Brigandine Legend of Forsena is my favorite. Either that or Brigandine Grand Edition. Similar to Castlevania 64 and Castlevania Legacy of Darkness, they're both the same game, but one is a remake or enhanced version released on the exact same console. A few differences are is how Legend of Forsena goes to a different screen for attacks and counterattacks, similar to Fire Emblem/Shining Force does and opposite elements take off more. On Grand Edition, it uses the rps style where red > green > blue > red and only white and black take off more against each other, Grand Edition also having one character that's not a lord with his own unique class, the lizard guard class now has two upgrades like other monsters instead of one, to the lizard king, and there's an actual final boss, which there is none on Brigandine. Grand Edition also allows for Esgares to be played without the input of a code and multiplayer with up to six players, one per country. Both games are the greatest games ever created in my opinion.
I decided I'll write a review on it so I'm going to give the basic gameplay.
If anyone has played Romance of the Three Kingdoms it's similar to that. You have six countries that are in control of a certain amount of cities. On Brigandine each city gives you a certain amount of mana to summon monsters, so there's no farming, setting up defenses, purchasing weapons, building economy, etc. You basically want to cover your borders with knights to protect it and do with the others as you see fit. If you want to take over a lot of territory quickly, then you'll eventually need all available knights because you'll have too many areas to cover. If you want to send a knight on a quest, could be a month or more, a month signifying one move and attack phase, you can find equipment, stat increases, and items(some of which are required for class changes for certain monsters.)
There are 30 or 31 cities in the game and your end goal is take them all over. You can start as any of the countries, gain mana per city, etc. The AI characters start with exactly what you start with if you were to play as their country. They gain the same mana you gain would gain if you were to own their cities, etc. The AI is good, but the only problem with the AI is that they're not human. There are times that you can take advantage of a situation that they're not programmed to do the same. However if they bordering and defending an area with water, they'll more than likely have recruited and use the monsters in that area that will benefit them most if they have the space. They'll also always recruit the more useful monsters to go with the rest of the party, so you'll rarely see them without healers like unicorns and angels , but you also won't see them with only that type of monster.
So you'll fight with humans, knights, and monsters, humans and monsters all can level up. Every 10 levels can increase their class, humans and a few different monsters can level up and branch off into different types, while the rest of the monsters can only level up a single path.
Here's a video as my final battle using Norgard. There's no story to ruin or anything like that, as the game is mostly gameplay, bits of story and such will be scattered throughout the game, and there's no final boss so every battle is with different units on different maps. Just a lot of strategy behind it. The type of game that has an endless amount of replay value. I show off my units and monsters and take one of my most used, although not most powerful, groups into the final battle.
I play with animations off or the length of a single battle would be much longer. I do turn animations on when only one enemy is remaining to show off the attack and counterattack animations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1MiDVvX4Lg
*edit*
#2 was Tactics Ogre Let Us Cling Together. Not the PSP version. With the changes they made to the PSP version they ruined the game. #3 is Arc the Lad 2.
