Player freedom is one of those things that has become a pretty big selling point for modern action RPGs, whether that means being able to go wherever you want, put together whatever build you can dream up, or make choices that actually change something about the world around you. Bigger worlds and more powerful hardware have obviously given developers plenty of room to make that freedom even more impressive over the years, but what's funny is that plenty of action RPGs were already finding creative ways to hand control over to the player long before any of that was possible. In fact, some SNES games were doing things more than 30 years ago that plenty of games still don't give you much say over today.
Of course, freedom looked a little different on the SNES than it does now. These weren't massive open worlds filled with hundreds of icons to clear off a map, and most of them were still going to make sure you ended up where the story needed you to be eventually. But some let you decide who joined your party, how your characters developed, which parts of the world you wanted to explore, and even what that world would eventually become. Others were simply happy to give you a bunch of tools and trust you to figure out how you wanted to use them. Considering how tightly controlled plenty of games can still feel today, these near-perfect SNES action RPGs were surprisingly willing to get out of the player's way.
For the purposes of this list, SNES includes games originally released for the Super Famicom, even if they weren't officially released for the SNES in North America at the time.
Secret of Mana is probably one of the first games that comes to mind whenever SNES action RPGs are mentioned, and even now, there is a surprising amount of flexibility hiding underneath what looks like an otherwise straightforward combat system. Once all three characters have joined the party, you're free to switch between them whenever you want, and no one is really locked into one specific weapon, either. There are eight different weapon types to use, and each character develops their own proficiency with those weapons simply by using them. So, if you decide you want one character wielding a sword for most of the game and then suddenly feel like handing them a spear or a pair of gloves instead, Secret of Mana isn't going to stop you from doing that.
What makes that even more impressive is how much control you have over the two characters you aren't currently playing. Secret of Mana's Action Grid lets you adjust how aggressive each AI-controlled party member should be and how much they should prioritize charged attacks, which is the kind of thing plenty of modern action RPGs still simplify down to a couple of broad commands—and that's if they let you change companion behavior at all. There are obviously far deeper party systems today, but for a game released in 1993, Secret of Mana was remarkably comfortable letting you decide who you wanted to control, what everyone fought with, and how the rest of the group should behave when you weren't controlling them yourself. And that's more than many modern action RPGs can say of themselves today.
کۆنسۆڵەکان بە ڕیزبەندی دروست دابنێ.
کۆنسۆڵە هەڵبژێردراوەکان لە نزمترینەوە بۆ بەرزترین ڕێکبخە.
Tales of Phantasia helped establish a combat system that would eventually become one of the defining features of the Tales series, but what I find even more impressive is how much say it gives you over everyone besides the character you're directly controlling. Cress might be the one you're actually moving around the battlefield in the original Super Famicom release, but you can change your party's formation, decide which techniques are equipped, alter the tactics used by your AI-controlled companions, and even jump into the battle menu to manually tell a spellcaster exactly what you want them to cast and who you want them to cast it on.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://gamerant.com/best-snes-action-rpgs-player-freedom/
