how often are summons really useful to summon?

phantasmor

phantasmor

Blue Mage
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I remember when playing ff8 and none of the summons held a candle to what the characters could do just on their own. then ff9, the summons come in way too late to be useful. ff5 I never saw the need to use them because the white magic healed better than the summons, and the black magic and time magic made the other summons irrelevant. ff6 the summons were useful for stat boost and giving magic, but you never really had any incentive to summon them. ff1 and 2 had no summons, ff10 the summons were useless. ff7 the summons were really, really useful! ff12...... I played it, beat it, got all of the summons, never used them because you give up all so, I ask when(besides 7) have they been useful for their intended purpose? they are there, but why?
 
Well, it definitely depends on the game and playstyle.

For example, I found the summons useful in FF5 and FF10. In FF5, I find the summons can replace and work better than blackmagic thus far (plus, there isn't anything that is giving you the awesomeness of Golem). In FF10, spamming summon overdrives helped me overcome some of the tougher bosses, and the summons hit pretty hard in a pinch, or just to weaken something.
 
In ff5 black magic dies more damage period. Black magic does more to a single target and it does more damage to a large number of targets. The major drawback of summons in that game is that they do the same damage no matter how many enemies you face making it useless against bosses.
 
I only find Summons usefull in X and kinda VII i really only use Phoenix on VII on all of the other games i don't use summons except IV actually i've probably used them the most on that.
 
In all Honesty I just equip the Summons... never really use them... Which is always a waste in FFVII :wacky:

But Seriously, Summons seem to me like almost an Easter egg kind of deal, minus in VI and X when they a real part of the story. But even those two games I rarely used them, (except X I tended to use them a little more, because they were around for more than one move :wacky:
 
it seems that they there should be a new final fantasy that makes them very, very useful. I want a new final fantasy anyway, but if it does not make them useful, then I will be disappointed. I have the idea that a character summons the summon and gets replaced by it, but the other characters are still there
 
I agree that summons, for the most part, are not very useful in comparison to other attacks. Occasionally, I found them useful in IX since Garnet and Eiko weren't exactly great attackers. Besides stat boosts in VIII, they weren't useful at all. I used them in X occasionally but I don't really recall if that was really necessary or just for my own amusement. I think XII may have had the most useless summons of all. The only useful thing they did was open the way to Giruvegan. Fighting them at least provided a bit of a challenge though.

IV is probably the only game in which I heavily used summons. I found that the summons, especially Bahamut, Odin and Leviathan were very useful in boss battles. I spammed the hell out of Bahamut in the final battle.
 
In all my gaming life, I never did rely on a summon for battle until ff10 and kingdom hearts (FFX's aeons and kingdom heart's tinkerbell and genie). So far, the rest of the series' summons haven't been useful at all other than for show to me, I usually rely on the party's own strength to bring the opponent down or their specialties to make things faster.
 
In my first game, I relied on GFs all the time (FFVIII which was my first game and I played the computer version). When I re-played the game I noticed I had been junctioning like a complete moron so the second time I used them much less. But as someone else mentioned, I used them in FFX a whole lot. I don't remember how much I used them in the other games but in FFXII, which I am playing right now, I am using them from time to time often as a last resort on my tank characters (Basch and Vaan).
 
Summons arent really useful at all, I think of it as an added feature and must have for enjoyment and a different way of battling. Summons are just good to look at for me, I can win all my battles on any FF game without it. I barely use summons after I use them one time, the most summons I ever used in a FF game was X and that was from being bored and training most of the time.
 
Personally, I used summons in only X, and usually only for very hard battles aganst dark aeons and in desperation. No other game have I used them as a solid part of my strategy.
 
Summons were mostly useful in FFX, since they were part of the main focus of the story, and their usefulness in battle dwindles little over the course of the game.

To lesser degrees, too, VIII, IX, XII, and XIII. FFVIII for junctioning, FFIX because of "Bahamut and Alexander", FFXII since they're loosely tied into the world's history, and XIII due to their Eidolon status.

In essence, apart from VIII, summons played more of a role outside of battle in the games stated. Not much usefulness on the battlefield, really, other than cool visuals.
 
Well with the ability to finally break the damage limit made the Summons actually useful in FFX, the other games 1-6 ,I think, the summons were supposed to be a large amount of damage because they didnt have big limit damage available.......I think?

FFVIII is a prime example Squall at his most powerful could deal out around 250,000 HP damage, You would have to summon Bahamut.....lessee.....25 times, or Eden 6 times. Its a mish mash of the brilliance of Limit Breaks and the old school Summons that were huge damage in the elder days.
 
I never use summons unless I really have to. I found i used summons a lot in FFX though. I found them to be handy and they did a lot of damage for me. I also used summons that could heal and stuff a lot because i found them useful but otherwise I just forget they exist.
 
I dont really feel summons are NEEDED in any game but they add to the fun element of the game. I mean we've all used them in the most unnecessary situations like using odin's zantetsuken to kill off a bunch of Muus. Theyre just fun to use once in a while but i dont think theyre really all that useful in any of the games except maybe VIII just due to the fact you can boost them. But thats just my opinion
 
I'm using them a lot in X so far. They seem really helpful in this game. I also used the summons in VIII quite a but in the beginning. Mostly as a damage taker more than anything else though. I hardly ever used the summons in FFIX. The summons in FFXII also seemed very pointless. Summons are very fun to collect and all that, but in the end, they seem rather useless to me. No matter which game it is.
 
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