What’s for you the best turn based battle system?
I’m not a big fan of the ATB system von a lot Final Fantasy game, so for me the best turn based system was a long time the one of Final Fantasy X. It’s rather simple having enemies with up to 4 weaknesses and a good system for different alligments for the enemies and resistences. I also like the progression bar that show the action order of friends and enemies. So speed makes a difference. I would still say it’s good, but not the best anymore for me.
The best two system for me are not really surprising. One it the one of the Trails of Cold Steel games (i haven’t played the newest trails game yet). Adding the area as another factor gives you more possibilities for strategies. So go with more tanky (or fast) characters while the more offensive stays back helps a lot. Also there are enough possiblities to buff defense when a McBurn in the second game just one hits the team. Positioning, buffing, healing, making dmg, they have just done a good job with it. The only downside, it’s to hard to break but the 3rd and 4th game have some limitations to present it a bit.
If Trails of Cold Steel is cheating for you because the area doesn’t make it a classical turn based game anymore i would say most of the battle systems of Atlus are very good. Regardless of Persona, Shin Megami Tensei or another spinoff, the base of the game with different elements and buff or debuff is often the same. Atlus keeps their games interresting with always different additions to their gameplay. Persona 5 has maybe one of the best for me with baton pass and more addition the futher you get into the game. But i also liked Tokyo Mirrage Session a lot.
Seconding Final Fantasy X and Trails. Turn-based systems that remove the concept of turn cycles governed by rounds are great. These systems allow for speed stats to actually mean something and make things feel dynamic even though there are pauses every turn. It’s so much more interesting to give a ninja-like character multiple turns instead of multiple attacks to present the illusion of speed. The Atelier games have a similar system too (although I’ve heard Ryza went to something like ATB now).
If we’re including ATB and ATB-like systems, Final Fantasy X-2 and Panzer Dragoon Saga are my overall favorites.