's not a lot you can do to influence turn order and the combat is just boring against mobs although it does work exceptionally well for boss fights.

[Digitalnametag]

Holy necro post Batman!

I was formulating some answers to this topic and kept reading to find I had already responded several times four years ago!

Visible turn order is pretty much the norm now in turn based games. I think every new turn based game I have played this year has them. Mostly sequels to games I mentioned years ago though…

Monochrome Mobius is a new one that does this!

[jorpho]

Live-A-Live! The mechanics are all badly obscured in the original, but I think the new version spells everything out. (Or at least, it ought to.)

And I might as well plug The Spirit Engine again. I have no idea what you'd call it, but it's definitely not standard.

[chronotigger65]

I haven't played all of these games but doesn't Shadow Hearts Covenant and Shadow Hearts From the New World along with Wild Arms 4 and 5 have some kind of version of CTB or similar? Screen shot show there being a order thing for these games. Can anyone confirm this?