2 Summoners

I think it worked ok actually. I admit though, once Eiko joined I didn't use Garnet's summons as much as Eiko's, mainly just because of that "can't concentrate" crap that Garnet went through, which annoyed the hell out of me.
 
I'm not bothered that you were given two designated summoners - I prefer linear summoners in a game, as opposed to handing them out wherever you feel like doing so. It's particularly important in IX to have these two as summoners because of the role the summoners play in the game. As for spreading the Eidolons out between the two ... I would've liked it if both of them could've learned every Eidolon as opposed to dividing them up. As I see it, the only Eidolon that should've been specific to a character was Madeen. I suppose Bahamut was personal to Garnet but I'd like to have given it to Eiko, too. It limits you in battle - if you don't want to have two summoners, you'll have to choose which one you want to give up. It does seem that Eiko seems to be in more of a supporting role with her Eidolons, however, instead of an offensive role.
 
Well Summons wise I did prefer Garnets...
Although i liked Madeen, so Eiko was used a fair bit, especially in those mines later on...
Yeah, i know thats when you got him, whatever.
But agreed with Riku, I wish the Summons could have been learned by either (minusing the personal ones (Madeen and Bahamut))...
I wish you could have learned Alexander, he was so cool...
 
I liked having two summoners becasue summoner is my favorite class :D

Eiko was nice when Garnet lost her ability to speak. And a final battle of Zidane, Freya, Garnet, and Eiko is always good to use.
 
I never liked the summoning thing for a specific characters, I liked it when you can give every character a summon, as for Eiko and Garnet I think it was stupid to have 2 summoners in the game, only one or for the whole party
 
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i like having them both however i never really used eiko...i hate how in some of the games everyone can have summons/aeons/espers i think it should be confined to a select few
 
Hm... story-wise, I felt it was necessary because, like another User had said earlier, it was sort of like the competition thing to win Zidane's attention, even though Garnet wasn't really interested. Plus, I think it was nice with the whole Extraction Spell that Zorn and Thorn cast on both Garnet and Eiko. :cool:

Gameplay-wise, I used Garnet much more than Eiko. I only really found Eiko useful when Garnet lost her voice and the message, "Command failed; Garnet can't concentrate" kept popping up, which was pretty annoying. In the end, I chose Garnet.

Really... I wasn't too bothered on the idea. Though, I like the idea of a designated Summoner(s) rather than have the whole Party being able to summon.
 
You really needed both the summoners in the game for the storyline to make sense I think with the whole part where Garnet finds out about her true background, but it is weird that there are 2 summoners, I used them both equally, even though Garnet is the stronger one in my opinion just because her eidolons are more offensive. The whole part where Garnet lost her voice can be irritating, but I wasn't really bothered by it and Eiko did help in that bit. But when it comes to the final battle I use Garnet,
 
I don't think that's a bad strategy using both summoners in party, but I personally used only eiko ^^ In the beginning of the game I used Dagger as a healer ^^
 
It wasn't needed to have ANY summoners in IX, since all the summons were pathetically weak. And Garnet becomes practically useless once Eiko joins. Eiko learns better spells before Garnet, she knows the only two summons even remotely useful (Carbuncle and Phoenix) and she doesn't have that "can't concentrate" thing screwing her up in battle.

It never really bothered me though, and IMO it was nice to have a FF where the summons weren't uber and could pwn anything (like VII and X).

This! ^ Once I got Eiko I damn near never used Dagger again. I don't see the point of summons honestly. My summons I tried with Dagger never did any damage better than what I could do with a common hit. Eiko had great summons for healing which was a great idea. Once I got Eiko's Holy & Full Life, she never left the party.
 
This! ^ Once I got Eiko I damn near never used Dagger again. I don't see the point of summons honestly. My summons I tried with Dagger never did any damage better than what I could do with a common hit. Eiko had great summons for healing which was a great idea. Once I got Eiko's Holy & Full Life, she never left the party.
Agreed... the summons were kinda useless. I tried to pretend Ramuh, Ifrit, and the others were somewhat useful in this game... but Dagger gets to use them way too late in the game, when they're kinda useless. Eiko has better white magic, and Phoenix saved my ass in the battle with Necron.

Though I DO like having specialized characters with unique skills (as in FF4 and somewhat in FF6) and not where everyone gets to use everything (as in FF7).
 
On the set summoner class,I love that. I like for everyone to have their own class and their own abilities to use. As for Garnet and Eiko, they both help make up my main party that I use. I usually use Garnet's summons more than Eiko's, and Eiko's white magic more than Garnet's.

I loved all the summons as well. :) But one of my favorite classes is the summoner class!
 
I tend to stick with Garnet throughout (or whenever possible). She may not be the best healer of the two, but she's the better character and that's how I build my parties in RPGs; based on which characters I like.

I do find it strange how they put two summoners in the game rather than one being a summoner and one a white mage though, like in most games I can think of. Meh, they thought nobody would use them if they couldn't deal some decent damage I guess.
 
I quite liked it because it was the first Final Fantasy that I played which had set class-types for characters. At the time I had only played FFVII and FFVIII previously, and the magic and summons could be switched between any party member in those games. For FFIX, it was refreshing that the skills, magic and techniques for all characters were set for them, and they fitted the personality of those characters. It was good for them to return to this.

What I liked about Garnet and Eiko's eidola are that they are very distinct between the two. I like that they are not just summoning from the same pool of spirits.

Garnet gets a larger number of summons and are wider in range, and that is I guess natural because Garnet is the focus of the game, and she is older (
though further removed from 'Summoner' culture
). Garnet gets the main summons of the game, and the Final Fantasy standard Shiva, Ifrit, Bahamut etc. They tend to be summons with some sort of authority. Leviathan in previous Final Fantasies had been a king of summons, Bahamut had been the king of dragons, etc. Shiva and Ifrit also hold authority in some titles. Odin holds authority by default, since he is Odin. Garnet has the elite range of summons fitting a queen-to-be.

Eiko on the other hand is younger, and has only four summons to my knowledge, and these are all beasts of a sort. It's as if Eiko has four animal companions which she can skip through the forest with and have fun. That is quite a nice thought, and fits Eiko's flute-playing, skippy, happy personality.

A couple of Eiko's eidola (Phoenix and Carbuncle) are mythical creatures which some people on our Earth had claimed existed. The Phoenix appeared in various ancient mythologies, and it is implied by some sources that some people believed the story for a time (not surprising). The Carbuncle (when it isn't just a gemstone or a terrible skin abscess) was a little Latin American creature with a jewel on its head which some people alleged to see.

And Madeen is very interesting. Not only is it revealed that
Eiko's moogle companion is in fact the Madeen eidolon, but Madeen is effectively the same spirit (or this universe's counterpart) as Maduin from FFVI, Terra's father (though it is worth noting that Mog is a girl in FFIX...)
. Probably just another nod to previous games, and a very light nod at that.

Fenrir perhaps stands out from Eiko's summons, but Eiko's Fenrir is notably tamer than how Fenrir would usually be represented. Eiko's Fenrir is more like a large but cuddly pet dog than a monstrously gigantic hellish hound destined to chomp on Odin.

I quite like the summons in FFIX. There was quite a bit of variety, and summoners as a species (rather than just a life-style choice) formed a decent part of the plot of the game.
I'm quite fond of the choice of terminology for summons in this game too. 'Eidolon' is a Greek word for something like a spirit-double, a phantom, or a spiritual image of a being, rather than being the original being itself. I guess that is more truthful. It's been a while since I played the game, so I'm not sure if they draw on that and make comments about the nature of summons in this game. I like that different FF universes use different terms for the concept of summoning.
 
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