Combos: Difference between revisions

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For instance, in the [[Third-Person Shooter]] ''[[Oni]]'', the combination punch, punch, kick causes the main character to execute a spinning kick instead of her usual round-house.

 

 

Very much [[Truth in Television]] for martial arts, as fighters will train to deliver a series of moves which are easy to do in succession, maintaining momentum while preventing the opponent from recovering.

* Most rhythm games have combos (or chains), for hitting multiple targets in a row with good enough timing. It resets to zero if the player misses one, and it will sometimes go up by more than one, or stay where it was, depending on the timing accuracy. Sometimes combos leads to higher scores, sometimes they're just for bragging rights.

** The ''[[DJMAX]] Portable'' series and ''DJMAX Trilogy'' take combos to an extreme. In ''Portable'' and its sequels, getting a high enough combo (usually in the thousands or ten thousands) unlocks bonuses such as new songs and gallery images. Furthermore, ''Portable 2'' onwards and ''Trilogy'' have the "Fever" system; when the Fever gauge is full, you can press a button to activate Fever mode, multiplying the rate at which your combo goes up with each note, and if you chain several Fevers together, you can have up to a x5 multiplier or, in some games, a x7 multiplier. In other words, hitting 10 notes will increase your combo by 70!

* In ''[[The World Ends With You]]'', reaching combo benchmarks is one of the conditions that ups your "special" experience multiplier.

* Exists in the game ''[[Fable (video game)|Fable I]]'' under the name "Combat Multiplier" and the higher it is, the more experience obtained when you beat an enemy. However, getting hit rounds it down to the next-lowest 5.

** The [[Mana Shield]] spell turns this into a [[Game Breaker]] in that it allows you to take blows without penalty to your combo. Find an area with unlimited monster spawn (eg Grey House), activate the shield, and it's not too difficult to get the meter above 300 or so (at about which time you might as well stop, 'cause your experience counter just maxed out...).

* ''[[Guild Wars]]'' is an example. While all classes have a few skills that can only be used after the enemy has been given a status effect from another skill, most of the time the term combo is used it's simply referring to a set of skills that work well in quick succession. The Assassin class however has a build your own combo system that uses the technical definition. Except for lead attacks, which are [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|exactly what they sound like]], every strike must follow a certain type of strike and often also requires some kind of status effect to be on the enemy which is generally provided by the preceding strikes.

* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' games allow you to string attacks together (abilities let you extend the combos to a preset number), after which you can pull off a finishing move which does extra damage.

*** It should also be noted that Sora himself has a fairly lengthy hitstun, and is thus easy to combo; thankfully, few enemies take advantage of this. Also, on boss characters, if you choose to temporarily forgo your finishing move (meaning you now have an infinite combo attack), they will always block/teleport after a little while, to avoid allowing a completely cheap win. Works perfectly on non-bosses, though.

* The PSP ''[[Star Ocean]]'' games, [[Star Ocean 1|First Departure]] and [[Star Ocean the Second Story|Second Evolution]], automatically string attacks in a set of three; if the first hits, the rest can't be blocked. However, you're more vulnerable after a combo than after a single attack.

** ''Lethal Enforcers 3'' is similar, but instead of combos being made up of shots made within a short time of each other, combos consist of consecutive hits.

* In the ''[[Don Pachi]]'' series, combos are the main way to score. Though because this is a shmup, you can continue your combo by hitting one enemy shortly after killing another. Also of note is the insane height of these combos, which can reach over 30000.

* Modern ''[[Tetris]]'' titles reward additional points for clearing lines with consecutive tetrominoes. In one particular game, ''Tetris Friends'', comboing singles is the key to getting an optimal score as opposed to making Tetrises, which makes making Tetrises a counter-intuitive strategy.

* ''[[Puzzle League]]'' / ''Panel de Pon'''s scoring is heavily based around chaining block clears. If you want to have a high score or hold water in a versus match, you ''must'' learn to make chains.

** A another example would be moves like Fury Attack and Bonemerang, which hit the target multiple times in a row without giving them a chance to retaliate. The overall damage dealt by these attacks is usually LESS than just using one powerful attack, but they are still useful for breaking the opponent's Substitute or reducing the damage taken from Counter.

* ''[[Ninety-Nine Nights]]'' has a system where the higher your number of combos, the more likely a Mook will drop a rare(r) item (i.e. dropping a lvl 4 item instead of a level 1 item). And just to make things easier for you, each character has at least one stage where you will face a very large number (getting close and probably surpassing the 1000 range) of Mooks at once.

* Juggle combos. Love them? Hate them? Either way, ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' is their progenitor. Juggle-centric games like ''[[Marvel vs. Capcom]]'' have this series to thank.

* The ''[[Disgaea]]'' series (and ''[[Makai Kingdom]]'') counts a series of consecutive attacks on the same target(s) in a single turn as a Combo. Each successive attack gains a stacking bonus to hit and to the damage of the attack, allowing a low-level character to kill an enemy far above it's weight class if you can chain a long enough combo together.

[[Category:Videogame Effects and Spells]]

[[Category:Fighting Game]]