Best Ever Game Mechanics?

So I was playing FF8 yesterday and I was getting a tutorial from my girlfriend about how to use Junctions properly. For those of you who've played FF8, you should know what I'm talking about. For those who don't, let me give an example. Say you have 20 Fire Magics. You can junction those Fire Magics to your Elemental Atk so you can give extra fire damage with normal attacks. Even better, if you're facing a fire-type enemy and have Fire Magics junctioned to your Elemental Defence, then you can reduce the damage you take from those kind of attacks. Playing the game first time through I didn't really use the Junctioning but it does add a bucket load of customisation and combos to try out to get an amazing team.

Sorry for the long explanation but it was necessary lol. So out of all the games you've ever played, which games had the best game system or mechanics?

I thought the Skate series had the best game mechanics of any game I ever played.Smug_Duckling

I have to agree with you, the controls made the game intuitive and extremely fun.

Thief and Thief 2headRooom

Could you tell me what was in Thief & Thief 2 that made it so good? I've never heard of that series.

If you consider character movement as a game mechanic, then what I have seen of the movement of characters in upcoming Ground Branch will be.

The game mechanics that give you a constant feeling of danger and fear in most roguelikes. They really make you think before you act.

Make sure you dont get surrounded, dont get shot down by archers, if you are too slow you will starve to death, floor breaks then you fall down into a pit of lava, traps, liberally drinking unidentified potions, eating something you shouldnt have been eating, not swimming with a full platemail on, ect.

I played ff8 maybe 2-3 times. great story and mechanics. Tho it may seem flawed that you can hit final boss for a series of blows for 10.000 dmg each blow lol. If you lvl Squall up right.

just a few off the top of my head...

Mario RPG games like Mario & Luigi Superstar saga and Paper Mario 1000 year Door have some really fun timed action mechanics that break up the repetitiveness of turn based RPG gameplay.

the "recharging shield" mechanic in FPSs like Halo is pretty cool

the 3rd person morph ball gameplay from the Metroid Prime series is done really well

I also like VISOR mechanics in games like Metroid Prime and Batman Arkham Asylum, where your vision becomes thermal or X-RAY etc.

Chrono Trigger, with the ability to choose between attacking alone, one at a time, or combining 2 or 3 attacks into one more powerful one, learning every combination, which attacks worked best on which kinds of enemies...

That game perfected turn based combat.