| Kresnik said: Turn based. But I really love Tales' battle systems. |
I'm pretty much the same. I prefer turn based with solid, well defined turns, not that "stop the game every second to input commands if you want to do your best" some PC wrpgs have.
Random encounters aren't mandatory for turn based rpg's. I guess TC hasn't played Chrono Trigger, Lufia 2, Grandia, Atelier games since Atelier Iris 3, Persona since P3 and Arc Rise Fantasia, to name a few.
In the Tales vs Star Ocean 3 debate I prefer Tales too because in SO 3 there wasn't many "true" combos. Regular enemies had very short "hit" animations and could still hit you between arts. Plus there was the guard, which blocked weak attacks/arts, and it was annoying because you're forced to use weak arts for chains (strong -> strong wasn't possible).
