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alt title(s): Reaction Command; Timed Hits; Action Command 
One button. One more horrific death.
Cutting edge development tools, state of the art graphics and technology, the ability to present pretty much anything on a screen, and what do games designers keep coming up with? Simon fekking says.
—Phillip Jackson, author of Sequential Art
Found in RPGs and Action Adventure games, this requires players to execute a command, such as a button press or joystick rotation, within a certain window of time. Mostly used during combat situations, proper execution will reward a player, often with a bonus to attack or defense or with recovery items. Implementation usually differs between the two genres.
Not to be confused with Combos. Action Commands have a limited-time period to be activated, and they're usually no more than a few button presses and/or joystick rotations, as opposed to a longer string. Also can be different from the Context Sensitive Button, depending on the game: in some cases, the Action Command's essential function never differs and it's primarily used in combat situations. In other cases, there are many possible Actions in many various situations, but only so many buttons on the controller, of course. This is especially noticeable if one particular sequence of actions is not executed with the same sequence of button presses every time.
In RPGs, it's used before striking the enemy, or vice versa. Successfully pulling off the action command will allow players to deal greater damage than usual, or to perform a defensive maneuver which can lessen or even completely negate damage received. It also serves as a way to keep players more engaged in the game. Rather than just clicking through the menu commands repetitively, players can receive a bonus for paying attention to the gameplay.
In Action Adventure games, players receive a visual cue in the Main Window, often connected to the targeted enemy. Action commands allow the player to kill regular enemies more efficiently, and are sometimes necessary to defeat more advanced enemies. Again, it serves to reward players for strategic gameplay, rather than simply Hack and Slashing their way through. Compare the Counter Attack, which usually does not have an overt visual cue. If this happens in a Cut Scene it is Press X To Not Die. May serve as a means of averting or subverting Cutscene Power To The Max.
Examples:
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Action Game
- Devil May Cry 4 has a variant, in that although the Devil Bringer is used normally against most Mooks, against bosses it is necessary to find specific moments of vulnerability before it can be used. Also, there are some "hidden" Devil Bringer attacks that work in this way by requiring a precisely-timed input, like catching Credo's spear and throwing it back at him.
- DSS Actions in the Macross Plus game. If timed right, pushing a button can result in such actions as instantly dodging a large swarm of missiles, getting into an ideal position to shoot your opponent's giant mecha, or even solidly kick it in the face for massive damage.
- In The Force Unleashed, after damaging an AT-ST or Rancor enough, Galen can perform a flashy and elaborate multi-step fatality to finish them off. Said action commands are required during boss fights after draining the bosses health to zero.
- Spider Man 3, during action cinematics, flashed the necessary buttons to press moments before in order for Spidey to win the battle.
- Manhunt 2 used these to perform 'executions'- although thanks to meddling from censorship groups, these segments became unplayable as the player could rarely see what was going on.
Action-Adventure
- God Of War, where Kratos can use action commands to perform a "fatality" move on an enemy, resulting in recovery items for his life and/or magic meters—-not to mention a brutal, visceral and deeply-satisfying end to the foe in question. While for Mooks the finishing move is optional, they are required on bosses, which allows the game to turn each boss's demise into a Videogame Setpiece. In short, God Of War uses Action Commands well (as opposed to several of the Wall Bangers described on this page), and arguably re-popularized the entire concept.
- In The Legend Of Zelda : The Wind Waker, Action Commands were available in battle, usually right before the enemy strikes. Especially effective against Darknut knights.
- A similar system of Action Commands was employed in The Legend Of Zelda : Twilight Princess. Several of the secret sword techniques were executed this way, most notably the Finishing Blow and the Mortal Draw.
- Yakuza (Ryu Ga Gotoku) uses this to a small extent to enhance certain special attacks. Yakuza 2 uses it to a greater extent, occasionally pausing a battle to force you to dodge several scripted attacks or dish out a string of your own. In both games, the window of opportunity is frustratingly short and has to be learned through repetition that usually involves you being stabbed repeatedly in an unavoidable manner.
- In Bully, the Chemistry Class and Auto Shop Class required a series of inputs to successfully complete the minigame. Succeed, and get a new item or bike. Fail and... don't get the bike or item.
- Batman Arkham Asylum has an icon appear above foes' heads in the combat sections, whereupon the player can press a certain button to counter them.
Action RPG
- Kingdom Hearts II uses the Reaction command, where a triangle appears in place of the normal attack command on the menu at certain points. These moves can be used to defeat enemies quicker, perform defensive maneuvers, and defeat bosses. Or cut skyscrapers in half.
- The Mega Man X RPG, Command Mission, calls these Action Triggers. Each character has at least one; in exchange for all of the character's subweapon energy, the Trigger starts up a simple minigame which can unleash some of the game's most impressive attacks.
Adventure Game
- Taken to such extremes in Indigo Prophecy aka ''Fahrenheit' that buttons in the same visual style as 'Simon Says' appeared before action was to be taken, which then flashed in the order necessary to succeed. Any action in the game was based around immersion-jarring button-punching sequences that overlaid what might have either been enjoyable cutscenes or character interaction.
- However, the designers put action commands of that nature in specifically to increase immersion, so, for example, instead of just pressing O to jump a fence, you'd raise both sticks up to simulate pulling yourself over. Other interactions were made the same way, intending to make the player feel like they're performing the action naturally. How successful this was is apparently a point of contention among fans.
- The team seems to be reusing this type of mechanic in their upcoming Heavy Rain. They seem to be subverting Press X To Not Die, as missing commands isn't always immediately fatal.
Beat Em Up
- If you stun an enemy in God Hand, you can launch a super attack by getting in close and hitting the circle button. Don't be fooled, though—sometimes the enemies will drop to the ground, their faces blue, and flash the action command. If you fall for this, you get hit with a Groin Attack.
Eastern RPG
- The earliest known example of this trope is Super Mario RPG, where players could use "Timed Hits" to increase attack or defense power. But then, you probably already knew that.
- Paper Mario and its sequel, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, which borrowed heavily from Super Mario RPG in the idea of action commands, and then ran with it.
- Mario And Luigi Superstar Saga, a similiar series on the handhelds, takes this to extremes, where the success of attacks is solely determined by your ability to use action commands (rather than them just being a way to power up the attack) and every enemy attack in the game can be dodged/blocked/countered with a properly timed action command.
- Mario And Luigi Partners In Time, the sequel to the above actually has the final 'boss' be beaten purely via action commands since 'Shrowser' doesn't give the bros any chances to attack.
- Mario And Luigi Bowser's Inside Story continues the trend, with even Bowser's giant form battles utilising action commands to attack and defend, and both these and his special attacks using the DS touch screen as the button stand in.
- Sabin's Blitz ability in Final Fantasy VI worked this way, the sequence you entered determined what attack was performed while an invalid sequence would result in a wasted turn. However, the sequences still had to be unlocked for them to be considered a valid entry, probably to prevent experienced players from using advanced Blitz moves to one-shot everything for the first half of the game.
- Final Fantasy VIII, where Squall (the main character) and Seifer (the rival, during the brief time he's playable) could deal increased damage if the player pressed R1 during regular attacks. For Limit Breaks, a sequence of buttons, such as R1 at certain times for Squall or Circle+X and other combinations for Zell.
- In The Legend Of Dragoon, your 'regular' attacks were a sort of combo. To keep the attack going, at each hit you had to match it with a button press.
- Similiarly, in the Summoner series there were special one-button attacks (up to four of them could be assigned to individual buttons) that had to be activated exactly when a symbol appeared onscreen, these chain attacks had various unusual effects and became harder to chain with each additional attack.
- Action Commands make an appearance in Barkley, Shut Up And Jam: Gaiden, a fan-made parody of console Role Playing Games.
- Action Commands are apparently the entire basis of dungeon crawling in Riviera The Promised Land. They're used for everything from dodging arrows to untrapping treasure chests to throwing rocks.
- Valkyrie Profile had the ability Counter, where you had to hit X after dodging an attack to deliver an unblockable counterattack. Poor timing would result in either not dodging at all (too early), or not activating at all (too late).
- Mother 3 lets you get extra hits for your attack by tapping A in time to the music's beats.
- In Magical Starsign, you can tap the casting character with the stylus at the right moment to perform a critical hit. Similarly, you can tap a character about to be hit in order to guard.
- Used heavily in all three Shadow Hearts games, whose combat system relied on the Judgment Ring. The player had to press the X button when the Judgment Ring's rotating bar was inside certain colored areas of the ring. Good timing was rewarded with a stronger attack, spell, or item effect; bad timing meant a blown turn (thankfully, you didn't use spells or items if you failed their rings, preventing wasted supplies or MP). The Judgment Ring was also used to get discounts at stores, and in the first game, it was even used in a few extra mini-games. The second and third games allowed one to set the attack to "Auto Ring", but this prevented you from earning Strikes and limited available attacks.
- A slight variation exists in the Tales Series, where magical characters, when controlled by a human player, can use a special skill called Rhythm, that by repeatedly pressing the Attack button while spell casting, would shorten the time the spell takes to cast.
- A few early games had an equippable item called the Combo Command. Equipped to a non-mage character, it would replace the standard four-command tech equipping with a fighting-game-esque button command system.
- Tales of Vesperia includes Fatal Strikes which, if executed correctly, provide bonuses and instant-kill (non-boss) targets.
- All the combat in Vagrant Story had this, and made a very important mechanic of it. Ashley Riot, the main character and professional stomper of colons, would gradually recover special abilities as he regained his lost memories. The player assigns specific attacks to individual buttons, and then uses those attacks by pushing the associated buttons at the proper time, according to the type of weapon used. Chaining the attacks would eventually yield impressive damage output, though overuse of them would overtax Ashley, decreasing accuracy and (eventually) killing him. It also applied to defensive skills as well.
- Sonic Chronicles features a variation with Elite Beat Agents-style stylus tapping minigames for every special move, both to use and avoid them. More powerful moves generally have more difficult sequences. However, there is a Chao that can be equipped that makes these moves automatically succeed- extra useful for Cream and Tails, whose moves will miss unless executed perfectly. (attack moves simply do less damage for each mistake).
- This is how you defend yourself in Eternal Sonata. As an attacker is about to attack, the word "Chance!" appears, usually (always, before a certain point) with a little shield, indicating that you can press a button to reduce the amount of damage that attack does, or thwart it entirely. At first, you can only block, but later, you gain the ability to counter with a regular attack, and still later, you can use Special Attacks in this capacity. Speaking of Special Attacks, at some point, you gain the ability to use "Harmony Chains", which allow you to follow one Special Attack of the appropriate light level with the other one (provided any targets are in range) if you press the Special Attack button in the little window of time while the first Special Attack animation is going on when the words "Harmony Chain!" appear. Later, you can add a nearby party member's Special Attack if you press the button in the same window while the second link in the chain is activated. And still later, the potential length of a Harmony Chain doubles.
Fighting Game
- Dissidia: Final Fantasy has Action Commands for all twenty-two of the game's EX-Bursts, each one unique though sometimes heroes and villains from the same game will have similarly styled ones. (Squall and Ultimecia, for example, both utilize the Trigger command described above, only difference being that Ultimecia uses the O button instead of R.) There are also miniature Action Command sequences integrated into some of the aerial battle segments. Doing this well can result in literally kicking your opponent from one side of the battlefield to the other and possibly back again.
- Donkey Kong's Final Smash in Super Smash Bros Brawl, Konga Beat, gives a high damage/range bonus for pressing "a" with the beat.
- Used in the Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi/Sparking games. Whenever a character does one of their Blast 2 or Ultimate Blast moves, the player can input an action command (varies depending on character and move) for extra damage.
- They've been doing this as early as Dragon Ball Z Budokai 2, with moves requiring the player to: spin the joystick, hit buttons in order, spin the joystick faster then the opponent, hit a different button then the opponent, etc. to make "ultimate" moves do more damage or not blow up in the user's face.
First Person Shooter
- Call Of Duty 4 features guard dogs that will happily run up to you and knock you down. If one gets hold of you, you have one chance to execute a strangely timed button press to snap the doggie's neck before he worries your throat out.
- Clive Barkers Jericho did this similar to the Indigo Prophecy and Spider-Man 3 examples.
- In Resistance Fall Of Man, the player must shake the controller to escape from any nasty monsters that happen to latch on to the protagonist.
Close First Person Shooter
Interactive Fiction
- The arcade game Dragon's Lair, its sequel, Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp, and its Spiritual Successor, Space Ace were nothing but Action Commands. They essentially ran a Don Bluth animated movie, and if you didn't execute the right command, you would die. Even if you were just trying to dodge a mother-in-law throwing pots and pans at you.
Close Interactive Fiction
MMORPG
- Used throughout Worldof Warcraft by a number of classes. For example, the Hunter ability Counterattack, which roots an enemy in place allowing the Hunter to escape to range, only becomes available for 5 seconds after parrying an attack; the Warrior attack Overpower only becomes available for a few seconds after the enemy dodges one of your attacks; Rogues specializing in Combat have the Riposte attack which becomes active after parrying; and so on.
Platform Game
- Prince Of Persia: The Two Thrones had a variant of this. The "Speed Kills" had to be executed by positioning the Prince in a specific location and were used to initiate, or pre-empt by killing off, combat instead of being used as Finishing Moves. More conventional examples show up against the bosses, which need Speed Kills to be defeated.
- I Wanna Be The Guy has a variant on this, with certain cutscenes ending without warning and killing you if you don't start moving immediately. The final use of this is beyond evil. At the very end of the closing credits, you must dodge an apple or die.
- Sonic Unleashed uses a mostly optional (but extremely fickle) version of this in the Werehog stages. While you can always beat things to death with your regular attacks, once you've gotten an enemy's health low enough you can press the grab button when near that enemy to attempt a Critical Attack, which involves timing button prompts to finish off the enemy in a spectacular fashion, and gain more experience than killing it normally. However, if you screw up a Critical Attack, you take damage and the enemy regains health. It's possible to use Critical Attacks against bosses and minibosses, but these always require more than two button prompts whereas regular enemies usually only require two, and if you get more of them right before making a mistake, you take even more damage. In addition to this, many bosses and minibosses have at least one attack which knocks you down, requiring you to mash the indicated button to get back on your feet. The button prompts aren't limited to these levels either- at least once in the game, you have to man the turret gun on Tails' airplane, shooting down enemies and their projectiles. Every single thing to shoot displays a button prompt, and if you press an incorrect button, you can't fire again for a split second.
Survival Horror
- Resident Evil 4 had these for knocking down stunned Mooks or attacking a boss's weak point. Sometimes it was dangerous to use one, such as using a roundhouse kick on a Ganado only for the One Hit Kill Plaga to pop out.
- Resident Evil 5 uses this whenever you are physically attacked by any creature (even some of the bosses), doing so allows your character or your ally to perform a physical attack (such as a kick, punch, or a stab). During boss battles, it's used to dodge certain attacks, many that can result in a game over including in the second to last battle where failing to dodge the attack causes the boss to rip out your heart.
- Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles has these when you are grabbed by creatures. If you shake the Wii-mote, you can counter-attack for a one-hit kill. Each character has their own counter-attack animation/style.
- Condemned 2: Bloodshot uses these in Chain Combos (not to be confused with the game's Combos, which are series of regular attacks) that range from doing massive damage, to broken arms, to instant kills.
- Dead Space has these when an enemy grabs you. The command can either be a single press of the E button to squish a bug, or the frenzied hammering of said key to rip off a Personal Space Invader and bludgeon it around the head. Then stomp on it. Repeatedly.
- Deadly Creatures uses a combo system of attack button and Wii-mote waggles. More closely to the trope, the Scorpion has a unique "Finishing Move" for each type of enemy in the game which is pulled off by a creature-specific action command. This results in everything from a double-pincer pound to the jaw, followed by prying the jaws open to stab the stinger down the throat (lizards), to rolling an enemy over and stabbing them in the underbelly (wolf spiders).
Shoot Em Up
- The second Star Wars: Rogue Squadron sequel, for the most part an arcadey SHMUP, had a particularly frustrating round of this in one level. Here, you must use the Force to raise Luke's X-Wing out of the swamp. Many controllers were hurled.
Sports Game
- Mario Super Sluggers has these when the ball and a runner approaching 3rd base or home are close. If the runner presses the button first, they're safe. If the catcher presses first, the runner is tagged out.
- Jet Set Radio used these in its graffiti sections- dropped for the sequel, Jet Set Radio Future.
Stealth Based Game
- Attempted justification in Metal Gear Solid 4, during the battle between Rex and RAY. The designer of your vehicle wanted to program it to perform close-range combat, but couldn't get it past military regulations. Being an Ascended Fanboy, he decided to install the program anyway, but since the program was still incomplete it was too context-sensitive to be very flexible. This means that the action command pops up on the screen whenever the vehicle is in an appropriate situation for melee.
Third-Person Shooter
- In Mercenaries and its sequel, action commands pop up when you try to hijack most military vehicles. (Jeeps and civilian vehicles can be taken without a fight.)
- In Prototype, you have to enter in a series of numbers (1 to 4) when you attempt to sabotage a virus detector. You also have to press a random button (E and spacebar are the only ones I remember) to counter the supersoldiers.
Close Third-Person Shooter
Turn Based Strategy
- In Gladius for the XBox almost every attack your characters make is an action command, with a timing bar across the bottom of the screen. different types of maneuvers had different timing bars ranging from as simple as "press the X button in the green part" (primarily for status inducing attacks) to combo attacks that required each button in a string to be pressed at certain intervals along the bar, to complex strings of button presses (up to 12 buttons, with more successful button presses causing more damage), to alternately pressing X and Y or A and B as quickly as possible. On damaging attacks, completing the attack in the red section of the timing bar resulted in a critical hit. This system is optional and you can simply allow the game to handle attacks automatically; however, with a little practice, you can guarantee a critical hit almost every time.
- The Last Remnant uses action commands for increasing damage and counterattacking after dodging or blocking, this happens randomly.
Close Turn Based Strategy
Western RPG
- In The Witcher, similar to the above The Legend Of Dragoon and Summoner examples, regular attacks caused Geralt to do a combo, and continuing the combo required the press of the attack key or mouse when his sword glowed. The Witcher also used the reverse with charge-ups, by holding down a button and releasing it on time for successful attacks and magic.
- The Penny Arcade Adventures game uses timed blocks and a variety of minigames for the main characters' special attacks.
Wide Open Sandbox
- No More Heroes uses this to the point where you're not totally sure where it begins and where it ends. The most common one is the Finishing Move, which shows an arrow in a direction you must swing the Wii remote to kill an enemy. There's also the various wrestling moves, which also use onscreen prompts, a Super Mode that causes a One Hit Kill when the right button is pressed, and a "Weapon clash" that happens when you and an enemy attack at the same time, which requires you to spin the controller around to get out of it. Also blends into Press X To Not Die in certain boss fights, where you need to shake the Wiimote, nunchuk, or rapidly press the A button to get out of various traps.
- The same system is implemented in Mad World, but taken even further. Finishing someone off by grabbing his ankle, and swinging the Wiimote back and forth over your head to slam him into the ground until he explodes is scored as routine violence.
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