Lets talk about RPG battle systems

[theRepublic]

Shadow1980 said:

AZWification said:

I am pretty sure Mario RPG was a turn-based game!

It's been a long time since I played it, so I looked at some video walkthroughs on Youtube and it does appear to be ATB-based. It's not strictly turn-based because on multiple occasions I've seen individual enemies attack out of turn (e.g., sequences of "Enemy A > Mario > Mallow > Enemy B" or "Mario > Enemy A > Mallow").

Super Mario RPG was a turn based game, but it also had some action elements.  You selected all of your actions from the menus, taking all the time you wanted.  Then, when your character is actually performing the action on screen, you could press the 'A' button at the right time to do extra damage.  Or when defending, to take less damage.  The sound effect would change if you got it right.

What you are refering to, I think just depends on the speed of your characters and the speed of the enemies.