Looking for (mostly) real-time games that let you directly control ~3 characters

[zoefschildpad]

I'm going to be doing a research project on control methods in real-time RPG games. My interest comes from the transition of the classic turn-based combat systems used in snes era jRPGs to the more modern real-time systems. What those older games did really well was to give the player full control over all characters, something I haven't seen done well in a real-time game. However, I am just one guy, and I don't own any consoles, so I may have missed a few major ones.

So I am looking for games that are at least mostly real-time. What I mean by that is simply that characters should move at the same time, and not stand still waiting to be hit in the face before they can move again. The combat systems should also allow you to control roughly 3 characters at the same time.

Some examples:
Final Fantasy XII
Dragon Age
Star Wars KotOR

I'm looking for games that employ a different control scheme to the pause, switch character, give orders, switch back, unpause (or don't and let AI control them) gameplay that these have, without giving up full control over all characters.

If you're aware of any games that give the player full control over multiple characters, please post them so I can have a look.

[hellhamster]

Mass Effect trilogy.

[zoefschildpad]

Mass Effect trilogy.

I've played those extensively, however the reason I don't include them is because the characters are not equal. Shepard is the main character, the others are very clearly not. I don't want the gameplay to force that distinction

[Deleted]

The Dungeon Siege series seems to fit your criteria, have a look at them

[zoefschildpad]

The Dungeon Siege series seems to fit your criteria, have a look at them

Installing them now, I'll have a look.

[Dezerte]

Krater, http://www.kratergame.com/

[D3athsting]

Day of the tentacle

[sethman75]

I really like Ys - Seven

Hack and slash RPG that plays really great and you control 3 peeps at a time.

Very fun

[May90]

Neverwinter Nights 2 allows you to control 4 characters (6 in the second expansion) and has, IMO, the deepest character building system among all RPGs. If you've played Dragon Age, the gameplay will feel quite similar to you. Also, the first expansion, Mask of the Betrayer, has the best story I've ever seen in a video game.

There are also some legendary oldies, like Baldur's Gate 1/2 and Planescape: Torment. Evil Islands has an awesome story and great crafting system, but is quite old and its English voicing is quite mediocre. Neverwinter Nights 1 doesn't allow you to directly control your companions, but you can give a lot of orders to them (pretty much like in Mass Effect) - the original campaign is average, but two expansions are quite good.

[zoefschildpad]

Ok I can see I need to be more clear.

The project that I'm doing involves trying to make a combat system that lets you control 3 characters simultaneously. Specifically, I'm looking into control schemes to do that. But before I can do that I need to find as many games as I can that have done it before.

There are a lot of games that have a bunch of dudes follow your main character around or otherwise do their own thing in combat, I don't care about those.
There are a lot of games that let you pause to give each of your characters orders, and then let the combat play out for a bit before doing it again. I care about those, but I think I have enough examples of them.
I don't care about story.
I don't care if the game is good.

I only care about the way it lets you control 3 (or 2 or 5) characters at the same time.

Oh and Dezerte, thanks for Krater, that seems to be exactly the type of thing I'm looking for.

[Sj]

Not sure how you feel about older games, but take a look at Secret of Mana and Valkyrie Profile. They do things a little differently as far as control of secondary characters goes.

[hellhamster]

This might be interesting (Lost Vikings 1 player 2 controllers):

[zoefschildpad]

Not sure how you feel about older games, but take a look at Secret of Mana and Valkyrie Profile. They do things a little differently as far as control of secondary characters goes.

I don't mind older games at all. I found some footage on youtube for both of those games and I can't see how either of them works, so I'll definitely try them out. Thanks.

This might be interesting (Lost Vikings 1 player 2 controllers):

video

That's pretty cool, but until the guy grows a third hand I don't think the lost vikings system is going to work for my purposes