Some of the genre's alternate names are character action, technical action, cuhrayzee games, spectacle fighters, deep action, arcade action, combo action and extreme action. If this sounds like stylish action games try to replicate the feel of arcade games, you're absolutely right - Hideki Kamiya (who directed the Trope Codifier Devil May Cry and its Spiritual Successor Bayonetta) stated that his inspiration for the game's combat came from his days of playing at arcades and finding the ability to make a cool move because he knew people were watching. The 'Just Frame' Bonus is a popular way of applying this to individual moves gradually mastering the tricky timing of a particular attack or defend lets players test their skill whenever they want. Multiple difficulty settings, combo scores, battle reports, and chapter rankings give the player a tangible sense of progress, and more recent games may carry online leaderboards that let players compare their high scores against everyone else. On TV Tropes, we call this Nintendo Hard - a term from the old days of console gaming where many titles were ported over from arcade cabinets designed to snarf up your quarters. Mistakes tend to be punished harshly to help the player recognize what needs to be improved. Unlike most Hack and Slash games, there are no harmless one-hit mooks, so memorizing the behavior patterns of every type of enemy is key to surviving fights.

Stylish action enemies are meant to challenge the player unless they adapt just like the player's combat tools, enemies will vary in how susceptible they are to particular fighting styles. Attacks and weapons can vary in range, speed, damage, knockback, launch angle, stun, and how much they move the player, and status changes like Super Mode, taunts, and Bullet Time add to this further. Most action games emphasize defeating your enemies, but stylish action emphasizes how you do it, so combat tools tend to be meant for different playstyles instead of being clearly better or worse than each other. The selling point of stylish action's combat is its variety.

Three elements are the backbone of this genre:

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