Which Side View Battle System to use?

Hey everyone. First time poster here.

So I have had the RPG maker VX Ace for a year now and I'm only just thinking of making a game for it. I wanted to make a 20 epic game then I thought "uhhhh nah. You don't have the attention span...".

So I'm going to make a small 2 hour long game instead. However I'm adamant that I want to use a Side View Battle System. However, trying to find a comparison between the few I've heard of (Theolized, Battle Symphony, uhhh Tankentai) is difficult and I'm struggling to figure out which ones I need.

So I would appreciate it if someone could give me some pros and cons of some of the most well known ones and compare them to each other. I would like both player actors and enemies to be animated, I hate fighting static images. And while it doesn't necessary have to be plug and play, the easier the better because I'm a noob and in no way a scriptor. 

TL:DR? Need Side View Battle system comparisons please.

Thank you everyone :) , looking forward to trying my hand at this game making malarky.

I recommend the script from here:
https://grimoirecastle.wordpress.com/rgss3-scripts/graphics-enhancements/animated-battlers/

It's easy to use, because you only need to do animations for every actor. ;)

The coding for their actions is with hashtags. It's only not to recommend, if you got a lot of characters in your game. :)

An other really good one is that:
http://galvs-scripts.com/2013/05/04/animated-battlers/

You can use a Holder Battler Template for this one. It is also great, if you have a huge amount of characters. ;)
It also is pretty compatible, with many other Battle Scripts. :) (\s/)

Battle Symphony

Well known since 2012 and already spread around the RPG Maker communities. It likely to have supports since most people known. It uses notebox to setting the skill, so, your notetag would be messed up if you have many tags. It support holder battler, kaduki/katsuki battler and even default character graphics AFAIK. And yes, it support animated enemy

However, I personally dislike how symphony did its sprite movements. I can not say why. but it looks weird in my eyes.

Victor's animated battle

Very powerful battle system yet hard to use according to people I know. It requires his basic module which already altered most of default script, so it will likely to have less compatible with many scripts. Even Victor seems not so active right now, but the battle system itself is already well known so you can ask anyone for assistance. It has no demo, so you need to figure it out how to implement the system. It uses notebox like battle symphony.

The good about this system is you can use different battle format for each battler. The one that use static, and another one uses holder battler. It's not necessary that every battler has same spriteset format. And of course, it support animated enemy

Journey / Tankentai Battle System

Famous battle system back then in RMVX era. Very powerful battle system. Has many configurations. You can even make every possible action on this system. Yet seems required to understand a little bit scripting since the action sequence did in the script. Due to its script structure, it will likely to have less compatibilty among various script like Yanfly Battle Engine. Only a few people I saw that can provide supports for this battle system AFAIK.

It's not plug and play. If you want to use this system, it's recommended to edit from the script demo instead of make a new project.

Theolized SBS (yes, it's mine)

It's people right to give the comments about mine. I can't guarantee if it's easy to use, but I'm (always) avalaible right now to ask for support

You might also need to look at these system as well

http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/18189-rssbsace-reedos-simple-side-battle-system-ace-edition/

https://molegato.wordpress.com/basimple-bs/

If you want something easy plug and play like, use Galv's script. Otherwise I'd say you either use Victor or Symphony. Victor is the more powerful one, but it's not compatible with most scripts that are not his own. Symphony is the more compatible one, e.g. with Yanfly scripts, so if you want to use these (like I do) use Symphony over Victor.

So after reading everything so far, it seems that Victor and Symphony are well known. But because Victor is "inactive" and his scripts has compatibility issues, I'll try Symphony.

Thanks for the comparisons so far. I'd welcome more as I have a little play with Symphony. How hard could it be right? :p

im using Theolized SBS its pretty awesome, and its not really that hard to understand.

give it a try :D

I would say either Symphony or Theolized.


Symphony is strong and versatile enough with little to no compatibility issues.


The only annoying thing with it is the overuse of note-tags on skills.


Theolized got even more awesome features packed in, I would say it wins all other systems on this aspect.


Another good thing about this system is that the skills are set up directly in the script, so you don't have to put hundreds of lines into a small note-box, which can't even show the scroll bar, and this makes it possible to arrange your skills in a more organized way. This is a big plus for this system, especially if you got complicated skills, some of them can even reach 100+ lines.


I haven't tested this system for compatibility issues yet, but when I finish my current work in progress in my project, I think I will change from Symphony to Theolized.


I never tried Tankentai because of language barriers. Seems like a nice system with some great features. No idea about compatibility issues.


Victor's system might be great, honestly, I never even saw it in action. But the way he writes his scripts, there is hardly anything compatible with it aside from his own scripts.


If you want to use only Victor's scripts, than you might even try this one too.


The thing you should know about all these mentioned systems, that it needs hell of a lot time to set your skills up properly. When I say lotsa time, I don't count in hours, not even days or weeks, but months. Of course, this depends on how many skills you got and how complicated they are. I assume there won't be many skills in a 2 hour long game, right? :p


Learning to work with any of these will take some time too, but when you manage it, there will be almost nothing that you can't do in a battle. :)

Thanks for the extra responces. I'm giving the Theolized SBS a go and I like it. It's taking me a while to get to grips with as I'm no scriptor as I've probably said a million times.

But using a random sprite sheet I found on the Internet, I've made a skill where my guy runs to the enemy slashes him twice and jumps back like normal. he does no damage and there's no sound effects but hey, it's a start right XD