One game that I thought had a great "pause" feature was Dragon's Dogma, you can pause the game mid fight to use items that heal or remove status effects. At first I felt this was kind of cheesy, but due to the games inventory weight limits it actually made traveling long distance or tackling dungeons more strategic because you had to bring the appropriate items for the enemies you'd be facing and use them sparingly or you'd be in trouble. Further into the game it actually felt like it required more strategy and planning, I thought it was pretty great game design and really liked it.