Charge Meter

A close cousin to the Mana Meter, the Charge Meter is an indicator of how long you've held down a particular button in order to build up to the capability to perform a special, powerful action, usually a more powerful form of attack.

Often it isn't even a meter per se, but simply the character glowing or flashing faster or brighter as you hold down the button. Often also has an audio component, usually a sound effect that rises in pitch as the charge builds. Unless the player has an Invulnerable Attack, the Meter can be reset with Collision Damage.

Examples of Charge Meter include:

• In Metroid, Samus Aran's arm cannon charges in almost the exact same fashion as Mega Man's buster.
  • The Metroid Prime games not only include the glowing cannon but also include an actual meter around your target.
  • In Super Smash Bros., a ball of energy charges up on the tip of the cannon. The larger it gets, the stronger it grows.
  • Metroid: Other M gives Samus an actual meter and enhancements that increase her weapon charging speed.
• Secret of Mana is an example of this actually being in meter form, though combined with the Sprint Meter.
  • In Secret of Evermore, after getting the Jaguar Ring, charging at least three levels and then sprinting allows you to run indefinitely.
  • Legend of Mana, the super attack at the end of the charge meter could go to Limit Break levels depending on which item you had and how much Item Crafting you had done. Or you could use Blackpearl as your NPC assistant as her synchro ability immediately fills your charge bar and spam super moves at will.
  • In Children of Mana, holding down one of the weapon buttons will charge up a special attack, such as sending the flail in a straight line to push an object towards the character. Collision Damage will stop the charge and the special attack.
• The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past had a spark travel up the length of Link's sword as he charged up for a Spin Attack.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess did the reverse, with a spark to indicate the Spin Attack recharging after it was performed, in order to show when it could be used again. This was in lieu of the previous mainstay in the 3-D Zelda games of using Magic Power to perform an upgraded Spin Attack.
    • However, in the Game Cube version of the game, this is not the case. It's the standard B-button-charge as it always has been, and the spark appears when the Spin Attack is completely charged.
• In the U.S. version of Super Mario Bros. 2, when the player holds down on the directional pad, Mario (or whichever character the player controls) flashes while preparing for a super jump. This ability is also present in the GBA versions of the original Mario Bros. that come in GBA Mario games.
  • In Super Mario Bros 3, there is a meter that builds up depending on how long you run. Run long enough and, with the right power up, you can fly for short periods.
• Holding the trigger of the plasma pistol in Halo makes the gun glow more and shake. At its highest setting, it will completely drain any shield, even a fully-charged overshield. It also gains some tracking.
  • In Halo 3, a fully-charged plasma pistol can also temporarily immobilize any vehicle it hits.
• The Bryar Blaster Pistol in Star Wars: Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight and its sequel Jedi Outcast can be charged with the right mouse button. The effect is pretty much the same as before: the pistol shakes, and an energy orb appears at the muzzle.
  • The DL-44 in Jedi Academy has this, as it is pretty much the same weapon as Outcast's Bryar.
• The Gauss cannon in Half Life can also be charged. When doing so, the muzzle starts spinning, the weapon starts humming, and you can see your energy gauge decreasing. Hold it for too long, though, and the cannon will backfire and hurt you.
• In Descent the Fusion Cannon is charged this way. It starts making noises and the screen turns purple, then yellow, then white. At that point you better let the weapon fire, as it starts making banging noises and damaging your shield.
• The R-Type series is one of the first shmups to let the normal shot charge up. Usually, it's not really worth it to use the normal shot on anything but the weakest of enemies. Taken to the logical extreme in R-Type Final with the Giga Wave Cannon that has 7 charge levels and takes 45 seconds to be charged fully during which you need to rely entirely on dodging enemies, but in return you're rewarded with a shot as big as the screen that takes out any boss in a single hit regardless of difficulty level. It's also the methoid used to finish off the Big Bad in the default ending.
• In Devil May Cry, equipping an elemental weapon (such as Alastor the lightning sword) allowed you to charge your gunshots with energy. Also, the flame gauntlets allow you to charge every attack for added damage. The prequel Devil May Cry 3 assigned the gun charging to the Gunslinger class, and also allowed you to charge its gauntlet weapon, Beowulf.
  • In Devil May Cry 4, Nero's "Red Queen" sword has a motor in it designed to super heat the edge, activated by repeatedly pressing a button or using a precise input to unleash powered up versions of his regular moves. There is a meter next to the health bar to keep track of this. Similarly, Nero's double-barrelled revolver "Blue Rose" can be upgraded with charge capability to let it knock the enemy back/set them on fire/cause a shockwave. This is done with a more traditional "hold the button down" input, and the glow surrounding the Devil Bringer changes colour according to the level of charge achieved.
• Jehuty in Zone of the Enders can charge up its dash and burst shots; the dash shot locks onto more targets and shoots more homing lasers the longer the button is held, while the burst shot grows larger.
• In the Hurricane Pack Downloadable Content upgrades to Ninja Gaiden, Ryu's ultimate attacks could be charged up (whereas in the original version of the remake they could only be used by sucking in orbs from dead enemies) to two or three levels, and every time you hit another level it was accompanied by a sudden burst of energy and a sound effect, with the final level indicated by a change of color in the energy Ryu was absorbing from his surroundings. This ability carried over to the two Updated Rereleases and the sequel.
• In Street Fighter 3, one of Ryu's super moves lets him charge his Hadoken. The bigger you make it the harder it is to dodge, but you give your opponent more time to prepare/interrupt you. The upside to this is his fireball is unblockable and generates a very high amount of stun.
  • Sakura's Hadoken had a similar property in the Alpha series, where hammering the punch button while "charging" the fireball would result in a large and more damaging (but much shorter range) blast.
• The railgun, gained late in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, has a charge meter. At its highest setting, it will kill anything in one shot.
• Fable I has one for the bow, but it doesn't have an in-game indicator; Instead, the longer you hold it, the more intensely the controller vibrates. It's interesting to note that this charge meter doesn't have an upper limit either, so if you, say, hold the button down and surf the internet for 5 minutes before finally releasing the arrow, it will kill anything in one shot.
  • Fable II will slowly zoom in on your target when you hold down the button.
• Another World lets you charge your gun by holding the fire button. A small blue ball appears at the end of the barrel which turns into a shield if the fire button is released, otherwise it turns into a larger blue ball which results in a devastating (but highly draining) Wave Motion Gun-esque blast.
• The Gundam vs. Series gained Charged Attacks in Alliance Vs. ZAFT, with the Charge Meter located on the ammunition indicator for the weapon to which it was linked. In return for infinite ammunition and high damage, these attacks tend to force the Mobile Suit to stay still for a second or two. One common strategy is to mostly charge the meter, release to fire a normal shot, then press and hold the button again and quickly snap off a charge attack.
• Geno of Super Mario RPG has a Geno Beam attack. Hold the Y Button to charge; let go at three stars for maximum power. Two is weak; four is overheating.
  • Breaks in the "Perpetuate303" background music of Tetrisphere appears to pay tribute to the sound effect when the charge is building to stars and the player lets go of the button.
• Now for some old gaming...Bad Dudes let you do this with your punches. Hold down the punch button long enough, and your dude growls while flaming. Release, and you get a loud Kiai and a flaming punch.
• Mega Man X Command Mission. Instead of the traditional glowing/flashing, X uses a meter to show how much WE is put into the attack.
• A lot of borgs in Gotcha Force have charge attacks. When charging, a charge meter appears and your borg starts to glow.
• Prototype has crimson-black biomass-things appear on Alex when charging, with a second flash of biomass-thing when fully charged.
• An interesting non-video game example: Hanataro from Bleach has a zanpakuto that has a charge meter running up the side of the blade. The sword normally acts as a Healing Shiv, but as it heals, the charge meter increases. Once the meter has been filled out, he can release his sword which also releases all the healed damage into one powerful destructive wave. Needless to say, Kubo appears to have designed the mechanics of this sword specifically with its implementation in the Bleach fighting games in mind.
• The Monk Shadow Class in Blue Dragon allows you to charge up your attack power, in most cases doubling your inflicted damage, but you usually have to wait four or five turns for the Charge to take effect.
• In the Left 4 Dead series versus mode, the special infected Hunter has to crouch for several seconds before it can execute its powerful pouncing attack. The survivors can interrupt this charge-up by meleeing the Hunter.
• Mass Effect 2 has this for several of the heavy weapons, such as the nuke launcher.
• Team Fortress 2 - The Sniper's Sniper Rifle has a charge meter that fills while zoomed in on the scope.
  • The Medic has a healing gun that when used, will slowly charge a meter over time. When the meter is filled, the medic can then unleash an "ubercharge" which will make both him and his target either invincible or have constant critical hits until the meter drains.
  • The Soldier has three "banner" items that replace his shotgun, with "Rage" meters that fill up based on damage done (Buff Banner), damage taken (Battalion's Backup), or both (Concheror). When it's full he can use the item to temporarily grant a buff to any teammate within a certain radius, himself included.
  • The Pyro's Phlogistinator has an "Mmph!" meter that increases as he does fire damage through any method. When it's full, Alt Fire fully restores his health and the weapon gets guaranteed Critical Hits for 10 seconds.
  • A different kind of charge meter: the Demoman's Chargin Targe meter is filled up by default when a player is spawned, being depleted when a player uses the Alt-Fire button to make the demoman "charge" forward towards the enemy; the meter indicates when a player can charge again.
• SNK (I believe) is the Trope Maker for fighting games - attacking (or getting hit) will fill a rage meter, and it's been used in just about every fighting game since.
• Another Century's Episode actually has two versions: standard charge-up weapons like high-power cannons get a standard meter, while multi-lock weapons like homing missiles have a number of marks that fill up to indicate the number of targets acquired.
• Later games in the Deception games make traps recharge between uses.