I like the ActRaiser 2 system. You're a sword guy and you can get yourself into various states while doing sword guy things: standing, crouching, looking upward, leaping. And also, since you have wings: gliding, diving, and air-braking in order to fall slowly. You have several spell charges per enemy lair and you can hold and release your attack button to use one of them anytime. But the form the spell takes depends entirely on which of those several states your body is in when you release the button. It's a cool alternative to requiring the player to, say, bring up a menu and select a spell, or to press the select button to rotate the currently equipped spell to the next item in a list of spells. Spell selection is part of what you're actually doing in the game world, not some abstract activity involving a UI that exists for the player but not for the spellcaster.