Going back on the Megaman Battle Network tangent for a brief moment...
I was 100% serious about the Megaman Battle Network series doing field effects a whole 15 years before the DOS series did, by the way. A quick stroll through YouTube actually made me remember how huge the series was in Japan - while some of us were out here awaiting a collection, someone in Japan had been uploading skill showcase videos, some of which had managed to amass 1+ million views, long after the end of the series and long before the announcement of the collection. I mention him in particular because his showcase against the bosses of the third game incorporates a lot of usage of that game's field effects, and I now realize that future entries removed a lot of the niche effects that only worked under specific field conditions.
And I've been howling with laughter watching this guy pull off a bunch of shit in ways I didn't think was possible as a kid.
People who would have never played the series before probably wouldn't understand what the hell is happening in that video, especially since all the text is in Japanese, but tl;dr
1) Lots of use of the Sensor summon, which stuns enemies entering line of sight and pierces invulnerability/'mercy invincibility' activated by strong hits 2) Some usage of abilities that require specific field effects to activate, like the confusion pollen effect requiring grass on the field 3) Lots of taking advantage of field effects in general. For example, wood-elemental enemies can heal on grass panels, but fire can burn grass panels along with anything standing on them taking 2x damage (and 4x if they are wood element too). And ice panels cause characters to slide while moving across them (unless they are water elemental), while simultaneously doubling electric damage taken. 4) Plenty of usage of abilities that take advantage of objects on the field, like lightning striking objects and hitting all enemies next to them. 5) Some enemy attacks register as field objects while attacking, so the player actually uses those object-related abilities as counters in this demonstration
Though it's not like the series' focus on field manipulation completely disappeared after MMBN 3, it just made them less niche. MMBN 6, for instance, more or less went all the way with the concept (and the demonstration video of this player humiliating the 6th game's bosses is probably a lot more fun to watch, I suppose). It allowed water attacks to freeze enemies standing on ice panels, and breaking abilities also did double damage against frozen enemies, as seen here (at around the 1:53 mark).
Or this shooting gallery at 5:08. Normally you use the blocks to hide from fireballs coming vertically or behind you against this boss, but this guy just uses an ability to convert them into mechanical soldiers to wreck the boss immediately. That doll thrown overhead also counts as an object, and the player in the demonstration timed it so that it was flying over an otherwise empty panel, enough for it to count as an object for the purposes of summoning an additional mechanical soldier.
As one commenter put it: I love how in other games, people with this kind of skill would be topping leaderboards for kill times, but Battle Network is just a contest to see who can kill the bosses in the most ridiculous and cruel ways.
Honestly, the way the combat system works, I'm convinced it's the product of the designers having a crazy ass fever dream. Like wtf inspired all this a whole 16-21 years ago? Even after all this time, I haven't seen anything I can really compare it to.
