Emulating 3rd person movement/collision from example games

Hey!

I'd like to start working on a new project, and after messing around with Unity physics a bit I'm trying to figure out the best approach for the movement and collision model. Any advice from the experts here on which I should use is greatly appreciated before I burn too many cycles experimenting.

The game is full 3D with a fixed overhead camera. The player is controlled with a gamepad and needs to react to simple collision detection with the environment and other dynamic characters. Elevation changes would be a nice to have, as would online co-op.

Here are some examples of similar systems:

(Animal Crossing)

(Fantasy Life)

(Spiral Knights)

My question:
What system should I be using for character movement and collision, assuming gamepad input? Applying physics forces? Direct vector translation on x/y/z? I'm worried that forces might feel sluggish and not give direct control that you'd expect out of systems shown above, but I know that vector math I've used in previous 2D games isn't going to easily cut it either.

Assuming I use Unity 3D, what approach should I take given the example videos above? Tutorials or documentation appreciated!

Thank you for your help!

 

The physics system in Unity is pretty well equipped. You can easily overcome "sluggish" movement if you code your movement script well. Direct translation would be a lot harder to use as players can end up walking through things but once again, if coded well, would be equally as effective as forces.