Legend of Legaia

In this game by Contrail, Legend of Legaia follows Vahn, the quiet main hero, Noa, an excitable feral child and Gala, a curt warrior monk, on their quest to revive all ten Genesis Trees throughout Legaia in an attempt to vanquish the evil Mist which covers the world.

The game features a unique battle system. nstead of simply selecting a generic 'Fight' command in order to initiate a physical attack, the player specifies the location of each attack; 'Right' and 'Left' will strike with the right and left arms, respectively, and 'High' and 'Low' strike at their respective heights. Each direction has its own pros and cons, depending upon the opponent, weapons equipped, and level of the character's Ra-Seru. For example, equipping boots will increase the power of kicks, but 'Low' will not strike a Killer Bee, since it flies above the ground. To attack, the player creates a string of these directional strikes for each character; as the game progresses the length of this string or "action bar" increases, allowing the player to deal more damage each turn.

Certain strings of attacks initiate combos known as "Arts," which deal significantly more damage than would a non-combo string of comparable length. It is up to the player to uncover each character's Arts by experimentation; fortunately, once the player has determined the correct string, it is saved in a list which can be viewed during the character's turn. A quantity called "AP" is necessary to initiate Arts, which drain "AP" in quantities which are proportionate to the length of the combo. Inputting an Arts sequence without the requisite AP will cause the character to simply perform the string of attacks, without the Arts animation or damage bonus. AP can be earned in three ways; dealing physical damage without performing Arts, taking damage from opponents, or by using the Spirit command. Arts can also be linked by the last and first inputs. For example, an Art that ends with 'Down' can linked with another Art that starts with 'Down', allowing the player to use two Arts in a row costing less inputs.

Source: Wikipedia, "Legend of Legaia", available under the CC-BY-SA License.