Status effect

Categories: Computer and video game gameplay

A status effect is a modification to a character's condition that appears in numerous computer and video games. Status effects are most commonly found in role-playing games, but also appear frequently in other genres. The term Status effect can be applied to both beneficial and harmful conditions, although harmful effects are the most common.

[edit]

Definitions

Although status effects vary widely from one game to another, certain effects appear in numerous games. Below is a partial listing of the most common status effects and descriptions of how they usually work.

Positive Status Effects:

Protect — Characters affected by the protect status take less damage from physical attacks.
Shell — Characters affected by the protect status take less damage from magical attacks.
Reflect — Magic spells cast on the character are reflected. The usually means that the spell is used on a random character on the opposite side from the one it was cast on, be it player or monster. in some games, however, the rules are different. In final fantasy tactics for example, a reflected spell is retargetted on a square the same distance away from the intended target as the caster was. The reflect ability generally doesn't work against the highest level spells.
Auto-life/Preraise/Auto-Revive — The character will automaticall be revivied when he or she is knocked unconscious.

Negative Status Effects:

Poison — A character who is affected by poison takes damage at a regular rate. In some games, this drain of HP is not able to kill the character, but leaves him or her so weak that even the most pathetic of attacks can defeat him or her.
Paralysis — A paralyzed character is usually incapable of action. This usually prevents physical attacks and often prevents magical spells also. In some games, including the Pokémon series, a paralyzed character can attack, but his or her attacks will occasionally fail.
Berserk — In some games, the Berserk status effect is harmful and causes a character to become uncontrollable and often to attack his or her allies. In other games, the Berserk effect merely increases a character's fighting abilities. It can also do both of these things and in these cases it can be classified as both a positive and negative effect, although it is usually classed as negative. It is a reasonably common tactic to use this variant of the beserk effect on spellcasters, who generall have very poor physical stats and will therefore still not be particularly strong, even with the stat boost.
Stone — This status effect usually denotes that a character has been petrified and is thus incapable of any action whatsoever until the status has worn off or been lifted.
Curse — This effect has many different meanings. Sometimes, it prevents a character from attacking. At other times it functions like poison or deals even more damage and sometimes it blocks the victim's magic. In some games, being cursed in battle begins a countdown; the character affected dies when the counter reaches zero. This type of curse is also sometimes refered called 'doom', especially in the final fantasy series.
Blindness — This usually greatly decreases the chances that the affected character's attacks will successfully damage their targets.
Confusion — In many games a confused character character may mistake allies for foes and attack them. In other games however, a confused character's controls will be inverted. In some, confused characters may even occasionally attack themselves. Confusion usually ends after a certain period of time.
Silence — A characted afflicted wit the silence status effect cannot use magic. This is based on the idea that casting magic requires chanting and therefore sinc ethe character cannot speak, they can't cast magic.

[edit]

Curing status effects

This matter varies as widely as the effects themselves and the games in which they appear. Some status effects go away on their own after a certain amount of time has elapsed. Most games contain items capable of healing status effects. Often these items heal a specific status effect (such as Antidotes, which in many games cure Poison), though many games also include one or more universal status effect removing items (such as Full Heal from the Pokémon series, or remedy in the Final Fantasy series). Many game also include magic spells that can eliminate status effects (such as the Esuna spell from the Final Fantasy series). Most of the time status effects are removed at the end of a battel, however in some games they continue to persist until either they are cured or until the character rests (such as at an inn, temple, or in a tent).