Ki Attacks and
Elemental Powers are cool. But what if you want something more appealing than the usual
Kamehame Hadoken wave or
fireballs or
lightnings?
The answer is: Give your attack a special form.
It can be anything, including weapons, objects and animals. Usually is strictly done for
Rule Of Cool or for characterize the user of said powers, for example a
bird-related character will make avian-shaped attacks.
Dragons tend to be a popular choice too. May overlap with
Weapon of Choice in some cases of weapon-shaped attacks.
Don't confuse with
Energy Weapon, which is usually perpetual while the "Shaped Attack" is only temporary. When used to create a weapon it becomes a form of
Spontaneous Weapon Creation.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
Comic Books
- Green Lantern, being equipped with, well, a Green Lantern Ring, use this superpower. On one occasion he used the ring to manifest sumo wrestlers and sic them at some mooks.
- In X-Men, Jean Gray can unleash her "Phoenix Force" in the form of a phoenix made of fire and psychic energy. Another mutant, Psylocke, can create a literal psychic knife.
Literature
- In the Harry Potter series the Expecto Patronum spell goes from a silvery mist to a shapeless mass of light but to, when mastered, the form of the character's animal spirit.
- Fiendfyre is also described as taking the shape of raging animals — dragons, lions, serpents, anything dangerous. It does this in the film as well, and takes Voldemort's form when a horcrux is consumed.
- In an early Wheel of Time book, the Amyrlin Seat demonstrates that it's possible to shape a sword out of Air, which is even fairly strong, but says it's less practical than just pushing things around.
- Justified in the Codex Alera. There are lots of animal-shaped attacks because Elemental Powers come from furies, and the most powerful ones typically have a preferred shape (for instance, Bernard's earth fury is a dog, Amara's wind fury is a horse, and Gram's fire fury is a hummingbird).
Film
Tabletop Games
- In Dungeons & Dragons the player character is actually suggested to give his spells a distinctive form, like using a star-shaped fireball, but the spell has its limits. There's also the "animate breath" spell which can make a temporary mook out of a breath weapon.
- In the Dragon Lance setting there's a spell that can create spears of lightining.
Video Games
- In The Legend Of Dragoon Greham has an attack that makes spears of energy, while the White Silver Dragoon can make arrows out of light.
- In Devil May Cry Dante with the Sparda Devil Trigger can toss a dragon made of crimson energy at his foes.
- Masou Kishin bots in Super Robot Wars can use ultimate attacks that take energy and shape it into animal-like forms, like Cybuster's Akashic Buster.
- Burn in Psychic Force can shape his flames to form pentagrams and fowls.
- In the first title of Samurai Shodown, Amakusa can fire some ghost-shaped fireballs, Ukyo can send a swallow-shaped blast from his sword and the Warrior Monk Gaira can smash and stun his enemies summoning a shining Asura demon made of energy.
- Oichi from Sengoku Basara 3 can shape her darkness in the form of two or more huge black arms. However in this case is unknown who controls who.
- Kenshin Uesugi from Samurai Warriors can summon phoenixes and wolves made of energy, and in late games even a temporary, huge copy of himself made of transparent light.
- The Ghost units in Wesnoth can send "wails" in the form of purple face-shaped attacks.
- An attack similar to the above-mentioned wail happens in Splatterhouse 2 with one boss.
- In Dragonquest VIII there are Megagash and Gigagash, which consist in huge sword-shaped energy streams. The hero can also learn a Dragon-shaped energy attack similar to the Ryuuken attack.
- Viewtiful Joe has several dragon-shaped attacks, including the "Red Hot Dragon Kick"
- FALCON PUNCH!
