Hey thanks for the feedback. I guess my system would be #1 where all my enemies have split parts I envision it like this:
lets take a soldier as our example.
Your Character is at level 1
The Soldier has total 500HP at level 1
The Soldier has these parts:-
Head- 50HP
Body- 100HP
Left arm- 75HP
Right arm- 75HP
Left hand- 25HP
Right hand- 25HP
Left leg- 75HP
Right leg- 75HP
in the soldiers right hand is his sword and in his left a shield
when its your characters turn you will be given the Attack option when you select it you are then given two options;
Basic - This will be a straight attack taking a percentage of the soldiers total HP for this example lets say your character does 30 damage now the soldier has 470HP however if you pick focus for your next attack you will see each part has been reduced by a small amount of HP
Focus - This is where the body parts would come into effect. So lets say our soldier still has his 500HP.
So when you pick this option you are then given the choice to attack a part. Your character attacks the soldiers right hand for 30 damage as the part only has 25HP the other 5 damage moves to the right arm which now has 70HP also as the soldier held his sword with his right hand he can no longer use it to attack and as such any attacks that would require the soldier to use his sword can no longer be used. The soldier can still use other parts of his body to attack his left hand for example still holds his shield so the soldier could attack with a shield bash. Other parts would have similar reactions when crippled for instance lets use a leg for example your character has hit the soldiers left leg 3 times for 30 damage a time the leg has 75HP but you have done 90 total so the body takes the remaining 15 giving the body 85HP but now the left leg is crippled causing the soldiers SPD to drop and removing attacks such as kick or any moves that require SPD to be removed from the soldiers attacks. Now lets say your character tries to attack the soldiers head. First the chance to attack the head is greatly lowered however you can train your character to increase this chance, but lets say the chance to attack the head is 1% so your character has a one in a hundred chance of a successful hit, but in this example we'll say your character hit the head on its first attack for 30 damage the head is now below 50% of its total health this is when crippling of the head occurs this will cause confusion, disorientation and as some blood would be flowing presumably blindness the soldier can still use all of his attacks however he is severely impaired and very few if any attacks will hit your character and he is likely to hurt himself with his attacks. Now lets say your characters second focus attack on the head hits for another 30 damage well the head has only 20HP left so you have emptied the heads health reserves and as in real life destroy the head your enemy dies.
Now I know thats a very long winded explanation but I thought it best to give as much info as possible so as to help understand the mechanics. Of course not all enemies will have the same parts for instance slimes what are slimes but a gelatinous creature they can produce body parts arms and such however if you remove one of these appendages another will just grow back in its place so in focus attack there would be only one part the mass of the slime so its total HP is say 100HP in focus attack the one part you would see would also say 100HP.
Does that make sense? and again sorry for the long windedness.
Yes it sounds like a heavy strategy thinking type of game, which would work well as a boss fight game where you fight different bosses one after the other, perhaps walking from one map to the next for each fight, or a game where you can choose and select and roam freely on maps with on-screen boss encounters.
Generally, it might be exhausting for players if all fights are like this in your typical JRPG.
But, even though I just said that this does sound like you fight one single thing at a time, just that one thing will always have split parts.
So it would be like a regular battle with 3-4 troops, but instead, you have a single troop with split parts. When comparing it like that I can see this working.
I think it'll be something you have to try and see how it goes, perhaps create a demonstration demo and get some feedback on it, or if you are confident and just want to make this anyway, then you can work on it get a proper demo and see what type of feedback you get concerning battles.
As well as that, skills that have multiple hits and hits all enemies, skills like that will be more powerful in a type of game (unless you make them too low on the damage they deal, and I don't recommend making them useless), where all battles have split parts since you are always going to be fighting multiple parts of an enemy.
So it's good to keep that in mind when balancing the game. As well as that, if those skills are rarer or a strategy found by the player, they could create quite a bit of enjoyment as they become a powerful reward/rewards.
Those are my first thoughts. I hope something in them can help you in some way! : )