I did find that most fights were either so short that I finished them before the summon was ready, or they were so manageable that I wasn't desperately looking for it to be available.
That's like half the problem. The other half is that once the fights get hard (like harder combat sims), summoning feels like a waste of ATB as you've always got something better to do with it.
To their credit, Odin and Gilgamesh will give you a guaranteed 9999 when they leave, which can really get you out of a jam outside of the hardest challenges. I definitely called them plenty in the later Musclehead Colosseum matches. I just pretty much never used their skills and instead just had them hang around and throw in a hit or two.
EDIT: Actually, come to think of it, does Genji Glove allow your summon to break the damage limit, too? I've not tried it.
What about this:
Summons take 2 ATB to call initially. Then, they get their own ATB gauges to issue commands from until they are dismissed.
I feel like that would make them much more useful.
That's why I feel like they should have had them as the og where they come in do a strong attack at any time then leave. Most people barely use them with the current system
Using an atb for a move is just too much and it doesn’t do enough for the price imho
It would be cool if summons immediately broke your atb bar into thirds though . That one fix would have me use them much more and give me incentive to call them
Especially if they could tank aggro
I summoned a lot before I had a lot of mastered materia but definitely a lot less in the later challenges and Hard mode. I also found that I used the 1 ATB summons, like Kujata, way more. 2 ATB is just too much for the bigger ones.
This is how I feel. Like, yeah, Bahamut is fucking cool and everything, but the value you get from Kujata with the big damage of phoenix with the free heal feels more worth it for cheaper 1 atb bar
Kujata was also the only one for me where I felt its skills were worthwhile, since you could choose their element, and at least in Normal mode, that came in clutch when I otherwise didn't have those elements on me.
The others, I used their skills once or twice just to see them, but that was it.
I never forgot, but I always felt like I had more impactful options for spending ATB. Like sure I could do this 2 ATB summon, or I could use Pray to get healed up, use a level 3 spell, or perform two more important actions like buffing or doing damage/staggering.
My only real complaint with the game is that summons are available every fight but mostly superfluous or over too quick to bother. In big boss battles I would use them but generally spend my atb on more important character abilities.
It's been 22 years but I still miss the way that they did summons in Final Fantasy X. I think that that was the perfect way to do it because it removes you from the battle so in a way you kind of handicap yourself in exchange for the extra power that comes with the summon.
Lol I hear ya.
They were pretty critical in OG, especially for beating Ruby and Emerald weapon. I hope they consider that when developing those battles, and making them more Integral in boss fights overall.
Some summons are good. But really, if nobody except KotR can break damage limit, what's the point? Every attack I do by endgame does 9999, why should I use an attack that does 9999 in a minute?
I agree with you. I didn't use them much in Rebirth at all for the same reasons. They've given us too many awesome combat and equipment configurations.
Playing OG in the 90s, I was in grindy land for a long time to max out everything. And I needed to buy a guide to unlock everything/figure out strats/etc. because I didn't have Internet. So summons were more clutch back then for me at least. Plus summoning more than one back to back, or miming was ridiculously OP.
You can't do that now since you can only summon one under certain conditions. And it's not even worth it, like you're saying.
I used them to see their abilities, but in Hard mode I only used Phoenix, which saved me from the second Zantetsuken from Odin in Bonds of Friendship (and thanks to that I got the platinum), and Odin vs Rufus and Darkstar, the latter of whom was killed right at the perfect moment by a Zantetsuken.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
I'm right there with you about forgetting. My girlfriend would remind me to summon so she could laugh at Gilgamesh. The biggest part I did remember is when I did utilize Phoenix for the last few Chadley sim challenges.
Odin was really good against Rufus, and Phoenix is good belated Cure.
Unless I am about to win, I almost always summoned with Barret (he just prints ATB anyway) or with solo Cloud because he will need the assist. It’s also mighty useful with solo Cait Sith.
Earlier on in the game they seem more relevant - gives you a boost for weak materia and the special moves provide higher damage than anything in your inventory.
I can see why you miss the combat, I found forbidden west clunky and frankly the story is a bit of a slog. I loved zero dawn and wanted to explore but forbidden west just missed something for me, maybe it was lance reddicks death which left me feeling like there wasn't a point with him not being there to play sylens. I loved to hate him and even with the (I'll try not to spoil here) new protagonists he still felt like the man to beat.
As for summons, I use them if I have them in boss fights to get another body on the board but otherwise I just hop from character to character to make sure I've always got the advantage.
In a lot of ways HFW is a "better" game than Rebirth. Graphically it's far superior, traversal is better and the open world has better and more realistic elements. It has a beautiful day/night cycle (and an incredible lighting system), amazing weather effects, and some of the best fluid simulations I've ever seen. Animation work is also top notch, and even the side-quest scenes are mo-capped making them truly feel alive.
But I still prefer Rebirth! It's just more fun to play. Horizon combat is merely OK and I don't enjoy the core gameplay loop enough to platinum the game. I am very interested in Horizon's world and story but I'm tempted to just drop the difficulty and blitz it.
That's exactly what I did. Something about it just stopped being fun, maybe it was hopping back and forth to the base. Anyway I'm glad you're enjoying it. You're right about it having an absolutely beautiful world and it does have a "lived in" feeling too.
Yeah but he died when I was halfway through playing it. I knew I wouldn't want to play a sequel that includes sylens if reddick wasn't playing the character.
i summoned any time i could. but i found myself using some of the earlier summons like shiva or titan. they just felt more realistic than summoning bahamut, odin or gilgamesh to nuke the more "ordinary" enemies. when fighting some of the bigger bosses, i'd usually bring out alexander or phoenix. i always tried to summon one that matched the power level of the enemy i was facing.
I'd say sometimes. The main times I'd pop off a summon was when I was in a fight where I had to focus on dodging/blocking so much that I didn't have time to attack. It's easy damage that you don't have to worry about. After summoning did I spend much ATB on their attacks? Not really. That ATB had better places to go. But having a breather to heal and regroup while the enemy focused on the summon was typically a decent tradeoff to just immediately healing
I hope they retool summons for part 3, both the mechanics and obtaining them. I absolutely love Rebirth, but Summons were something that I rarely got to use, and often felt disappointed with the impact on the fight when I did use them.
I had a Playstation Underground demo disc for FF7 back in 1996 or so, and the demo had 2-3 summons available for the fight against scorpion robot, and man, I played that demo over and over again just to see how awesome the summon cutscenes were.
But in Rebirth, there were a handful of summons that I either never summoned once, or summoned but never got to see their final attack!
Yeah, I have the same issue. I wish it was more like the OG and costed MP to use, but no ATB would be needed, as well as equipping multiple Summons to a character, but maybe only one could be summoned per battle.
I sometimes catch myself abstaining from doing so because I think "if I use it now I can't use it on the next encounter" and then I remember that's now how the mechanics work, and then forget on the next encounter and end up I'm this never ending loop.
Summons really suck in Rebirth. Almost all of the time the ATB is better used for something else then summoning.
I think the only time used summon was with Cait Seith as one of it's ability allows you to pull a summon out with 1 ATB.
I think the summon’s abilities being tied to character ATB caused me to avoid them for the most part. I typically built my comps precisely in hard mode, where I had very specific goals with my ATB use for each character. Working a summon in there was just too disruptive to my flow and not worth it.
2ATB to summon and then continued ATB use to use their abilities was just too steep IMO. I did enjoy using phoenix early on though for the revive and heal.
Gilgamesh consistently pressured Rufus on hard mode. That was pretty sweet. I used Phoenix to set up reraise a few times. Using Cat's summon magic ability was the most fun thing I did with that character.
Yeah summons took a back seat for me too for the same reason. However, in a pinch they're still nice because they'll still attack the enemies even without using ATB, they just don't attack as frequently. It was like having a fourth party member for a short time.
I finished Rufus on Hard (and more precisely, Darkstar) with Odin.
I finally got the platinum by finishing Bonds of Friendship thanks to Phoenix: I used Reraise once for Cloud and Zack through materia on Cloud, but that costed too much: the 2ATB Reraise from Phoenix is cheaper and you can also dodge while it's been casted. Using it once wasn't enough for me to beat Odin before the second Zantetsuken.
I also finished a couple minor fights on Hard with summons. But yeah, some summons were more useful than others. I summoned Gilgamesh once or twice at all, and it never reached the "ultimate attack" because I finished the fight before that point.
Summons are kinda useless in Rebirth outside of the stat boosts they offer. Synergy abilities will often do more damage that summons final attacks.
They might be helpful on hard mode but tbh I just see them as boss battles in the Battle Simulator.
I definitely summoned a fair bit, as much as I did in the OG. Especially Phoenix, who I would use to cast Reraise and Arise when I didn't want to use MP in Hard mode. I do think the game difficulty could be harder, and I think that would really force me to use everything in my arsenal too win. I may be channelling Elden Ring though. Difficulty is not always what makes combat fun.
As someone who complained all of FFXVI, FFXV and Remake were too easy, I didn't think Rebirth was too easy. Perhaps an optional "ultimaniac" mode a la XVI but not as a standard mode.
I think the problem here is that Summons are poorly balanced vs other uses of ATB. They are long-term powerful but the game value immediacy in its playstyle too much.
I don't really find attacks that I don't use as issues/problems only because everyone's approach to a game is different, you know? Like for me, I would say I agree that the gameplay is fast-paced, but I also remember several boss fights in which I took my time. Especially the Chadley challenges. Summons in the old game were rare (although not as rare as they are in this game) because you could only summon once, and I quite liked bringing in Titan against Titan, or Bahamut against Odin, etc. so I didn't really mind.
I agree on the use of ATB, maybe not in terms of balance but more that 2 ATB was precious and often I summoned only for their final attack, unless it was Gilgamesh or Phoenix, and I preferred using the ATB on other abilities. However, what really worked well for me was when I'd have Barret or Yuffie in the party, or even Cait Sith, who can build ATB super quickly.
Scrolled this whole thread and not one magic pot reference. Maybe a lot of people don’t have the pre order summons. When items are useless in hard mode he comes in with free phoenix downs and megalixers and haste. That dude is my crutch like Carbuncle was in Remake. From the base game I’d say Phoenix is the most useful.
My problem was I struggled a bit at beating Titan at the time when I was going through the grasslands , so I just set it aside and moved on, and kinda forgot about it untill i was in Cosmo canyon, and then I quickly acquired all om them up untill and including bahamut. So the first 4 never saw much use in combat, only equipped for stats (except for Phoenix, his/her reraise let me clutch the win for the Gotterdammerung when everyone was out of MP).
They sadly failed the summon systems for both of the FF7 remake games, and 15. Seems like they are hard to balance. Might have been better to just have them like some sort of limit break, or similare to how they solved it in Dissidia.
When you make a party build, with a certain combat plan in mind, you don't have space to use your precious ARB's on some off-brand elemental attack. They should never used the partys ATB, but rather built their own
I really wish they didn’t try so hard with summons. Just make them like the original in a way. Cool animation with unique effects then they are gone.
Odin - Instant kill non bosses, deals 9,999 damage otherwise.
Bahamut - Deals damage and applies faith/bravery to the party
Titan - Deals damage and applied protect/shell to the party
Phoenix - Heals the party and revives any dead members
Still only get 1 a battle but then it’s a strategic thing that costs 2 ATB and not 2 ATB, More ATB for abilities, and waiting on a timer for the “ultimate”.
Summons have never been a “4th party member”. They are supposed to be a cool flashy tactical nuke.
I did find that most fights were either so short that I finished them before the summon was ready, or they were so manageable that I wasn't desperately looking for it to be available.
That's like half the problem. The other half is that once the fights get hard (like harder combat sims), summoning feels like a waste of ATB as you've always got something better to do with it.
To their credit, Odin and Gilgamesh will give you a guaranteed 9999 when they leave, which can really get you out of a jam outside of the hardest challenges. I definitely called them plenty in the later Musclehead Colosseum matches. I just pretty much never used their skills and instead just had them hang around and throw in a hit or two. EDIT: Actually, come to think of it, does Genji Glove allow your summon to break the damage limit, too? I've not tried it.
I dont think so? Since its not technically not YOUR damage.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Too bad. I wonder how strong those finishers actually are.
All I know is Odin saved my ass by finishing off Rufus on Hard Mode lol
What about this: Summons take 2 ATB to call initially. Then, they get their own ATB gauges to issue commands from until they are dismissed. I feel like that would make them much more useful.
Sounds like a good enough idea to try out.
That's why I feel like they should have had them as the og where they come in do a strong attack at any time then leave. Most people barely use them with the current system
Using an atb for a move is just too much and it doesn’t do enough for the price imho It would be cool if summons immediately broke your atb bar into thirds though . That one fix would have me use them much more and give me incentive to call them Especially if they could tank aggro
I'd say give summons their own ATB guages to expend to use their moves, but make the summon take 2 ATB to call initially to compensate.
Controllable summons you say?
I summoned a lot before I had a lot of mastered materia but definitely a lot less in the later challenges and Hard mode. I also found that I used the 1 ATB summons, like Kujata, way more. 2 ATB is just too much for the bigger ones.
This is how I feel. Like, yeah, Bahamut is fucking cool and everything, but the value you get from Kujata with the big damage of phoenix with the free heal feels more worth it for cheaper 1 atb bar
Kujata was also the only one for me where I felt its skills were worthwhile, since you could choose their element, and at least in Normal mode, that came in clutch when I otherwise didn't have those elements on me. The others, I used their skills once or twice just to see them, but that was it.
I never forgot, but I always felt like I had more impactful options for spending ATB. Like sure I could do this 2 ATB summon, or I could use Pray to get healed up, use a level 3 spell, or perform two more important actions like buffing or doing damage/staggering.
Ya, in the late game I felt this way, too.
My only real complaint with the game is that summons are available every fight but mostly superfluous or over too quick to bother. In big boss battles I would use them but generally spend my atb on more important character abilities.
Real. While I enjoy having control, I think they should just act on their own.
If the summon gave you the refocus perk and broke your atb bar into thirds or cast haste as a free bonus on summoning, I’d definitely use them
Yeah, or the summon could have its own ATB bars it fills up as it attacks. That way you don’t feel like you’re sacrificing your own ATB at all.
I use them in hard mode. Zero mp elemental atk is always nice
It's been 22 years but I still miss the way that they did summons in Final Fantasy X. I think that that was the perfect way to do it because it removes you from the battle so in a way you kind of handicap yourself in exchange for the extra power that comes with the summon.
IT HAS NOT BEEN TWENTY TWO YEARS YOU TAKE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW ASDKJFHWER ASDFLNAWER HASDKFAWE RHGAADJKSWFHAWEFASDFJK HAEW4IRT
You're right OP. Apparently FFX is closer to 23 years now. Around 3 more weeks for it to hit that milestone.
NUUUUUUUU
Holy fuck it’s been 22 years… hollllyyyyy shit I’m old now.
proud FF tradition of summons looking cool but not being actually all that useful
Lol I hear ya. They were pretty critical in OG, especially for beating Ruby and Emerald weapon. I hope they consider that when developing those battles, and making them more Integral in boss fights overall.
Some summons are good. But really, if nobody except KotR can break damage limit, what's the point? Every attack I do by endgame does 9999, why should I use an attack that does 9999 in a minute?
I agree with you. I didn't use them much in Rebirth at all for the same reasons. They've given us too many awesome combat and equipment configurations. Playing OG in the 90s, I was in grindy land for a long time to max out everything. And I needed to buy a guide to unlock everything/figure out strats/etc. because I didn't have Internet. So summons were more clutch back then for me at least. Plus summoning more than one back to back, or miming was ridiculously OP. You can't do that now since you can only summon one under certain conditions. And it's not even worth it, like you're saying.
I used them to see their abilities, but in Hard mode I only used Phoenix, which saved me from the second Zantetsuken from Odin in Bonds of Friendship (and thanks to that I got the platinum), and Odin vs Rufus and Darkstar, the latter of whom was killed right at the perfect moment by a Zantetsuken. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
I'm right there with you about forgetting. My girlfriend would remind me to summon so she could laugh at Gilgamesh. The biggest part I did remember is when I did utilize Phoenix for the last few Chadley sim challenges.
Odin was really good against Rufus, and Phoenix is good belated Cure. Unless I am about to win, I almost always summoned with Barret (he just prints ATB anyway) or with solo Cloud because he will need the assist. It’s also mighty useful with solo Cait Sith.
Summoned Phoenix all the time, the others not so much.
Once you get max build, summons are usless...
and before you get max build, fights are easy so you finish them before the summon timer goes... *sigh* i hope they re-balance summons in Part 3.
I either never needed them, or in the combat sim / hard mode, I needed my atb so desperately that using it to summon might get me killed lol
Earlier on in the game they seem more relevant - gives you a boost for weak materia and the special moves provide higher damage than anything in your inventory.
early game everything just dies before you even get the timer to count down, though.
I can see why you miss the combat, I found forbidden west clunky and frankly the story is a bit of a slog. I loved zero dawn and wanted to explore but forbidden west just missed something for me, maybe it was lance reddicks death which left me feeling like there wasn't a point with him not being there to play sylens. I loved to hate him and even with the (I'll try not to spoil here) new protagonists he still felt like the man to beat. As for summons, I use them if I have them in boss fights to get another body on the board but otherwise I just hop from character to character to make sure I've always got the advantage.
In a lot of ways HFW is a "better" game than Rebirth. Graphically it's far superior, traversal is better and the open world has better and more realistic elements. It has a beautiful day/night cycle (and an incredible lighting system), amazing weather effects, and some of the best fluid simulations I've ever seen. Animation work is also top notch, and even the side-quest scenes are mo-capped making them truly feel alive. But I still prefer Rebirth! It's just more fun to play. Horizon combat is merely OK and I don't enjoy the core gameplay loop enough to platinum the game. I am very interested in Horizon's world and story but I'm tempted to just drop the difficulty and blitz it.
That's exactly what I did. Something about it just stopped being fun, maybe it was hopping back and forth to the base. Anyway I'm glad you're enjoying it. You're right about it having an absolutely beautiful world and it does have a "lived in" feeling too.
Lance Reddick didn’t die until a year after Forbidden West was released.
Yeah but he died when I was halfway through playing it. I knew I wouldn't want to play a sequel that includes sylens if reddick wasn't playing the character.
I don’t think I ever used a summon (*at most* I used them twice).. I would either kill or die before they were ready.
i summoned any time i could. but i found myself using some of the earlier summons like shiva or titan. they just felt more realistic than summoning bahamut, odin or gilgamesh to nuke the more "ordinary" enemies. when fighting some of the bigger bosses, i'd usually bring out alexander or phoenix. i always tried to summon one that matched the power level of the enemy i was facing.
I'd say sometimes. The main times I'd pop off a summon was when I was in a fight where I had to focus on dodging/blocking so much that I didn't have time to attack. It's easy damage that you don't have to worry about. After summoning did I spend much ATB on their attacks? Not really. That ATB had better places to go. But having a breather to heal and regroup while the enemy focused on the summon was typically a decent tradeoff to just immediately healing
Gilgamesh saved my damn life during vincent boss fight on hard mode lol
I only use summons because I like the final attack visuals.
Hardly a trap.
I hope they retool summons for part 3, both the mechanics and obtaining them. I absolutely love Rebirth, but Summons were something that I rarely got to use, and often felt disappointed with the impact on the fight when I did use them. I had a Playstation Underground demo disc for FF7 back in 1996 or so, and the demo had 2-3 summons available for the fight against scorpion robot, and man, I played that demo over and over again just to see how awesome the summon cutscenes were. But in Rebirth, there were a handful of summons that I either never summoned once, or summoned but never got to see their final attack!
Yeah, I have the same issue. I wish it was more like the OG and costed MP to use, but no ATB would be needed, as well as equipping multiple Summons to a character, but maybe only one could be summoned per battle.
I sometimes catch myself abstaining from doing so because I think "if I use it now I can't use it on the next encounter" and then I remember that's now how the mechanics work, and then forget on the next encounter and end up I'm this never ending loop.
Was that a mechanic in a FF game? Summon now, can’t summon later? I don’t remember a game that did that. In OG I spammed Knights of the Round. A lot.
In ffx you had to sparse their hp between savespheres. Or save up their mp and overdrive for bosses. I think in other entries summons cost mp.
Ah, I had forgotten that mechanic in FFX. Only played it once, not my cup of tea. So your summons could die??
Soft die. More like knocked unconscious and unsummoned if I remember correctly. And they got recharged at maybe save points?
That is correct.
Summons are honestly kinda ass unless you’re using them for utility like Phoenix/magic pot.
Summons really suck in Rebirth. Almost all of the time the ATB is better used for something else then summoning. I think the only time used summon was with Cait Seith as one of it's ability allows you to pull a summon out with 1 ATB.
I don’t forget, I just rarely find it the best use of my valuable ATB bars
I think the summon’s abilities being tied to character ATB caused me to avoid them for the most part. I typically built my comps precisely in hard mode, where I had very specific goals with my ATB use for each character. Working a summon in there was just too disruptive to my flow and not worth it. 2ATB to summon and then continued ATB use to use their abilities was just too steep IMO. I did enjoy using phoenix early on though for the revive and heal.
Summons should be available at the start of
Was, this the entire thought? Not intending to be rude. Genuine curiousity
Start of what?!?
Battle
I felt that there was so much to do that I didn’t have ATB to summon.
Gilgamesh consistently pressured Rufus on hard mode. That was pretty sweet. I used Phoenix to set up reraise a few times. Using Cat's summon magic ability was the most fun thing I did with that character.
Ah you see, I didn't get Gilgamesh until i finished hard mode
Phoenix Reraise was 90% of my summons outside of see what this one can do once or twice.
I did a lot early game, but i almost never summoned during hard mode or any of the Chadley stuff. Maybe a Phoenix here and there.
Odin literally saved my ass on Hard mode during the Rufus Shinra fight.
Yeah summons took a back seat for me too for the same reason. However, in a pinch they're still nice because they'll still attack the enemies even without using ATB, they just don't attack as frequently. It was like having a fourth party member for a short time.
I finished Rufus on Hard (and more precisely, Darkstar) with Odin. I finally got the platinum by finishing Bonds of Friendship thanks to Phoenix: I used Reraise once for Cloud and Zack through materia on Cloud, but that costed too much: the 2ATB Reraise from Phoenix is cheaper and you can also dodge while it's been casted. Using it once wasn't enough for me to beat Odin before the second Zantetsuken. I also finished a couple minor fights on Hard with summons. But yeah, some summons were more useful than others. I summoned Gilgamesh once or twice at all, and it never reached the "ultimate attack" because I finished the fight before that point.
Summons are kinda useless in Rebirth outside of the stat boosts they offer. Synergy abilities will often do more damage that summons final attacks. They might be helpful on hard mode but tbh I just see them as boss battles in the Battle Simulator.
I definitely summoned a fair bit, as much as I did in the OG. Especially Phoenix, who I would use to cast Reraise and Arise when I didn't want to use MP in Hard mode. I do think the game difficulty could be harder, and I think that would really force me to use everything in my arsenal too win. I may be channelling Elden Ring though. Difficulty is not always what makes combat fun.
As someone who complained all of FFXVI, FFXV and Remake were too easy, I didn't think Rebirth was too easy. Perhaps an optional "ultimaniac" mode a la XVI but not as a standard mode. I think the problem here is that Summons are poorly balanced vs other uses of ATB. They are long-term powerful but the game value immediacy in its playstyle too much.
I don't really find attacks that I don't use as issues/problems only because everyone's approach to a game is different, you know? Like for me, I would say I agree that the gameplay is fast-paced, but I also remember several boss fights in which I took my time. Especially the Chadley challenges. Summons in the old game were rare (although not as rare as they are in this game) because you could only summon once, and I quite liked bringing in Titan against Titan, or Bahamut against Odin, etc. so I didn't really mind. I agree on the use of ATB, maybe not in terms of balance but more that 2 ATB was precious and often I summoned only for their final attack, unless it was Gilgamesh or Phoenix, and I preferred using the ATB on other abilities. However, what really worked well for me was when I'd have Barret or Yuffie in the party, or even Cait Sith, who can build ATB super quickly.
I summoned exactly once all game. Enough to get the trophy and that was it.
I’m always getting my ass kicked so bad I always use summons lol, but usually dedicate one member to use atb on summon moves
Scrolled this whole thread and not one magic pot reference. Maybe a lot of people don’t have the pre order summons. When items are useless in hard mode he comes in with free phoenix downs and megalixers and haste. That dude is my crutch like Carbuncle was in Remake. From the base game I’d say Phoenix is the most useful.
My problem was I struggled a bit at beating Titan at the time when I was going through the grasslands , so I just set it aside and moved on, and kinda forgot about it untill i was in Cosmo canyon, and then I quickly acquired all om them up untill and including bahamut. So the first 4 never saw much use in combat, only equipped for stats (except for Phoenix, his/her reraise let me clutch the win for the Gotterdammerung when everyone was out of MP).
They sadly failed the summon systems for both of the FF7 remake games, and 15. Seems like they are hard to balance. Might have been better to just have them like some sort of limit break, or similare to how they solved it in Dissidia. When you make a party build, with a certain combat plan in mind, you don't have space to use your precious ARB's on some off-brand elemental attack. They should never used the partys ATB, but rather built their own
I really wish they didn’t try so hard with summons. Just make them like the original in a way. Cool animation with unique effects then they are gone. Odin - Instant kill non bosses, deals 9,999 damage otherwise. Bahamut - Deals damage and applies faith/bravery to the party Titan - Deals damage and applied protect/shell to the party Phoenix - Heals the party and revives any dead members Still only get 1 a battle but then it’s a strategic thing that costs 2 ATB and not 2 ATB, More ATB for abilities, and waiting on a timer for the “ultimate”. Summons have never been a “4th party member”. They are supposed to be a cool flashy tactical nuke.