Active Time Battle
Time flows in combat
Active Time Battle is Square's patented combat system: each character has a time gauge, acts only when it fills, and enemies keep attacking while the player decides. Edge defined it for Final Fantasy VII in 1996 and reviewed Final Fantasy Tactics, Parasite Eve and Xenogears as variations on it.
Active Time Battle is Square’s name for the combat system in which each character in a menu-driven fight has a time gauge, may act only when it has filled, and faces enemies who keep attacking whether or not the player has chosen a command. Square held a US patent on it, and by the late 1990s its PlayStation games were being reviewed as variations on it.
Fast facts
- The mechanism: “a time gauge for each character indicates whether they are busy or can be assigned new orders” (Edge, October 1996).
- Patent: Square’s 1999 Final Fantasy Anthology advertisement cites “U.S. Patent No. 5390937, 5649862”.
- Speed setting: the American Final Fantasy II (1991) already let players “customize screen colors, battle speed and message speed”.
- Variants: Charge Time Battle in Final Fantasy Tactics (1998); Parasite Eve and Xenogears reviewed as derivations.
How it works
Previewing Final Fantasy VII in October 1996, Edge gave the definition that later reviews assumed:
FFVII retains the ‘Active Time Battle’ concept. All combat is menu-driven but a time gauge for each character indicates whether they are busy or can be assigned new orders. The enemy will continue to attack in realtime whether you act or not, so quick decision-making is rewarded.
The review a year later called it “Square’s patented Active Time Battle system” and noted the range the settings allowed: “while it’s possible for beginners to restrict fights to a simple taking-turns structure, at its realtime fastest, with dramatic camera angles sweeping around the graphics, battles can elevate to almost action-game status.” The patent was real enough to print: Square’s advertisement for Final Fantasy Anthology in November 1999 carries “U.S. Patent No. 5390937, 5649862” in its legal line.
Before Final Fantasy VII
The magazines held here do not name the system before 1995. The earliest trace is Nintendo Power’s November 1991 feature on Final Fantasy II, the American release of the fourth game, which lists a configuration screen where “you can save four games, change names, and even customize screen colors, battle speed and message speed” — a battle speed setting only makes sense for fights that run on a clock. By July 1995 the same magazine explained Chrono Trigger’s fights as “menu driven like traditional RPGs”, taking place in the world rather than on a separate screen, where “the action can take place in real-time or in turns”.
Variations
Square’s PlayStation games were measured against it. Edge described Final Fantasy Tactics’ Charge Time Battle in April 1998 as giving “characters of both sides a 100-unit Charge Time gauge, restricting movement and action (known as Active Time) until the gauge is full”, with different fill rates so that “different characters become active at different times”, “minimising the board-game feel of taking turns”. Parasite Eve‘s combat that November was “derived from the usual Final Fantasy-style Active Time Battle, where attacks can only be made once a character’s AT gauge has filled”, but let both sides “move anywhere within the combat area”. Xenogears’ “fighting game-style combat cleverly disguises what is essentially a variation on Square’s well-worn Active Time Battle system”, “still restricted by the ‘taking turns’ time gauge”.