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The Charged Attack is a type of Special Attack in which the user must gather together energy before the attack can be unleashed.

In video games, while most basic actions — such as attacking — requires the user to enter a quick command input, be they tapping a button or hitting a small sequence of separate inputs, they can be performed in a split second. Charge Attacks may draw out this process, requiring the player to delay finishing their input or otherwise preventing them from performing an action quickly; usually, this limitation is made up for with increased power behind the final attack.

Charged attacks come in many shapes and sizes, largely depending on the series, but there's two basic types:

  • 'Collect' type charge attacks. Closely related to the Limit Break popular in JRPGs, this involves performing some sort of action repeatedly to fill up a Charge Meter, and once it reaches a certain point (usually full), the attack may be unleashed. This action can be anything, from waiting for the bar to fill automatically, to inflicting damage on enemies, suffering (or blocking) their attacks, healing allies, or so on.
  • 'Hold' type charge attacks require holding a controller button (or direction) for a set amount of time and then releasing it (or performing a final combination of button presses) to actually unleash the attack. The button to be held is often the attack button, leaving the player defenseless while preparing it, requiring strategy on the part of the player as to whether the attack's strength is worth the time it takes to charge it — doubly so if charging the attack leaves the player unable to move or evade enemy attacks in the meantime. See Charge-Input Special for more

In either case, be aware that an AI-controlled opponent might be able to execute charged attacks spontaneously without performing the actions necessary to prepare them up (especially if the opponent Turns Red). Alternately, when the AI actually takes time to prepare its attack, this may be a warning that the attack will be incredibly powerful (if not a One-Hit Kill) and the player should immediately assume a defensive stance...unless it's an Unblockable Attack, in which case dodging or interrupting the attack is in order.

See Sucking-In Lines for a common visual motif for hold-type commands.

"Charge" in this trope means to fill or store, such as with electricity. Not to be confused with "charging attack" in the sense of rushing forward.


Examples:

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    Action Game 
  • 9 Monkeys of Shaolin: You can execute a more powerful slash or thrush by holding down the attack button and releasing it.
  • Armored Hunter GUNHOUND EX: the unlockable Anti-Ship Energy Cannon requires players to charge up the weapon before it can be fired, but when it does, it annihilates virtually anything unfortunately to be caught in the blast.
  • Bayonetta: Almost all of the eponymous character's weapons have some hold charged attack feature; ranged weapons fire ammo when held during attacks, whips will lasso enemies and throw them around, most melee weapons have a charged-up super attack, etc. In addition, there's a special technique called Charge Bullet, that lets her basic ranged pistol attack charge up staggering magic blasts.
  • Bounty of One features a few items that work this way:
    • Big Bertha charges up per shot fired, and once it's fully charged after 30 shots, it makes your next shot into a slow, but large and infinitely-penetrating missile.
    • Once the Mighty Mezcal Staff charges up after a cooldown, it turns the player's next shot into a cactus ball that deals double damage and also explodes into a Spread Shot of spikes everywhere. As the player doesn't fire unless they stop moving, this can stack multiple times.
    • For every 2 meters walked, Scrap Gun gains a stock, up to a maximum of three. Your next shot uses up all stocks and adds 2 extra shots per stock, fanning out in a Spread Shot.
  • Cuphead has the Charge Shot. The normal bullet does mediocre damage but if you hold it down, the bullet becomes bigger and far more powerful.
  • Devil May Cry:
    • Dante, Trish, Nero and Lady can charge some of their firearms for extra damage per shot. Nero channels the Devil Bringer's demonic energy into the Blue Rose for his Charge Shots, working like a standard Mega Man-style charged shot, but later upgrades allow it to blow up adjacent enemies or add an additional delayed explosion.
    • Certain attacks (e.g. Round Trip, Drive, Judgement Cut, Hard Way) require you to hold a button to perform them, and some (e.g. Drive, Maximum Bet) deal more damage if they are held longer. Some games also have gauntlet-type/gauntlet-and-greave-type weapons (e.g. Ifrit, Beowulf, Gilgamesh, Eryx) with held charged attacks as their core mechanic for dealing more damage, especially on their ground combos. Depending on the weapon or the move, these charged attacks may also come with the benefit of a "Just Frame" Bonus upon releasing the held button at opportune times.
    • The Devil Trigger Explosion in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening can be performed by holding the Devil Trigger button until the filled DT runes in the HUD glow. The more runes glow, the more powerful the explosion, and you can't use it if there are less than 3 runes filled up.
    • Devil May Cry 4:
      • Pandora has a Disaster Gauge which is filled by doing normal attacks with it, and depleted by using its more powerful Gunslinger Style attacks, such as the "PF594: Argument", "PF422: Grief" and "PF666: Omen".
      • In the Special Edition, Lady's DT gauge can be consumed to trigger an Area of Effect explosion.
      • Lady's shotgun has a meter and up to three lights that can be filled up by holding the shoot button. The more lights filled, the longer she can end up firing powered shots.
    • Devil May Cry 5:
      • All of Nero's "Break Age" moves with his Devil Breakers are performed by holding down and releasing a button. The Tomboy Devil Breaker also allows him to supercharge Blue Rose's shots, at the cost of having to manually aim it and hold down the shoot button.
      • In the Special Edition, Vergil's Limit Breaks consume a specific meter for each use; he can perform "Judgement Cut End", "Hell on Earth", or "Deep Stinger" in human form at the cost of emptying his SDT Gauge, while his "World of V" empties his Concentration Gauge.
      • Nero's Color Up skill charges up Blue Rose's shots through him loading a stronger set of bullets; he can have up to 3 powered-up shots at a time, indicated by icons on the HUD.
      • Holding the DT button allows Dante and Vergil to transfer their regular Devil Trigger gauge to their Sin Devil Trigger gauge, which further enables access to a stronger transformation and some ultimate moves that consume the latter.
    • Royalguard Style comes with a Rage Meter (in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening and Devil May Cry 4) or Royal Gauge (in Devil May Cry 5) that is filled by blocking and Royal Blocking attacks, and expended to perform a devastatingly powerful Release/Royal Release. Depending on the game, Dante can also consume the meter to become temporarily invincible via Dreadnaught Form (DMC4), or perform an automatic Counter-Attack called Royal Revenge (DMC5)
    • Nero's Red Queen has a special mechanism called Exceed, where he can rev his sword to turn it into a Rocket-Powered Weapon, igniting the blade, and increasing its power if you attack while a meter is filled up. It has 3 levels and it's charged by either tapping and holding the rev button multiple times until the EX Gauge is full, or tapping the rev button while you're attacking normally with the EX-Act skill.
    • Nero's EX Streak can be held to delay the attack, allowing you to charge the EX Gauge further before unleashing it. But like other Exceed attacks, this also consumes the EX Gauge.
    • Most of Vergil's specialized Summoned Sword/Mirage Blade formations in the Special Editions of Devil May Cry 4 and Devil May Cry 5 both consume a portion of the DT gauge, and require the player to hold then release the shoot button.
  • The Dynasty Warriors series features the musou gauge that can be filled either by charging or by defeating enough mooks. When it's full, the character can use their musou move to destroy pretty much any NPC that gets in their way, provided they aren't using their musou as well.
  • Dynasty Wars allows the players to hold their weapons (swords and spears) for a charged strike that can knock down an entire platoon of enemies and even instantly kill Elite Mook generals and deal severe damage on bosses. Hold it long enough and the attack is manifested as a Blade Spam move.
  • The Gundam Vs Series of video games gain charge attacks in the first Gundam SEED-themed installment, with the Charge Meter being located on the ammunition indicator for the weapon in question.
  • Gungrave:
    • Holding down the fire button while standing still makes your shots more powerful as it causes Grave to go into a frenzy and he will jump and spin around, shooting everything without looking. Billy and Juji in the sequel get their own variation (Juji's can launch a charged sword combo when the melee button is held for a few seconds and then released). This is if you turned the rapidfire/full-auto option on though.
    • To fill the "Demolition Shot Gauge", Grave must collect "beats", which are obtained by shooting enemies and objects in succession, causing the beat counter flame to get bigger. When Grave has a least one gauge of energy stored, he can either expend it to heal himself, or expend it for its main use of firing a "demolition shot", which uses one of the heavy weapons stored in the coffin on his back.
  • Hangzo, a game where you're a Ninja, somehow allows you to charge throwing shurikens. By holding down the attack button you can release a projectile that deals far greater damage on bosses.
  • Several of the games in the Kunio-kun series have a charged punch attack, most commonly used by Nishimura/Rocko.
  • In The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, there's a charged version of the heavy attack, which can be bought with your experience and then upgraded twice. When fully upgraded, it is strong enough to instantly kill Trolls.
  • Majyuo gives Abel the ability to fire charged attacks that deals greater damage on demons, by holding down the attack button. It works even on the first stage, when Abel is only a human without demonic powers yet (until he consumes the souls of demons) with his dinky little pistol, and in the last two stages Abel's (being a dragon-man and a demonic warrior at that point) charged shots are devastating.
  • In The Matrix: Path of Neo you need to hold square so the killing blow charges, but you can't move and the enemy can still kill you, so it's basically Awesome, but Impractical.
  • The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors has Raiden's Ground Punch, which can be charged by holding down its attack button. The longer it's held down, the more damage and explosions it'll cause.
  • The Ninja Warriors Again has the energy meter which refills over time, and once it's full the player character can perform a Special Attack at the end of a combo which depletes some of the gauge, or use a Smart Bomb that depletes all of it. The remake allows the players to use special attacks without needing a full bar. The player has to be careful, however, as getting knocked down when the bar isn't fully filled up will completely empty the bar.
  • In Sengoku Basara, practically all of Tokugawa Ieyasu's moves in the third game become more powerful by holding the attack button down (his special neutral even turns from a Megaton Punch to a Blow You Away ranged attack on full charge), and he gains additional levels of charging by leveling up. This is in contrast to his rival Ishida Mitsunari, who is a Spam Attacker instead.
  • Spiritual Assassin Taromaru allows you to charge your Hand Blast by holding the firing button, before releasing it as a far more powerful energy bolt which can take out entire groups of enemies.
  • In Super Cyborg, holding on the trigger will unleash a deadly barrage from your current weapon. For example, charging the Spread Shot turns your usual spread of bullets into a tornado of red-and-green energy projectiles.
  • Ultra Toukon Densetsu: Player Ultras can charge their punches by holding down the hit button, where their fists will glow with a powerful energy aura before lashing out at monsters. Player-sized enemies tends to get Punched Across the Room when this happens, and for Goomba-type enemies such as Bemlar and Ragon, it's enough to kill them on the spot.
  • Zone of the Enders has the Vector Cannon which requires you to be on the ground (not all that reliable outside of the places the game requires you to use it) and then spends about twenty seconds charging.

    Action-Adventure 
  • ANNO: Mutationem: All of Ann's swords can be charged or have an unlockable charged move to deal significantly more damage in a single blow.
  • The Apple of Eden near the end of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. You can charge it to fry the brains of your enemies.
  • In Bastion, shots from the Breaker's Bow become more powerful and pierce through multiple targets if the player holds down the attack button longer, and fire a "Power Shot" for maximum damage if the attack button is released when the Kid flashes white.
  • In Crimson Glaive Sigma, you can fire weapons even if you don't have energy for them by holding the fire button for a few seconds and then releasing it. This is useful only outside of combat when you need a weapon to press the switch or destroy an obstacle, since in combat you can always recharge ammo with the Alpha Gun or by deflecting bullets.
  • In Lunar Knights, you can use the Trance gauge (which fills by attacking, blocking, and taking damage) to trigger either character's Super Mode and change the time from day to night, but the more widely available option is Burst Attacks, which are essentially twenty seconds of free damage and a change of the weather to that associated with the terrenial.
  • The Spur in Cave Story can release laser beams of varying intesity by holding the fire button and then releasing it.
  • Distorted Travesty 3 allows the bow to be charged to shoot further. Though this is only ever actually used in one spot. The charged energy beams, missiles, and bombs later in the game are significantly more useful.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • In games such as The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Link has the spin attack, charged by holding the attack button, where he spins 360 degrees, dealing extra damage and hitting all enemies surrounding him. The later games introduce an instantaneous version of the attack, albeit weaker and somewhat tricky to perform.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games: Ricky, a Boxing Kangaroo who carries Link in his pouch with great jumping and climbing abilities, has the power to summon tornadoes when his punches are fully charged.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess contains a variation on the typical charged attack. When Link is in wolf form, he and Midna can team up for a specialized attack by holding down a particular button (which one depends on whether you're playing with the Wii or the GameCube) and generating a circle of twilight to encompass multiple enemies. Releasing the button will then cause Wolf Link to more or less ricochet against all enemies caught in this circle, killing them instantly. And the Jump Strike skill, as well. When upgraded, Link can hold his sword up until the spark moves to the point, then does Splash Damage ton enemies in front of him.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks: One phase in the Final Boss fight has Link deflect burning projectiles away from Zelda as she charges up the attack that will let him stun the boss, then use teamwork to truly beat him.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Urbosa's Fury is unleashed in tandem with Link unleashing his own charge attack, by holding the Y button.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: The Zonaite Bows let you charge your shot (which depletes the Energy Cells) to make the arrow fly farther.
  • Metroid series:
    • Samus Aran has a charged beam attack, and in some versions also a dash move, the Shinespark, charged by running.
    • In Super Metroid, bosses are immune to normal shots, so if you run out of missiles, the only way to damage them is with charged beam shots, or pray for Boss Arena Recovery items to appear.
    • In Metroid Prime, you can charge any beam weapon and use an added missile attack with the charged shot. Super Metroid has secret charge combos with the power bombs.
  • Nobody Saves the World: Some attacks get stronger if you charge them. For example, Ranger's basic attack gets pierce and increased range, while Mermaid's gains Splash Damage and the ability to knock back enemies.
  • Shadow of the Colossus allows you to stab at the Colossi's weak points, taking away at least one fifth of their health, by holding the attack button. Holding the attack button with a bow will also make the arrow go faster and farther in a straighter trajectory.
  • The Shantae series:
    • Shantae (2002): Buying the Cuff gives Shantae the ability to perform an elbow dash move that is activated by holding down the attack button.
    • Shantae and the Seven Sirens: The Bonker Tortoise has a "charge up and release [Attack Button] to perform a destructive SPIN DASH!
  • In Son of Nor, it’s possible to lift an object telekinetically and then charge it up with the power of the wind before hurling it at much greater speed.
  • Sundered has the Strength Amplifier, which allows Eshe to charge up a powerful melee attack by holding down a button. This attack can propel her forward or upward depending on the direction pressed while charging, and it can be used to shatter the otherwise indestructible purple barriers in the Eschaton City. The corrupted version, Ghatanothoa’s Strength, has two levels of charge.
  • In An Untitled Story, you can find an ability to fire freezing projectiles by holding down the fire button and releasing it after a sound cue.
  • ZanZarah: The Hidden Portal: Every offensive spell has to be charged for several seconds before you can release it, with the charging speed depending on the spell in question. Longer charge causes more damage and higher chance of critical hits that can inflict various Status Effects. However, charging the spell for too long will cause it to explode in your hands, inflicting the same damage and Status Effects on you.

    Fighting Game 
  • Divekick has the character Jefailey — a simple tap of the kick button has him do a slow kick that covers very little horizontal space, but holding down the kick button before letting go builds up power for a faster kick that can cover a greater amount of space.
  • Jam Kuradoberi in the Guilty Gear series has a move that applies a powerup to each of her other special attacks depending on the button pressed. Each move can have up to three stacked on it, which are discharged the next time you perform that move.
  • Magical Battle Arena: Some characters' Special Attacks, like the attacks of Original Generation characters and most of the Lyrical Nanoha cast, can be fired immediately but have the option of being charged first for a more powerful attack. Others however, like Sakura, the Slayers sorceresses, and Hayate, have spells that can only be launched after they are charged, otherwise they will piffle out if you fire them prematurely.
  • Medabots AX: Metabee and Rokusho: Holding down the buttons representing parts that feature laser weapons will give you a more powerful attack after a few seconds, but you'll probably be defenseless during the charge.
  • Mortal Kombat:
    • Various special moves and fatalities throughout the series require holding a button for a certain number of seconds. Naturally, the AI can not only perform these moves instantly, but in rapid succession.
    • Mortal Kombat II:
      • Starting from this game, Liu Kang has the bicycle kick: he floats towards his adversary, making turkey noises, kicking his feet in a bicycle pedal motion. Players have to charge the low kick for a few seconds, but it is well worth the wait.
      • Raiden has a Shocking Grasp for his Charged Attack, which in turn has a Fatality variation, and also a Charged Uppercut fatality. Many other fatalities require you to hold a button for a certain length of time, usually well before you defeat your opponent (eg Shang Tsung's Kintaro morph).
  • Over half the roster in Playstation All Stars Battle Royale has a charge-possible move, the most extreme example being Spike, who builds his strategy around how he times his charges.
  • Soulcalibur has Hilde who's special gimmick is the ability to use charge attacks by holding down either attack button. Given 15 seconds to charge, she can unleash some of the strongest unblockable attacks in the game.
  • The Street Fighter franchise has had special moves that involve holding back or down then pressing forward or up (respectively) along with an attack button at least since Street Fighter II. Computer opponents could often forgo the charge portion. Balrog in particular has the Turn Around Punch special move — the player holds down (as of Street Fighter 4) all three punch buttons, with longer holds resulting in greater damage (and in some games, an instant dizzy). Street Fighter IV also introduces a universal charged move called a Focus Attack, executed by holding Medium Punch and Kick. While charging, the player gains Super Armor which will stop exactly 1 attack. If tapped, this attack doesn't do much, but if charged until smoke billows around the player and lands a hit, it crumples the opponent, and if fully charged it will unleash automatically, resulting in a crumple, breaks the opponent's armor (if they were charging too or using an armor-granting special of their own) AND cannot be blocked against!
  • Super Smash Bros.:
    • All characters in the series can charge up their Smash attacks. Some Special B move attacks are more powerful the longer the attack button is held, but some (Samus, Donkey Kong, Mewtwo, and Lucario's neutral B moves, especially) can be charged up and released whenever the player wishes it. The Super Scope item can also be charged.
    • In Super Smash Bros. Melee and Brawl, Mr. Game & Watch's "Oil Panic" move works by collecting three enemy projectiles in a bucket, then unleashing a splash of oil. The power of the splash depends on the power of the projectiles that were absorbed (Though in Brawl, it's always fairly strong regardless of what it absorbs).
  • Tekken has Jack's Gigaton Punch, which is charged by repeatedly rotating the joystick. At full power, it is unblockable and delivers a One-Hit KO to the idiot who stood there watching Jack swing his arm around for five seconds.

    First-Person Shooter 
  • Ashes 2063: Fuly upgrading the Junker Musket puts an experimental magnetic acceleration system on the barrel, turning it into the Junker Driver. By holding the fire button, the Driver can charge slugs up for devastating damage — very few things in the game can survive one charged shot, and only bosses can take two and remain standing.
  • Beyond Sunset: Hold the trigger on your default, low-power laser pistol and you'll collect a concentrated energy bolt, release it for inflicting multiple damage.
  • Many BioShock Plasmids\Vigors, when held on instead of fired away, can result in either a super attack or a trap that when approached by the enemy blows in their face. For a weapon case, the BioShock 2 DLC Minerva's Den has the Burst Cell ammo for the Ion Laser, which after being charged up results in an extreme burst of damage.
  • Dark Forces Saga:
    • The Wookiee Bowcaster appears in most games starting from Dark Forces II, and can be charged to fire a spread of up to five shots.
    • In Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, the Secondary Fire mode for the Bryar pistol which charges up to five units of energy for a much more powerful attack. It's overkill against most enemies who blasters would be efficient against, since charging for half a second to only use two units and then shooting them in the head with that is usually enough for a kill — it is a good opener for an individual encounter if you're beyond the five-foot distance at which you can guarantee a hit from the stormtroopers' E-11, though.
  • Doom³'s BFG 9000 can be charged to create a heavier hitting projectile (at the cost of more ammo consumption). A fully charged blast can take out everything in the game with one shot except the Cyberdemon. You'd better be careful to watch the charge meter, though, or else you'll end up overcharging and having the gun blow up in your face.
  • Half-Life series:
    • Half-Life has the Tau Cannon, whose charged secondary attack is powerful enough to peneterate walls and gib opponents hiding behind them, but causes the gun to misfire and hurt the user if it's held too long (the gun is essentially a particle accelerator strapped onto a miniature nuclear reactor, so it's no wonder if the capacitors are unable to hold that much charge). In fact, camper-hunting is its intended purpose. The Half-Life 2 buggy-mounted version trades off the peneteration capabilities with huge knockback, infinite ammo (it's tied into the buggy's electrical system) and lack of misfire (due to stolen Combine capacitors). A hand-carried version was in the HL2 beta but was cut from the final game.
    • Somewhat weirdly, a glitch in Half-Life 2 gave pistol a charged attack, allowing it to fire a burst of shots in a short span of time. Since it was an unintended bug, it wasn't your standard 3-round burst, either, but more like all eighteen bullets in the mag bullets fired at the exact same time. This, understandably, was a complete Game-Breaker, so it was patched out after about a month from Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, and the main game itself and Episode One when they were ported to Episode Two's updated version of the engine in 2010.
  • Halo:
    • The Plasma Pistol has an overcharge shot that homes in on enemies, knocks out energy shields with one hit, and can temporarily disable vehicles.
    • Some versions of the games' rocket/missile/grenade launchers allow you to lock on to enemies if you hold the trigger, with some also allowing you to fire multiple shots at once.
    • Both the Spartan Laser (a shoulder-fired Wave-Motion Gun) and the Railgun require each shot to be charged before they can be fired.
    • Halo 5: Guardians gives the Incineration Cannon an overcharge alt-fire.
  • Marathon has the Mercury-Class (later Zeus-Class) Fusion Pistol, whose charging effect is activated by the secondary trigger; however, the Zeus-Class will explode if the trigger is held down for too long, killing the player.
  • Metroid Prime Trilogy:
    • When fighting the final boss of Metroid Prime, in order to use the final weapon, Samus must stand in a pool of Phazon while firing. And yes, as you can imagine, standing in one place leads to bad things if one is not careful. That said, the boss is totally helpless while taking damage, and the Fission Metroids it spawns can be one-shot killed with the phazon beam if you're willing to to aim it away from the boss.
    • Metroid Prime 2: Echoes features a similar weapon with a twist: when fighting Dark Samus at the end of the game, she'll occasionally release Phazon "sparks" that Samus must absorb using the charge beam in order to turn it into a Phazon blast, the only thing that can bypass Dark Samus's shield. It's really very annoying, mainly since the boss this weapon is used on has a strict time limit and comes directly after a long endurance match with the boss before, but at the same time, undeniably cool.
  • Atlas's Chrono-Cannon in Paladins: By holding down the shoot button, you charge up an attack, and once it's fully charged up it fires instantly, but the only difference between a charged and uncharged attack is the accuracy: if you just click once, the Chrono-Cannon fires a spray of bullets with strong recoil, but if you charge it up, it fires a single shot. In close quarters, it's more damaging to not charge your shots so you can shoot faster.
  • In PAYDAY 2, you can charge your melee attack to deal more damage and knockdown by holding your melee key. How much of each depends on the specific melee weapon you use and how long you charge the attack, and a few weapons don't benefit from charging at all.
  • Perfect Dark's Mauler pistol has a Secondary Fire that charges automatically. Just keep the secondary fire mode active, and it'll automatically start glowing red and consuming up to five rounds in the current clip. Pulling the trigger consumes one more round and fires a shot with added damage based on how many rounds were used to charge up beforehand, with a full charge likely being a One-Hit Kill.
  • Quarantine (1994) has the Fusion Boy gun which can be charged up by holding the fire button to deal major damage to vehicular Mooks, and certain vehicles can be destroyed in one hit from a fully charged blast. The drawback is that it uses up three energy cells for the charged attack, and it is next to useless during the boss fights, because it is too slow to be used effectively. The weapon is not available in arms dealer stop-and-shops until the second level.
  • Team Fortress 2:
    • The Medic has an Ubercharge meter for his mediguns that goes up by healing teammates. When it's full, it allows the user to make themselves and the healing target invulnerable to enemy attacks, giving his heal target Critical Hits, tripling his healing power and making both players immune to slowing or knockback, or making them immune to Critical Hits and giving them a 90% resistance against one type of damage (bullet, explosion, or fire) depending on the type of medigun.
    • The Soldier also has three charge-type bugles. They all charge by dealing damage, and provide bonuses to the Soldier and nearby allies when used. One grants extra damage; another reduces damage taken, and the third heals based on damage done, and gives a speed boost.
    • The Pyro has the Phlogistinator, which charges whenever he causes fire damage and can be unleashed to cause triple damage for a few seconds.
    • The Soda Popper for the Scout has a charging attack that builds up by dealing damage while wielding the Sawed-Off Shotgun. When the meter is full, you can activate it and have the ability to quintuple jump for a short while (like Double Jump, but 2.5 times better).
    • The sniper rifle and its various replacements act as charged weapons. A sniper must right-click to go into scoped mode (for rifles) or hold down the fire button (for the Huntsman) to charge up his primary weapon's damage. This is necessary to achieve the lethal headshot central to the class' play style, but it slows the Sniper down and often leaves him vulnerable due to a very narrow field of vision.
    • The Hitman's Heatmaker adds 'holding' type as well: as he acquires kills, the rifle charges a 'focus' meter which, when activated, removes the need to look away from the scope after firing and speeds up the charge rate of the weapon, making it more lethal.
    • Another weapon is the Soldier's Cow Mangler weapon, a Zeerust Ray Gun fired from the shoulder like a rocket launcher. The weapon's secondary-fire mode causes the soldier to slow down to a Heavy-like crawl and charge his launcher for three seconds before firing a large explosive blast at enemies.
      • Soldier also has the Beggar's Bazooka, which can be loaded with multiple projectiles (up to three normally - and more than this will cause a misfire - but it can be upgraded to fire considerably more at once in Mann Vs. Machine).
  • In TimeShift, the E.M.F. Cannon (which is essentially a full-auto plasma rifle) can be charged for a more powerful shot. At max charge it's the most powerful projectile in the game, and can gib any infantry enemy (even the toughest Superpowered Mooks) with one shot.

    MMORPG 
  • In Ace Online, the "Charged Shot" and "Hyper Shot" skills work work by toggling them to charge up automatically for a period of time, then toggling them again to release the charge. Firing prematurely will cancel the charge, similar to releasing the button prematurely with a hold-type charge.
  • In Champions Online, you use relatively weak "Energy Builder" attacks to build up your energy meter, then you can use that energy for more effective powers by holding down the button for that power to charge and release. Doing so partially depletes your energy meter so after one or two big attacks you have to go back to the weak ones to build up again.
  • Elsword:
    • Some of Chung's skills depend on how much ammo he has in his cannon. He can simply reload it manually or through doing certain attacks.
    • Some of Ara's skills require her to fill her Spirit Gauge first with Spirit Beads that she can acquire from either cancelling her skills into another, killing enemies (or dealing 9 hits) while in Super Mode, or some other means.
  • Nexus Clash unbundles its mana-charged attacks from any given weapon, though some are superior against a specific kind of target. Since they come from a single mana pool, they are used at the cost of chewing through resources needed for other actions such as portals, spells and flying.
  • The Secret World has weaker skills build up "resource" charges, which you can then spend to unleash more powerful skills. Blood Magic skills, however, can Cast from Hit Points instead if you want to pull something big off without building up charges.
  • Rogues from World of Warcraft build up points through use of several charge-up moves, and have several finishing moves whose effect becomes more powerful the more points have been built up.
  • In zOMG!, successfully using your rings (whether attack or support) or receiving damage from enemies fills up a "Rage" meter, which is divided into three segments. You can consume filled segments to use a higher "Rage Rank" version of a ring that increases the potency of its function. An update that rebalanced the rings made nearly all of them have additional effects at higher Rage Ranks. A following update also provided a clear indication of how many segments you or your party members currently have available.

    Platform Game 
  • Another World: Lester's gun has the ability to charge up into a powerful blast that can destroy a thick metal door in one shot or an energy barrier that can absorb enemies' shots.
  • COGEN: Sword of Rewind: As a playable character, Akasha can charge her attack. Her normal attack is a small bullet, but if you hold the attack button, she will charge it first into a large ball of energy, and then into a Wave-Motion Gun. Each charge stage costs a unit of energy to use, but it quickly recharges on its own, and Akasha has no other use for it anyway.
  • In Dustforce, the system is based on combo-counts. The bar charges up to 100 at which point the attack can be activated to wipe out all enemies and dust nearby.
  • In The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy, Fred can charge up his club swing to do more damage. Getting hit causes him to lose the charge, however.
  • In the Genocide series, you get to use an attack drone called Betty that can charged up for a powerful charged shot in eight directions.
  • In Iji, enemies have to use various kinds of charging to fire anything, while Iji is considered an terror to fight because her gun is a "preloader," meaning her gun reloads after firing instead of charging to fire when she pulls the trigger. Normal enemies have to use hold-type charges on most of their attacks. The final boss also has a "preloader," but has a collect-charged super-attack called Phantom Hammer, which collects shots that don't hit you and aren't reflected back at him and turns the gun into a one-hit KO beam cannon. Phantom Hammers are known to destroy spaceships in one hit, or blast through kilometres of rock.
  • The Lad in I Wanna Be the Guy: Gaiden can charge his gun into a larger and shinier shot, much like the original game's Final Boss.
  • In the original arcade version and Sega Genesis version of Joe & Mac (AKA Caveman Ninja), you can hold the attack button for Joe/Mac to charge up by spinning his arm and looking angry while doing so, then release it to throw a bigger version of whatever weapon he's using (including boomerangs, stone wheels, fireballs, and even clones of himself). If you hold it too long, he'll get tired afterwards.
  • Kirby Super Star has the Plasma ability, which can be charged to five different levels by mashing the directional pad. Kirbys Return To Dreamland lets the Spark ability build up a similar charge, this time by shaking the Wii Remote.
  • In The Legendary Axe, holding your attack button with the eponymous axe can release a charged swing that deals additional damage. This feature was oddly dropped in the sequel.
  • In Little Samson, Kikira's fire breath can be supercharged by holding down a button. The charging up is indicated by her body changing color.
  • Mega Man:
    • Mega Man (Classic):
      • Mega Man 2 features Heat Man's Atomic Fire, which Mega Man can charge before firing to increase its damage.
      • Mega Man 4 introduces the Mega Buster's ability to charge up powerful shots.
      • The Noise Crush from Mega Man 7 is a variant— Fire it at a wall and let it rebound back to you to charge yourself up, then you can fire out a stronger, faster shot.
    • Mega Man X:
      • The Arm part of whatever armor usually grants the ability to charge the special weapons, in addition to making the default charged buster harder, better, faster, stronger. Bonus upgrades to the default charged buster include the ability to charge a second shot and keep it in reserve or fire it alongside the first for a 1-2 punch that ignores Mercy Invincibility.
      • In Mega Man X2, X's Armor Upgrade gains the ability to absorb enemy fire to fill up a bar. When filled, X can release a screen-filling discharge that instantly destroys most minor enemies. This became a staple of the series two games later.
      • Interestingly, in Mega Man X3, after getting the upgrade for the arm part upgrade (not a typo) or the Gold Armor, taking damage fills up a meter which allows for using Charged Shots without needing to charge. Sadly, the Hyper Buster isn't all that useful, due to the downgrades it received from the previous game.
  • In the Mega Man Zero series, Zero gains the ability to charge all of his melee weapons in addition to his buster.
  • In Mega Man ZX, Vent/Aile can charge all their Biometals' weapons to perform different moves. Gaining both halves of the split the Four Guardian Biometals adds a secondary charge attack, while Model X gets the Double Charge Shot X used to have from the start.
  • The Messenger (2018): One of the higher tier upgrades gives the Messenger a charge attack that deals triple damage. Unlike many charge attacks this one is passive, automatically charging as long as you're not attacking.
  • Brandish's abilities for Beck and RAY in Mighty No. 9 have a charge attack or two between the two characters. Beck can charge up power to perform a spin attack to deflect surrounding bullets and attack enemies, but will cause Beck to become dizzy unless the player cancels the attack by dashing, or a Helm Splitter attack while mid-air by holding Down before releasing the Attack button, but attack can leave him open upon landing. RAY on the other hand has a screen-clearing special attack, the Bloody Squall, which deals damage to enemies on screen and its attack power is dependent on how much 100% absorption combos the player was able to build.
  • Every weapon in Purple is used by pressing and releasing the attack button, with the weapon's effect determined by how long you hold the button beforehand. Your basic frisbee for example will fly further before returning the more charged it is.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • Sonic Adventure: Sonic can use the Light Speed Attack at any time once he finds the Ancient Light; he has to charge it up by holding a Spin Dash for as long as possible beforehand.
    • Sonic Lost World: Aside from being able to lock onto multiple enemies at once, the Homing Attack can also lock onto a single enemy up to six times to do more damage.
  • Super Mario Bros.
    • In Mario Strikers Charged, charging the ball is often essential to scoring normal goals, and activating skillshots and megastrikes requires the player in possession to charge the ball as well.
    • In Super Paper Mario, Luigi has a charged jumping attack, which goes back further than that. It started with Super Mario Bros. 2 (US), where every character can power up their jump by ducking.
  • Super Monkey Ball's Monkey Fight is a multiplayer sumo-like minigame where you can charge your fist before punching — a good smack can send opponents flying out of the ring.
  • Target Acquired (2016): Holding down the "shoot" function will cause Yura to charge up a shot on her gun. Releasing it will fire the shot.
  • Wallachia: Reign of Dracula: You can make Elcin fire charged arrow shots by holding down the "fire arrow" button before releasing it.
  • In X-Men 2: Clone Wars, Cyclops's Eye Beams, Gambit's card attack, Nightcrawler's teleportation and Magneto's orbs can be supercharged by holding down the A button. With Cyclops and Gambit it results in a larger beam/more cards thrown and higher damage. For Nightcrawler and Magnito, it instead controlls how far the attack travels. Other X-Men lack charged attacks.

    Real-Time Strategy 
  • In Battle Pirates, sequential hits from Impulse Launcher weapons build up a charge on the enemy that unleashes an area-of-effect shockwave when it reaches its maximum level.
  • Battle Zone 1998 has the MAG cannon, which can only be fired by charging. As the weapon is charged, the amount of projectiles per charge stage decrease as level in damage and ammo cost increases, going from a small, machine gun-like burst to a giant orb of destruction. In the sequel, Battlezone II: Combat Commander, the MAG has two variants: the "combat" variant functions like a shotgun, but gains range, damage, and accuracy as it is charged up. The "assault" variant is a burst fire weapon much like the first game, machine gun-like burst to massive projectile
  • Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time: The Citron's attack takes a long time to charge, but when it's ready, it fires out a very powerful shot at the enemy.
  • Starcraft II: In the first game, Void Rays' damage increases the longer the Void Ray keeps firing, keeping the charge long enough to switch to a new target. In multiplayer, this is replaced by an active ability giving more damage to armored enemies.

    Rhythm Game 
  • Guitar Hero:
    • Groups of "star" notes; hit all of them and you get a quarter of your Star Power meter filled. Additional star power is gained by whammying any sustain notes in the group. Once your meter is at least half full, you can enable Star Power.
    • Rock Band does the same thing with a twist: in addition to adding Overdrive power for each group of glowing notes, on occasion the band will all get glowing notes at the same time. If everyone hits the notes, they all get an extra quarter bar of Overdrive power. Otherwise, it's the same as Star Power, but the vocalist gets no benefits from the unison bonus.

    Roguelike 
  • The Binding of Isaac:
    • Two items make your attacks chargeable: Brimstone, which fires an infinite-range beam of what is presumably blood after holding down the fire button for a short while; and Chocolate Milk, which deals damage based on how long you charge it for, a la Metroid.
    • Rebirth adds Monstro's Lung, which lets you charge an attack for a shotgun-like burst of tears. Fatal if combined with the aforementioned Chocolate Milk.

    Role-Playing Game 
  • Absented Age: Squarebound: Some actions, such as Astrake's Vastel Rush and Karen's extra Summonstone action, require the player to hold down B to charge the skill to one or two levels. However, this will still activate the default skill first unless the player also holds down L before holding down B, which skips the default action.
  • All three heroes of the Bound in Bound by Blades can release a charged slash or stab by holding down the attack button and releasing it.
  • Chantelise: Some elemental crystals say: "[Hold button for power-attack]", which, if done, changes the effect of the attack into one that corresponds to the element of the crystal and changes the attack animation.
  • In Dark Chronicle, Max and Monica can charge their melee attacks by holding down the attack button.
  • Diablo II has a separate tree of Assassin skills which can be charged and then released with a normal attack. Effects vary from life and mana leech to area-affecting Elemental Punches, and can be applied all at once.
  • In both campaigns of Eastern Exorcist, you can hold down the attack button and release a charged slash, either with your jian (for players using Lu Yun-chuan) or nagitata (players using Xiahou-xue). It deals far greater damage than regular slashes, and it's even called "Charged Attack" in-game.
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:
    • Once you've gotten a hold of two or all three words of a Dragon Shout, holding the Shout button gives you either a more powerful or a different effect. Let's use the Unrelenting Force Shout as an example: tapping the Shout button gives you "Fus!", which briefly staggers your opponents. Holding it for a second or two gives you "Fus Ro!", which knocks them down. Holding it for a few more seconds gives you FUS RO DAH!, which sends your opponents flying across the room (or off a cliff).
    • More mundanely, if you're using a melee weapon, holding down the attack button lets you use a more-powerful power attack, at the cost of some stamina (and the time you used to charge up the attack).
    • Most magic spells need to be charged before they can be used. Wards take a few seconds to appear. All healing spells except the basic Healing and Healing Hands require a brief charge-up period, and all Destruction spells except for the basic Novice-level ones have to be charged. As a result, the Master-level Destruction spells are Awesome, but Impractical: they're slow to charge (at least 10 seconds, which is plenty of time to get killed), use up truly massive amounts of magicka, require both hands to cast (no Dual Wielding for you!) and, unlike all of the lower-level spells, you can't move while casting them. Most damningly of all, the damage isn't that much better than, say, a dual-cast Firebolt spell, which uses a fraction of the magicka, and, with the Impact perk, has the added advantage of staggering every enemy you use it on.
  • In Eternal Sonata, each attack builds up "Echoes," which make special attacks deal more damage. At the highest party level, this allows multiple characters to use special attacks together on the same turn, frequently allowing each party member to attack the enemy six times (two special attacks on each of the three party members' turns) before it gets a chance to fight back.
  • Fable series:
    • Ranged attacks become more powerful the longer you hold down the attack button. In Fable II, the longbows are replaced with firearms, but now, instead of a magic bar, all the spells are charged attacks.
    • You can also "charge" a firearm after getting the level three ranged combat ability: the longer you aim at a target, the closer you'll zoom in to the enemy, and the closer you zoom in, the more damage you do. This can even be used to kill extremely powerful enemies in one shot. A possible exploit exists in that you can, using a flintlock (one-shot) weapon, fire repeatedly and continue to zoom in between shots, thereby increasing the amount of damage each successive shot causes.
  • Fallout:
    • In Fallout 3, every melee attack can be charged by holding down the button for half a second. This produces a larger swing and a war cry.
    • The Laser Musket from Fallout 4 is a single-shot weapon that has to be manually cranked. It does fairly decent damage with just the one crank, so say if you're fighting a gang of raiders and need to crank out a lot of shots, it gets the job done. However, it is unique in that it can be cranked from two to six additional times depending on how you mod it, adding another power cell with each crank. In other words, cranking the weapon six times fires one shot with six times the normal damage. It's a versatile weapon in the early stages and later on it's one of the best sniper rifles in the game, capable of one-shotting practically anything from extreme ranges.
  • In Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark, the Sorcerer class’s "Eruptor" passive gives them a stacking bonus to the damage of their next attack for each turn that they don’t attack beforehand.
  • Pretty much every Final Fantasy game since Final Fantasy VII has had some type of charge-up uber attack meter.
    • Final Fantasy X has Overdrive moves, which require filling a meter. What exactly fills the meter can be selected for each character (such as attacking, being attacked, healing allies, etc).
    • Final Fantasy XII has besides obligatory Limit Break (this time in form of Quickenings requiring MP or Mist Charges depending on the version) a combo of Knot of Rust — Dark Matter. Knots of Rust are basically rocks that you throw at enemies, but number you use raises the damage of Dark Matter you use afterwards, so with a lot of Knots of Rust used you can hit the maximum damage with Dark Matter of 60k. Of course using Dark Matter will reset everything to beginning. There is also Esper Shemhazai with his Devour Soul and Soul Purge attacks, which are equivalent of Knot of Rust, resp. Dark Matter, and yes, they effect each other so you can also charge Dark Matter with Devour Soul or Soul Purge with Knots of Rust.
    • Final Fantasy XVI: The abilities Windup, Upheaval and Brimstone can be charged up, filling up a gauge, and are most powerful if unleashed on the red part of the gauge.
  • God Eater Burst gives any blade-wielding God Eater a hold-to-charge devour attack to have your Living Weapon take a big bite out of the enemy to unleash your Super Mode. Also, buster blades have the Charge Crush move, which involves a viciously powerful overhead swing with a sword the size of a canoe.
  • In .hack//G.U., there is a meter that builds up over the course of many fights. When it's full, the player may use Awakening, which is usually powerful enough to wipe out an entire team of Mooks in one shot. Performing combos, Rengeki attacks, and healing teammates all contribute to the meter. A lone player cannot use Awakening... there must be at least one other person in the party.
  • Hearts Like Clockwork: Both player characters and enemies have the ability to spend a turn focusing, which manifests as a stackable status buff. Not only will this boost their next action, some skills require the character to be focused. However, some skills, like Rin's Stunning Blow, can remove the focus buff.
  • Knights in the Nightmare requires you to hold the item on the knight (hold your stylus on screen) to charge a skill, even longer for a Hi-Skill.
  • In Magicka you can charge rocks to launch them further. This can be very useful when anticipating an enemy caster appearing as you can kill them right off the bat and not have to deal with them later.
  • Weapons in Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals have individual charge attack sets, which can be special melee attacks based on the weapon or magic attacks. Each character also has a unique "charged special" attack. Despite the name, charged attacks don't need to be charged for a period of time, but do inflict greater damage if charged.
  • Mass Effect:
    • Several of the heavy weapons (most notably the Cain) in Mass Effect 2 need to be charged for a few seconds before firing. Also, the Downloadable Content Geth Plasma Shotgun has this as its Secondary Fire.
    • Optionally chargeable weapons have become more common in Mass Effect 3, with multiple chargeable shotguns and a chargeable pistol in the core game, as well as the Chakram Launcher (a promotional item), which is a chargeable assault rifle. There's also a sniper rifle (the Javelin) that has a mandatory short charging period before it fires.
  • Minecraft Dungeons: Holding the button to attack with your ranged weapon allows you to charge the attack and deal more damage, but only when using a bow. Enchantments like Overcharge and Supercharge can make the attack stronger.
  • Monster Hunter:
  • In Nostalgia (Red Entertainment) the Orb (Fiona's airship weapon) can charge up, missing the turn but gaining more damage next shot. It can be done several times.
  • Odin Sphere:
    • Mercedes can fire a spray of homing shots with her bow. Velvet can also fire off her chain to attack enemies from a distance.
    • In the remake, almost all the playable characters gain a skill that requires them to charge the attack before releasing it.
  • The Charge ability in the Paper Mario series grants the user a boost to the damage of their next attack. It can be used repeatedly to keep increasing the damage boost and turns multi-hitting attacks into game breakers. Some enemies and bosses also have access to this ability, and some species such as Goombas and Clefts have “hyper” varieties.
  • Path of Exile:
    • Vaal skill gems give a special version of an active skill that requires soul charges to activate, which are gained by killing enemies and hitting bosses.
    • Some channeling skills have a stronger effect when unleashed the longer it's charged, like Flameblast and Scourge Arrow.
    • Many channeling skills have both an effect that occurs while channeling and after it's released. For example, Storm Burst summons orbs of lightning that move towards where you point your cursor that shock enemies, and releasing it detonates them for additional damage.
  • In Phantasy Star Zero, charging the Basic or Heavy Attack yields a Photon Art—a specialized technique dependent on the currently-equipped weapon. Charging techniques yields an altered version that is usually meant for crowd control or group augmentation. For example, Foie flies straight ahead and fries the first thing in its path, but Rafoie lobs a fireball over the enemy ranks and fries everything in the blast zone. Alternately, Anti treats the status effects the user may be suffering short of Paralyze or Freeze, but Alanti does the same to the group and revives anyone in range, though only at 1HP. If you're going to use this to revive folks, then invest in Star Atomizers or Alresta.
  • Pokémon:
    • The moves SolarBeam, Sky Attack, Skull Bash, and Razor Wind require a turn of charging before use. The hold item Power Herb eliminates this charge-up turn. In sunlight, SolarBeam does not require a charge-up turn, while in other weather (rain, sandstorm, hail), it does half damage.
    • The move Charge boosts the power of electric moves on the subsequent turn; the move Charge Beam has a high change of boosting special attack, indirectly making it a charge-up attack.
    • Focus Punch is an unusual example of this in that the attack does execute on the same turn, but only at the very end unless the opponent uses a lower priority move such as Whirlwind or Trick Room. It still fits this in spirit, since the move indicates that the mon is tightening its focus to channel energy into the punch, but if it is hit by a damaging attack, the move fails since it lost focus.
    • In the Pokémon Ranger games, you eventually get the option to hold your "Styler" in place on the touchscreen and let it charge up. Afterwards, you can draw circles around the enemy with an increased power, making them easier to capture. It can be difficult to pull off, though, as enemy Pokemon can easily break the charge by so much as stepping on the spot, let alone attacking it.
    • Charged attacks in certain Pokémon GO battles, such as Team Rocket battles, require the player to rapidly sweep or tap the screen to collect energy after they’re selected. The more energy collected, the stronger the attack will be. And each of the battlers has two shields that can be used to block the attack.
  • In Sacred Odyssey: Rise of Ayden, the Golden Fist of Brakor. Hold and release for a supercharged punch that sends orcs and kobolds flying into a pulp, and you can even use it to destroy otherwise impenetrable barriers.
  • The Shin Megami Tensei series has no particular attack that by itself can be charged, but the Charge / Focus / Power Charge and Concentrate / Mind Charge skills allow the player to lose a turn in exchange for having the next physical or magical attack respectively do at least twice as much damage. Various bosses similarly have attacks that require them to skip a turn, allowing for a devastating attack but also the chance for the player to properly defend themselves during the free turn.
  • Tales of Vesperia:
    • Karol can utilize a charge of this nature. Once his weapon is fully charged, it powers up the next attack he uses in ways that vary arte to arte, such as increasing the number of hits, increasing the duration of the debuff it applies, or increasing the range. A particular skill causes his charge to last for a certain amount of time rather then for a single attack, which drastically increases his destructive potential.
  • The Tiamat Sacrament:
    • Breath skills take several turns to set up because Az'uar has to inhale runes. While there are skills to allow Az'uar to inhale faster, these skills still take more time to pull off than normal skills.
    • Kelburn's Rune Blade skills also rely on Az'uar inhaling runes, though his skills have a higher damage multiplier, even for triple element skills.

    Shoot'Em-Up 
  • Andro Dunos allows the player to release a powerful blue blast by holding down the firing button.
  • Area Flat III has a variation- your Wave-Motion Gun charges when you are not attacking. When you are attacking, you fire your Wave-Motion Gun until your charge meter runs out, after which you revert back to your standard attack.
  • In Brood Star, the L.F.G. module makes enemies drop a special Ammo pickup on death. Every time the player collects 30 units of this ammo, they will automatically fire a green energy ball that slowly travels to the far end of the screen, zapping nearby enemies with arcs of lightning for heavy damage.
  • Coryoon allows your eponymous dragon to breath a concentrated energy blast by holding down the attack button. It can be upgraded with the game's elemental-based powerups — for instance, combine it with "Fire" and you'll breath a fiery tornado.
  • Cube Colossus: Overdrives are charged over time.
  • In Elemental Master, all of the player's elemental attacks can be charged up for an ultimate attack by holding down the fire button, though the basic light weapon only gains this as an 11th-Hour Superpower.
  • Fraxy's Charge Blaster. Charge it and you get a big blaster shot. Overcharge it and you get a star-like blaster shot that explodes several times before dissipating.
  • Ikaruga has a special attack charged by absorbing like-polarity bullets.
  • In Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony, Virginia Dare's conveyance automatically charges up orbs of energy which she can fire at the press of the button, even when firing her standard projectiles, the orbs being more powerful the more you let them grow before firing.
  • Medicalat has the Burst attack, which you gather energy for by letting go of the fire button so your cyborg nurse can use her syringe to absorb small bullets and the explosions of certain enemies, damage enemies that touch it and drain energy from shots that can't be absorbed. When the Burst is used, every enemy shot onscreen is absorbed for more energy, and a stream of big blasts is fired until the Burst gauge runs out. The gauge turns red when it's completely full, because if you absorb too much energy, you'll overcharge and take damage. If you can beat one of the bosses without using Burst (continuing to fire a Burst you already started is okay as long as you don't use it again during the fight), you'll get a Convert capsule which uses whatever Burst energy you have to refill your health.
  • In a PC Engine shoot-em-up, Override, if you let go of the fire button, your ship will charge up energy on its own. If you let it charge for three seconds, pressing the fire button unleashes an enormous barrage of fireballs with an equivalent amount of power to a Smart Bomb. What really makes it overpowered is that there's no limit on how often you can use this weapon, except that sometimes you won't have a chance to charge it up while a large amount of enemies are attacking.
  • Project: Horned Owl have the players given the ability to fire somewhere between five to two dozen shots at the same time, by holding the fire button and releasing when needed. This burns up almost an entire clip of ammunition, however, and players must quickly reload before they can take damage.
  • Your ship in Radiant Silvergun can collect pink bullets with its sword which fills up a bar. When the bar is full, a very powerful hyper sword attack can be activated.
  • In Recca, your Smart Bomb starts charging up when you don't attack with your primary weapon. Infinite smart bombs — you're oh so gonna need them. As the bomb charges, an aura grows in front of your ship and blocks bullets, which is especially essential in Zanki Attack, in which all enemies fire back bullets when destroyed.
  • Inverted in Robot Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar: The beams get weaker as time goes on, and you need to wait for the gauge to refill completely in order for the beams to be useful.
  • R-Type series:
    • Delta and Final have the Dose Attack / Delta Weapon, a smart bomb charged by absorbing shots with the Force Device.
    • Wave Cannon is an extremely powerful weapon designed to give the player a better chance than the standard popgun when they lose their powerups on death.
    • Similarly, some of Taito's lesser-known shooters feature the collection of power-ups (Metal Black) or absorbing of enemy shots (Grid Seeker) to power up a large-scale laser beam/bombardment attack.
  • The Melnorme spaceship in Star Control 2 has a charge attack that changes colors as it builds up. The "red" projectile is extremely powerful, and can fly through pretty much everything but a planet. Moreover, the charging attack is manifested as a globe at the front of the ship, which can be used as a sort of shield against incoming attacks—nothing except a collision with another ship/planet/asteroid will destroy a red globe, and having it collide with another ship is the almost the same as firing it. When you're holding down the button and something hits the red globe, the game deletes the red globe and does damage. However, since the ship now isn't charging a shot, on the next cycle, since you're still holding down the button, a green ball (lowest charge) will appear in front of your ship. Right where the enemy ship just collided. Therefore, the enemy ship, unless it's moving really fast, is still there, and thus was just hit with another shot. Basically, if you ram an enemy with the shot fully charged, you will not only do the normal massive damage that the full charge does, but also get 3-5 subsequent low-charge shots in as well. So ramming the enemy ship isn't a bad tactic, when you can pull it off.
  • In the Star Fox series, charged shots are a staple ability, and can also lock-on to most enemies. In Command, one of the several characteristics of the various ships is the lock-on system, which can be non-existant, lock onto the same target multiple times or lock onto multiple targets. Leon's ship has a rather weak laser, but a quick charge that locks onto every enemy on screen.
  • In Touhou Kaeidzuka ~ Phantasmagoria of Flower View/Touhou Yumejikuu ~ Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream, you can unleash a charged attack while still attacking normally, effectively damaging more. In case of Youmu, her charged attack will vanish some danmaku above her; Youmu also has a charged attack in Ten Desires, in focused mode, unleashing an increasing series of sword slashes above her.

    Simulation Game 
  • In From the Depths, Advanced Cannons can be augmented with magnetic rails. The railgun can be fired at any time when a shell is loaded, but its velocity boosting effect is based on how much charge the railgun's batteries have, which are gradually topped off by charging units using engine power. Designing a ship with more chargers per battery pack can reduce the charging time at the cost of increased engine power drain.
  • Wing Commander Prophecy has the Charging Mass Driver, exclusively mounted on the Tigershark medium fighter and the Shrike bomber. Fully charged, depending on the enemy fighter, it can either take out its shields or destroy it outright if you're lucky.
  • X3 Terran Conflict and its expansion pack feature several capital ship weapons, such as the Point Singularity Projector and the Photon Pulse Cannon, which are fired in salvos by ship turrets. When under the control of the player, the weapons can be charged up to deal huge amounts of damage, at the cost of draining significant amounts of weapon energy and the inability to use the assisted-aiming mode.

    Sports Game 
  • In the Kunio-kun hockey game Ike Ike! Nekketsu Hockey-bu, shots can be charged up by holding a button until the stick begins to glow. Powerfully charged shots can knock players right out of the rink.

    Survival Horror 
  • In Alien: Isolation, the boltgun differs from other weapons Amanda can find in that it must be charged by holding down the fire button and then fired by releasing it, or charging it for a few seconds so it will automatically release a bolt that can kill even very durable Working Joes with one headshot. It must also be reloaded after every shot.
  • In Silent Hill 4, Henry can build power to strike with a strong attack, but can also build charge over consecutive strikes to end a combo with a strong attack. The amount of charge time needed is proportional to the weight of the weapon at hand.

    Third-Person Shooter 
  • Jak II: Renegade has the dark eco meter. Dark eco is obtained by defeating non-human enemies. When it's full, the player can use Dark Jak and gain powerful area of effect attacks.
  • The Railgun-type weapons of Metal Wolf Chaos can be used to fire a single shot at the enemies, but by holding down the Fire button, the players can expend the Boost Meter to charge up energy into the railgun to make the shots much more powerful.
  • The Zappflies in Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath: Leave them loaded and don't fire, and the double-barreled crossbow will become electrified after about a second. This charged state is needed to activate certain switches and hunt other types of live ammo.
  • Postal 2 has the Rocket Launcher. Holding down the fire button will fuel the rockets, which lets him launch rockets that move faster and further before dropping out of the sky, at the cost of some more of his rocket fuel. When you fill the fuel meter all the way, you activate a seeking rocket that moves at about the same speed as tapping the button, but follows a target for quite some distance.
  • S4 League brings us the Cannonade and the Rail Gun, which do massive damage when fully charged but as a result make them very slow firing weapons, more suited for sniping than close-range combat. Reinforcing this purpose is the zoom feature both of these weapons get.
  • Splatoon:
    • Charger-type weapons are sniper rifles that cover a large and thin area in front of the player that increases the longer the attack is charged. These weapons are instant splats at max charge.
    • Splatling weapons are gatling guns that work by pressurizing ink and wind up the weapon via a charge time, with longer charges giving longer bursts of fire. These weapons have superb reach and fire rate at the cost of the ability to fire immediately and continuously.
  • Warframe features several weapons which charge up when holding down the fire button and shoot when releasing itnote , providing better effects when the charge meter is full. Weapons that use this mechanism include bows, the Lanka sniper rifle, the Miter disc launcher, the Drakgoon flak cannon and the Opticor laser cannon (which fires automatically when the charge meter is full). Bows like Cinta and Nataruk also reward precise timing by dealing extra damage when releasing an arrow during a small window in the charge meter.

    Wide-Open Sandbox 
  • In How to Survive, charged attacks can be performed with melee weapons. While it takes a while to swing, the resultant hit will kill weaker zombies outright and stagger all but most powerful, allowing for a Finishing Move.
  • [PROTOTYPE] allows you to charge Alex's attacks and jump. For seamless movement, the jump charge can be readied while sprinting.

    Unsorted 
  • In Cobra, you can hold down the shoot button before releasing to unload an explosive bolt that penetrates covers, easily taking out multiple mooks at the same time or destroying enemies in tricky, hard-to-reach positions.
  • In Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey, holding down the magic button will let you cast a powerful area attack.
  • Many endgame weapons in Event Horizon fire only charged attacks. They require continuous energy intake while charging, and releasing the attack button while not yet fully charged will fire a weaker version of that attack, with proportionally decreased range and damage. Running out of energy or being hit by EMP will also interrupt charging.
  • In the Irem Arcade Game Ken-Go, the basic sword attack can be powered up by multiple levels by holding down the attack button. The player character holds the sword in a blocking position as it charges up.
  • In Swords, you build up the character's spiritual energy and unleash it, providing you can get the attack in before your opponent hits you.

    Non-Video Game Examples 
  • Academy of Superheroes: Arc charges up her superstrength and speed by absorbing kinetic energy — including her own.
  • PPC capacitors and bombast lasers (the latter a canon immigrant from MechWarrior 4) in BattleTech. A PPC with a capacitor attached can still be fired normally or the capacitor can instead be charged by holding fire for a turn, boosting the next shot's power and heat buildup (with an additional small chance of blowing up the weapon). Bombast lasers are safer and can both fire every turn and be more finely tuned, but their firing delay if used on anything other than the lowest setting instead translates into an increasing to-hit penalty.
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • The 3.5 Edition's Player Handbook 2 has the spell Channeled Fireblast. You can select different casting times when casting (Instant, Standard Action, Full Round Action, Two Full Round Actions), with it gaining larger damage dice and a wider area of effect the longer you take.
    • 5e has Delayed Explosion Fireball, which increases its damage based on how many turns it goes without having exploded. It lasts a minute, and stores an extra d6 of damage for each turn it hasn't exploded for (turns being about six seconds long In-Universe), for up to 10d6 worth of added damage on top of the base.
  • Turning a Noble Phantasm into a Broken Phantasm in Fate/stay night requires sending massive amounts of prana into it, more than it can hold. However, for most Heroic Spirits, this is Awesome, but Impractical, as while it is nearly impossible to survive being struck by a Broken Phantasm, it destroys their main method of fighting. For Archer, however, it's no sacrifice, as his Broken Phantasms are mere disposable copies of the genuine articles, and he chiefly uses them as cheap-but-surprisingly-powerful projectiles rather than trying to fight with them the traditional way.
  • One Green Lantern issue has an Alien Invasion underway upon a populace of human-like natives. Their local superhero is unable to damage the main warship. The two Green Lanterns sent to the scene can thwart the alien robot drones, but can't attack the warship directly because it's yellow. Their solution: one Green Lantern energizes the local superhero, whose attack comes from a power pack on his back channeling energy into his gauntlets, which he shoots at the huge warship in low orbit. The warship bugs out after suddenly taking rollicking damage.
  • In GURPS, a mage can charge up a magical projectile by holding onto it for a few seconds and adding extra energy.
  • In Hunter × Hunter, Phinks's Ripper Cyclotron is a wind-up punch. Each time he winds up a full circle, the next punch he throws gets stronger, topping out at 16 times.
  • The planeswalkers from Magic: The Gathering can use one ability a turn, some of which increase loyalty, while the more powerful ones decrease it, and with very few exceptions, must 'charge' for several turns before they can use their 'ultimate' ability.
  • In the Mutants & Masterminds supplement Mecha & Manga, combo attacks allow characters to make moves that accumulate points to be used for powerful attacks and the Charge Power flaw makes a power less expensive by requiring it to be built up one rank at a time over a course of rounds.
  • My Hero Academia: The Fa Jin Quirk enables its user to accumulate kinetic energy through repeated movements and release it in the form of an explosive burst. Izuku Midoriya inherited the Quirk from the third user of One For All.
  • King Elizabello II in One Piece has to spend an hour to charge up his mighty King Punch, but the results will well reflect this.
  • Temeraire: Celestial dragons' Super-Scream power can shatter stone by default, but by roaring repeatedly and building up constructive interference, they can unleash a final attack powerful enough to raise a wave that sinks an entire fleet of ships.
  • Certain spells in Warhammer Fantasy can be charged instead of unleashed right away, with Meteor being among the most notable examples. The longer it is charged, the larger its AoE becomes, which may eventually result in half or more of the table being hit when the thing finally arrives.
  • The Web Serial Novel Worm has a few examples:
    • Battery is a superhero who can gain super-speed, super-strength, and super-durability in bursts after charging up.
    • The superhero Prism has a similar ability where she splits into three selves then gets a temporary hit of super-strength, speed and durability when they rejoin into one.
  • The Real Life practice of "cooking" a hand grenade (holding it for a few seconds before throwing) can increase the attack power if it causes the bomb to go off in midair, as airbursts are typically more effective than the same weapon detonating on the ground.

 

Alternative Title(s): Charge Attack

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Splatoon 2 - Splat Charger

The Splat Charger has to be charged up before use, but it unleashes a powerful blast of ink at full charge.

How well does it match the trope?

4.88 (8 votes)

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Main / ChargedAttack

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