Since this is falling on Christmas, it's going up on the 24th just so I don't have to remember to upload it tomorrow.
Best gameplay is the theme of the day. Horrid gameplay can ruin any experience. Hell, I will put up with some wonky mechanics if everything else captures my attention (I'm looking at you, Kane & Lynch 2), but if the gameplay is tight, I'm going to love it.
I think some of the best gameplay comes from the Uncharted series. These games have refined and revitalized the action/adventure genre that had gotten stale with too many Tomb Raider clones and too many terrible Tomb Raider games. While the first outing was a bit rough, the sequels more than made up for that. Everything feels tight, well balanced and overall highly polished. I really shouldn't recap what I said in my reviews, though. Let's just leave it with, "The best action/adventure games this generation are found in the Uncharted series."
A favorite genre of mine is the JRPG. And this is where I start beating dead horses. In this genre, no one comes close to having the amazing gameplay of Final Fantasy X. No where (in my opinion) is there a better mix of great battle mechanics and addictive, but simple, leveling.
The battles are always the most tedious part of a JRPG. I love that FFX makes them at least snappy and easy to follow. The window showing turn order is great, the commands don't lead to too many overly long cinemas and the Overdrives are engaging. And, an addition that other RPGs should certainly use, is the ability to swap out ANY member of your party for another AT ANY TIME! This makes so much sense, yet it isn't used at all! This means that everyone can level together and that you can swap people out as situations change. Instead of building a team around an encounter, you have dynamic encounters that change and force you to adapt! Genius!
The leveling system in FFX is also neat! I loved the Sphere Grid and all the options it offered. Moving folks around and choosing the different skills/buffs/abilities was simple. It made each move matter and allowed you to make your party to your liking. Awesome ability up ahead and useless buffs in between? Bypass them to get the skill! And, at later stages in the game, have your healer hitting for as much as your tank! It was well implemented and easy to understand; the hallmarks of good game design shine through in FFX.
A close second in the JRPG genre would be Shadow Hearts. It's a great horror RPG that didn't get nearly the exposure it should have (mostly because of the above game). While most of it is standard JRPG fare, the battles have the Judgement Ring. This icon dictates every action you do in battle: throwing potions, using magic and attacking are all tied to the Ring. It's a great risk/reward system, too. If you miss, you don't finish the attack. But, if you time your attack just right in the ring, you'll do a critical. This can be the difference between a potion doing the standard 50 HP and boosted 75 HP. In battles, the Ring rules all and keeps the player engaged in every single battle. Shadow Hearts and the sequels are one of the few JRPGs where I'm more engaged in battle than I am in treasure hunting. They are awesome, but FFX is better.
Last, comes the game that I feel has the best gameplay of all. I am, of course, speaking of Final Fantasy: Tactics. Yep, dead horse...
FF:T has everything done well. The Job (class) System has many varied and useful jobs. It's great to unlock the later jobs and use their abilities to overpower your party. The first time you get a thief leveled grants a certain satisfaction when you neuter the most powerful enemy by stealing their weapon. Later on, watching a Knight with two swords tear through entire maps on their own is a gleeful thing. Really, the versatility of the Job System means you can make your party the way you want to. One of my recent playthroughs saw me using Arithmeticians for the first time. These mages are slow but super powerful. There's nothing better than standing back and watching a fully powered Arithmetician wipe EVERY unit off the map for the win!
The rest of FF:T plays so well, too. The maps are all well thought out (though a few are too big), there are many different paths to the high-ground and positioning is intuitive and important. Honestly, the game does such a great job of making you feel like a general that I cannot love it enough. Heck, the lessons learned during FF:T lead to one of the best mecha SRPGs ever: Front Mission 3.
This leads too...
...this. I loves me some mecha!
Agreed on FFX, I feel like since that game (and also previously in 8), they tried to get way too creative and overly complicated with the battle and leveling systems. I don't care how old and overdone the simple battle menu system and automatically gaining set skills as you level is, tried and true systems are still my favorite.
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