Are there any cool ideas that you noticed in rpgs that weren’t really important but were neat little ideas. one example would be in breath of fire 3+4 when the monsters would do interesting things when a certain monster was on the battlefield. I think the coolest addition is in Grandia Xtreme when you beat a boss and one of the characters would get the mvp award. The only problem with that was that for me Carmyne always got it.
The overkill feature from FFX. Finally, I no longer felt like casting ultima on an enemy with 3 hp left went to waste!
Yeah … I wish there was a feature like “Overkill” in some other games I’ve played … >_>
Junctioning magic to status in FFVIII. Not DRAWING, Junctioning.
However, even though it’s not a “tiny” thing, I must mention the Final Fantasy 5/Tactics Job System.
Actually, to state something directly … well … a whole bunch of stuff in Disgaea. Like how you bribed the Senators, ‘n’ stuff, and if you didn’t like the result of a vote, you had the “persuade by force” option. 
I’m probably the only one who has played this, but in Far East of Eden Zero (currently being translated by Dejap), the developpers have installed an Internal clock, that depending when you play the game and visit a certain town, certain events will happen. For example, if you visit the town during Christmas, they’ll be celebration and Saint Nick will make a cameo apperance 
Fuck man, almost every little thing in Shenmue that had nothing to do with the story at all. Want to play slots? Okay! Want to pet a kitten? Okay! Want to collect little Sega capsule toys? Okay! Want to call friends for no reason? Okay! Want to drive in fucking FORKLIFT RACES? Okay! Want to play a white Sega Saturn in 1986 with games like Hang On? Okay! Shenmue is so absurd in that area that I love it.
Being able to attack anything in Fable. By attackign normal travelers, youc an make a ton of money and build up your stats…as well as your evil side.
I personally thought that the concept of relationship points in various games was cool. Especially in Star Ocean, where depending on how much a character was liked, they would be mourned (via voice acting and sometimes rage effect) when they fell in battle. Methinks that is spiffy, and even mildly useful. Mostly just spiffy.
I agree with the points about Star Ocean. That is cool. Also cool are Combo based battle systems(e.g. Xenogears, Valkyrie Profile) and Rudra No Hihou’s Mantra system, which allows you to take a spell, and add a prefix or suffix that you learned and attach it to a basic spell to make it a more powerful spell, or to even create spells from words. I wonder if there’s any "easter egg spells in Rudra No Hihou?
And about being able to attack anything in Fable, you are also able to do that in Baldur’s Gate, Ultima: Exodus and Pools of Radiance.
You got that game to work?
Help me!
<img src=“http://www.rpgclassics.com/subsites/twistedrpg/images/hero/rirse.gif”> For starters the minor feature in Suikoden battles comes to mind. For once the characters and monsters FIGHT AT THE SAME TIME, not take turns waiting for the other character to finish their friend off. You will see characters smashing their staff into a caped squirrel while another character slices into the axe weilding rabbit.
Knigth’s of the Old Republics neat dialogs between 2 party members. Such as Bastila always arguing with Canderous.
Though I think that was neat, I should mention I first saw that in Baldurs Gate 2. It wasn’t in as great a quantity, and I agree that its cool, but just correcting you 
Speaking of those, we need more multi-tiered and COMPETING romances in such dialogues. I liked how in BG2 if you tried the romance with Jaheira and Aerie at the same time, the two would go on bickering madly, until you were forced to make some big decisions around them. KOTOR dissappointed with only one romance for each gender.
“Squeak!” “Boo says: whaaaaaaat?”
Other games do that too all the Grandia games do and so did Okage.
There are plenty of cool little ideas in most RPGs, in fact I’d say they are what makes each game unique. I liked many of them, too many to list now, but the one I remember best is probably the fact that, in CHRONO CROSS, you could actually RUN AWAY FROM BOSS FIGHTS!! (Doesn’t make much story sense, but it was NICE to be able to escape and prepare before facing that too-tough-for-you-yet Boss you’d just run into, instead of just watching your Heroes DIE and then have to restart the game!)
The opposite of this would be how in LUNAR 2, if your party got wiped out, you’d hear Zophar’s gloating laughter! (In the adventure AFTER Zophar’s defeat, you hear Ruby the Cat crying over your death instead. I found both things A-NNO-YING. Just let me restart the game already!!)
Nein! You must be moched for dying in an already disturbingly difficult RPG! Look at him, hehehehe, he DIED, hey ruby, dont hold the tears back sweety! :mwahaha:
Oh hell yes. I did that many times against Miguel That man was tough.
I would have to say the Grandia games style of seeing a monster on the field, and then how you ‘touch’ it, changing the starting style of the battle. That was pretty cool.