In a few sentences, describe an RPG item system that -

I don't use them because who the hell cares about 90% of status ailments?

smt does inventory better than 99% of RPGs. either make magic a little weaker, or make item drops and boxes in low numbers, but with a limited ammount you can have of the same item.

Cap them and make the game hard enough to warrant using them.

Baten Kaitos had some cards change over time which ofte could lead to a completely different usage card.
Go more in on thaqt concept.

Several games eventually came down to making consumables refill at the end of combat or when you return to a hub, which works pretty well to do away with the feeling of scarcity.

cooldowns, underrail-style

most? At least I admit I'm autistic

Limited inventory space, relatively frequent item drops (So you won't run out unless you dumping your entire inventory every battle), hard enough encounters that you need to use items or you're going to have trouble, make sure spells and abilities are just as good but because they cost mana or whatever and there are drops other than potions to refill that shit it's a lot easier to use both as you go.

Dark Souls 3 estus did it fairly right.

Make use in battle items readily available but limit inventory space so you don't want to waste them on weak enemies.
Make them free to use so you can use them with your regular abilities without slowing down, but limit how often you can use them such as once every 10 turns or something.
Have skills or talents that allow you to use items more effectively or more often.

Planescape or Baldurs Gate.
Has limited inventory and also has a weight limit.

Any roguelike/lite with permadeath.
Using items doesn't feel cheap if the alternative is dying and losing all your progress.

Monster hunturd

SMT Nocturne

Dark Souls 3's estus/ashen estus is probably the best healing and mana restore system I've ever encountered.

Legend of Dragoon
Limited to 36 items total
makes every item choice matter

I think he means it's because most of the items used in combat (bombs, potions, decoctions, oils) automatically refill for basically free after resting thus encouraging you to actually use them and not just keep them in your inventory forever, which is the biggest hurdle for items in rpgs

Titan quest. Potions are literally your healing system.

I had hundreds of potions and scrolls and wands stuffed in my scroll and potion cases and bag of holding.

Potions gave a good buff whatever you specced in.
Decoctions required a single perk from the alchemy tree (which raises your max toxicity)

And they replenished after each rest, so you didn't need to hoard them.

The issue with the whole system is, your character became so OP after doing a few sidequests , that the entire potion system became pointless, even on the hardest difficulty

KCD.
Most of your food fucking deteriorates and you can only carry a certain amount of times.
Really, it applies to any RPGs with weight limits as their method of use
>Doesn't make using spells/abilities feel pointless or vice versa.
Could you elaborate with this?

Earthbound, with its very limited inventory space

I think he just means don't make items so much better than abilities that you only ever use items. Which is a stupid concern when all you have to do is make the items not better than the abilities.

It's not the game, it's you, you fucking retarded hoarder. You're making it needlessly difficult by hoarding shit.

Megaten games

You have to use items in order to complete the game, they arent just a bonus that makes things easier. For example against a poisonous enemy, in most games you dont have to use antidote, sure it makes things easier but you can just brute force your way through with healing. Make it mandatory instead so that if you dont have something to treat poison its almost impossible. This causes the game to have a heavy focus on preparation which might not be what you want. Another thing is to not have limited use items. The idea sounds cool in theory with a limited massive powerup but in practice nobody is ever going to use those items and just hoard them for the entire game. Make consumables infinite. If you want to limit the item make them extremely expensive.

Virgo Vs The Zodiac.
>only 3 consumables apart from stat raising items so you don't hoard 98502934 items
>limited by 5 per consumable, you literally can't carry too many at once, forcing you to use them instead of waiting forever
>Consumables buff stats so they're useful even when not considering the healing