chess
Go
Dragon Quest series is roundly awesome
For the king 2 has great turn based combat imo
I generally prefer turn based, so no specific game
What do you find engaging about it?
I want to think about my moves. It’s deeply rewarding to puzzle your way out of a pickle in FTL, just to make one small example
There’s no pressure to act fast
I’ll throw in one with a real-time turn-based combat system: Megaman Battle Network The actual fight part is real time but you get to do the strategy part in turns
Brogue, Hoplite, Stone Soup and other roguelikes
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Battle for Wesnoth
Heroes of Might and Magic
various card games
basically, any game with significant tactical depth can benefit from well-done turn-based timing
I came here to say Battle for Wesnoth. Something about the game has kept me hooked for like a decade
Slay the Spire 2. You start from being able to deal 6 damage per card and scale your way up to crazy numbers, each play gets you to choose different playstyles based on what cards you get and pick.
Fallout and Fallout 2, natch
Transistor has an interesting real-time/turn based combat system. You move around in real time, the set your attacks and movement for the attack phase, then back to realtime controls again while the meter for your next turn charges up.
Not to mention the depth of weapon combinations you can put together; it’s one of my favorite games. Might be time for another playthrough.
Baldur’s Gate 3
Divinity: Original Sin 2
For the King 2
Hell yes. Final Fantasy 6. Fallout 1 & 2. Just a couple off the top of my head. This question is weird.
Turn based is almost exclusively what I enjoy. I don’t need high octane action. I prefer to drink my coffee and solve the combat puzzle
Fire Emblem series is one of my fav turn based tactics games. Other ones I’ve really enjoyed are Advance Wars/Wargroove, XCOM, Shadowrun, Wasteland series.
I play JRPGs a lot, but the best one to do this right is Etrian Odyssey, mostly because you can make combat (inputting + animations) really fast, and make even normal enemies interesting challenges. People don’t complain about having to wait for your foe in chess, and that’s because it doesn’t take you 5 seconds to move a pawn, and the foe is usually a fair challenge. (Arguably, video games can be even better at this than chess, because the AI doesn’t need time to think. Instead of smarts, it usually has the stat advantage)
SMT(including Persona) generally does this fine, and Fire Emblem can either look decent with animations off, or speedy enough even with them (most of the time is spent thinking than waiting, either way - the goal). Those are my top 3 series.
On the opposite end, mainline Pokemon might be the worst turn-based combat I ever played, even if the mechanics are solid. I don’t want to wait 3 seconds just for “crit + effectiveness + fainted” to display, even more so if most of trainers and random fights aren’t challenging.
Worms. Literally any Worms title.
Additionally: Transistor
