John Szczepaniak of
Hardcore Gaming 101 considers
Data East's
DECO Cassette System arcade title
Flash Boy (1981), a
scrolling action game based on the
manga and
anime series
Astro Boy, to have a type of combo mechanic. When the player punches an enemy and it explodes, debris can destroy other enemies. The use of combo attacks originated from
Technōs Japan's
beat 'em up arcade games,
Renegade in 1986 and
Double Dragon in 1987. In contrast to earlier games that let players knock out enemies with a single blow, the opponents in
Renegade and
Double Dragon could take more punishment, requiring a succession of punches. The first hit would temporarily immobilize the enemy, making him unable to defend himself against successive punches. Combo attacks would later become more dynamic in
Capcom's
Final Fight, released in 1989.
Fighting games The earliest known competitive
fighting game that used a combo system was
Culture Brain's
Shanghai Kid in 1985. When the spiked speech balloon that reads "RUSH!" pops up during battle, the player has a chance to rhythmically perform a series of combos called "rush-attacking". The combo notion was reintroduced to competitive fighting games with
Street Fighter II (1991) by Capcom, when skilled players learned that they could combine several attacks which left no time for the
computer player to recover if they timed them correctly. Combos were a design accident; lead producer
Noritaka Funamizu noticed that extra strikes were possible during a
bug check on the car-smashing bonus stage. He thought that the timing required was too difficult to make it a useful game feature, but left it in as a hidden one. Combos have since become a design priority in almost all fighting games, and range from the simplistic to the highly intricate. The first game to count the hits of each combo, and reward the player for performing them, was
Super Street Fighter II.
Rhythm games In rhythm games, combo measures how many consecutive notes have received at least the second-worst judgment (i.e. other than the worst judgment). Never receiving the worst judgment in the entire song is called a full combo or a no miss. Receiving the best judgment for all notes in the song is called a full perfect combo or an all perfect. Some rhythm games have an internal judgment that is tighter than the best judgment, e.g. Critical Perfect in Maimai or S-Critical in Sound Voltex. Receiving an internal judgment for all notes in a song is called a 理論値. ==Other uses==