Do "timed hits" with the X button in Super Mario RPG influence the likelihood of freebies?

A "timed hit" in Super Mario RPG consists of pressing the Attack (A) or Defend (B) buttons just before a hit lands; this results in an attack doing more damage, or incoming damage being reduced or zeroed entirely. Even the Special (Y) button has a hidden timed hit or two (for instance, timing Geno Whirl correctly results in a 9999-damage attack).

That just leaves Item (X).

It feels like pressing X again just before an item is used (some time between when the item raises up from the character and when the effect happens) increases the likelihood that you will "Get a freebie!", where the item will be used, but it won't be consumed from your inventory.

But, for all I know, this is a placebo effect.

Do timed hits on the Item button actually make freebies more likely?

Solution 1:

This was frequenly discussed on Gamefaqs in the past, and a user used save states to determine that freebies cannot be "timed". It's a myth. It's determined in the menus somewhere before the animation even plays, and is either RNG-based or based on a specific frame.

Basically he kept using items and save stating in 4 locations, before selecting Attack, Item, Special or Etc., before selecting an item from the list, before selecting a character/enemy to use the item on, and following the animation before the "You got a freebie" box would show up, until he got a freebie. After that he loaded the save states and found that loading either of the two latter ones always resulted in a freebie, while loading either of the first ones were inconsistent. Thus the final conclusion was that whether you get a freebie or not is determined when you select which item to use, which is before you have any opportunity to "time" it.

More recently, the guys who speedrun Super Mario RPG over on SpeedRunsLive have attempted many times to determine if timing freebies was possible (as obviously being able to time them would save a ton of time on speedruns) and have pretty much concluded it's based solely on RNG. Some believe it's linked to a frame in the menu somewhere (which would be consistent with the above experiment, the frame in which you press X to select your item determines if you get a "freebie") however attempts to figure out where this frame is and how to pinpoint it to ensure freebies every time is proven futile as far as I know.

Source, Gamefaqs.