Summoner or Summoners

[DarkShadow]

Do you prefer having a summoner as a party member who can only summon as that is his/her's unique speciality like Yuna in FFX Garnet and Eiko in FFIX. Or do you prefer having ALL party members being able to summon their own unique one or all the party given the freedon to summon any Aeon,Edolon in the game.

 

[Davey Gaga]

I like the variations. It's nice to customise Tifa with Shiva and Barret with Titan to reinforce gender stereotypes...but it's also great to have Garnet's heritage as a summoner, and her uniqueness tie in to the plot.

Can you imagine how much less impact Yuna's pilgrimage would have if Lulu and Wakka were also able to call Valefor?

 

[Eight]

I actually can't say for sure. As Dave mentioned, it tied beautifully with the plot in X and IX, yet the variation was good in VII and VIII. And I loved how they had it in XIII with characters having their own personal summons which felt like it developed their character some, particularly through the process of obtaining these summons.

I guess it just depends on how the FF incorporates the whole summoning thing; whether they have a strong influence on the plot, or are merely monsters you call to give you a hand.

 

[Howl]

I prefer that characters are divided by class; thus encompassing the theme of strategic RPG.

In VII, VIII & FFX for example, any character can act as a replacement for the next because they are all capable of drawing upon the same skill sets. (Excluding individual abilities such as limit breaks, etc.) FFIX was a more enjoyable challenge because your choices in battle are limited to specific characters, (which requires a more strategic approach). The job class system should really make a comeback. J

So in this case, I prefer that only a single character possess the ability to summon.

EDIT: Ok, the whole job class description sounded slightly off topic now that I re-read my post. D:

 

[Martel]

I prefer having each character able to summon their own creature; it makes things more balanced. Although that said, the freedom of choice to assign summons to whoever you want is probably my favourite option; let me pick my own strategy, rather than be forced into using someone I detest simply because they have the most useful summon.

I don't like having just a single Summoner. Yuna was extremely broken in FFX, and if she died, there went the majority of my offense. Putting all your eggs in one basket like that is just begging for someone to come along and break the basket. Better to split the summons up so that if one character dies, you can fall back on another's summons.

 

[Ironman]

It depends on the summoning style really,

the summoning style of FFX, in the manor that summons stayed out and battled in place of your party was my favourite style, as you could keep your party's HP up in boss fights without the need to use up all your MP on restorative magic.

in FFXI and the earlier games where summons came out and unleashed a single attack then i preffered to be able to have more than one character summon, but only when it wasn't available to all party members, as in the case of FFVII and FFVIII where you could have the entire party use summons i didn't really like that much, as it just made all your party members capable of dealing masses of Damage and it kind of felt overpowered.

so i preferred having a single summoner who could Call forth an Aeon who could come in when you either needed to End a battle keeping your party's health high (low on provisions and the like) or just ending a battle quickly.

 

[Tyrant]

I think XIII way of everyone having their own unique summon was the best one and not just a random one, a summon that represents or mirrors them. For example in X I think Yojimbo would have been a great summon for Auron, I'm not sure how to describe it but it feels that it would suit him. If they do that in future games giving everyone more than one summon for more variety would be cool too.

 

[PrincessGarnet]

I prefer the summoner class like in FFX,FFIX,FFIV where it's a job class and only the summoner class can use summons. I'm really big on the job classes. To me,it's more organized.

I don't like how everyone can learn black magic,white magic,ect in FFX. Goes back to me liking job classes.