Do the Mario RPGs count

I like the timing-based mechanics because they make the fights feel less like glorified menus. Sure menu-based fights can be strategic and entertaing, but sooner or later you’ll end up in grind city just mashing the confirm button to see number go up. Not a thing in the likes of Paper Mario and Bug Fables.

Chrono Trigger and Grandia 2 come to mind.

FF6, or more recently, Battle Chasers: Nightwar

I like it old school.

Grandia series. I’m partial to the leveling systems but the battle system is fantastic. There’s ATB, field movement, charged attacks/magic incantations that can be canceled, a light combo system. I just love it

Persona 5’s combat is really good, although I feel like it’s less fun against bosses where you’re not constantly getting weak point resets.

The Xenoblade games have fantastic combat, I’d probably rank them XBC2(late game)>Torna>XBC3>XBX>XBC2(early game)>XBC1

Miitopia is as simple as it gets

I’ll take persona, although it’s been way too many games with the same setup. Ditto for the Trails series.

Honestly, I don’t think it got any better than ATB systems in FF 6 and 7. Everybody else is either riffing on those or spending so much money they think they can’t be those and need to be Devil May Cry instead.

I haven’t played many JRPGs, but I’ll say Grandia 2. I liked the way the timers worked, and the cancels.

Panzer Dragoon Saga was pretty cool too, with the circular movement.

Been having a ton of fun with Granblue Fantasy Relink!

The more I play, the less I enjoy games that have active combat systems, from the Mario RPGs’ timed attacks to even Final Fantasy’s ATB. I really want to have time to think my turns and just select and use the skills, no reason to try to make it more action-based. So the MegaTen series and Trails series are the ones that cater to my current tastes.

If we talk Action JRPGs then i guess it’s Drakengard.

Protagonist power not enough? Then i summon my legendary dragon and end my turn!

(Wait no, that last thing is not true.)

Since FF 6 and 7 have already been mentioned, I’m going to give a honorable mention to Shining Force.

Xenogears for the PS1 had one of the best combat systems I’ve ever played. Tied with Star Ocean 2 for the PS1. There’s a remake which I think they overhauled the combat system, so I’m not sure if it still is as good as the first edition, but the customizability was amazing.

After that Grandia was fun, but I played it far less than the aforementioned, so have less to say. Chrono Trigger was very good for what it was, and IMHO was only matched by FF6 in that category (heavy turn based combat systems). Chrono Cross is an honorable mention in that category as well.

Lastly, very recently the Sea of Stars game had a very good combat system.

Ultimately these games have great stories, and that’s all I really cared about, but the combat systems could either make or break the monotoous grind to get to the plot points, so they had to be at least decent to make the games playable.

I highly recommend any of these games. Chrono Trigger in particular is highly regarded as possibly the greatest JRPG of all time, and personally I’d put Xenogears at 2nd place, with Star Ocean 2 at 3rd. But I might just be nostalgic.

Legend of Mana, although it was broken, I never got bored with encounters. didn’t have to worry about items or mana, only health. if they added a mana system (ironic) and fixed the stunlock, would’ve been more balanced

secret of mana was good but honestly seiken densetsu 3 improved on it so much.

on the other hand, earthbound combat is so nostalgic to me.