Which game had the best "elemental weapon" enhancements?

[patapi]

Rhapsodia is the only installment where I actually bothered consciously employing the use of these Magic Sword Runes.

Otherwise, they don't really do much. It isn't like the MegaTen series where elemental affinities could easily shift the tide of battles for or against you in a significant way

[Piisuke]

For me it was II as well. There were additional runes, like Poison, Exertion, Friendship, Down, etc. They brought a different tactic to the game.
The elemental runes also had more uses. They could be embedded, removed, broken into scrolls.

The only time I didn't like the elemental runes on weapons in SII was when you had one of those 'miss hits' were only the elemental rune did damage.

[zqrahll]

2 is easily my favorite. I hate the sword of magic stuff they used in 3 & 5, a waste of a slot & turn.

[KFCrispy]

I really like the Magic Sword concepts but they are really designed for non-existant tougher battles.... there are too many damage-boosting runes that work fine the games because of how weak the enemy attacks are and how quickly they are killed.

Tactics implemented them very well, and V utilized the bearer's magic affinity (but forced you to waste a turn to activate it), making it truly a great tool for sword-mages.

Overall I'd say Tactics had the best elemental weapon enhancement concept, but you didn't list it! From the traditional games, I'd vote for Suikoden 2 for the simplicity and flexibility. It was nice to also have weapon-specific runes.. basically acted as a 4th possible rune slot.

[sticky-runes]

I didn't list Tactics because they're mainly used for the terrain effects in that game, and it takes ages for characters to actually gain the sword enchantment, so it seemed weird comparing the elemental swords from Tactics to the elemental attacks in the main series.