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Shoutout to FFXIV's Titan Egi, at least during Shadowbringers, when they removed the possibility of pets attracting aggro. Titan-Egi was essentially designed to be a tank, and at times when pets were still targetable by enemies it could still function as one. But once that capability was removed there was pretty much no reason to use titan-egi

For FF8, I would have personally ranked Carbuncle as being more useless than Tonberry. Tonberry was decent enough at dealing non-elemental damage to bosses. Carbuncle just made it impossible to cast Cure on your own characters, and likely helped enemies heal themselves by absorbing their own elemental spells.

Definitely more of an honorable mention, but I wanted to mention both Chapter 3 light side eidolons in Final Fantasy Dimensions. In a job game where the jobs as a whole are kinda low power compared to those of other job games like Bravely Default, the summoner job and the eidolons under its control maintained its trademark destructive power and was one of the best jobs in the game as a result. It can easily carry both light and dark parties through their chapter 2 segments, and keeps doing that for dark in chapter 3 and the full party in endgame. Chapter 3 light side, though, got Phoenix-strong with a powerful support side effect, but with an absurd MP cost to balance-and Unicorn, a purely support summon. Neither of these are bad on their own, but getting them back to back so late on kneecaps the summoner job for the light side.

Wow I don't think I ever heard about this Eggman summon! I'm not sure about Crusader either but definitely Eggman.

Every Esper in the original FFXII is pretty much completely useless, since you give up two party members and can't directly control them. For IZJS on, you can now control them and have them perform their ultimate attacks at any time, but I still think that only Shemhazai, Zeromus, and Zodiark are worth using.

I actually got Goblin on my first playthrough of Final Fantasy IV without even knowing about it. I never got it again even with grinding or the other two.

Mindflayer isn't useless imo, it makes traversing Lunar Subterrane a breeze against anything that can be paralyzed like Behemoths. Very handy for your first playthrough.

You ain't telling us nothing new essay! Monchoto conthropo monsata moroneas

I'm sure that there are SOME Summons of the *Final Fantasy* franchises that are just as Powerful and Wicked Awesome. Not all of them can be completely useless.

Side note - no Water summon representation in FFX. Just thought id drop this nugget here...

GFs in 8 also have the value of been a shield while they ready for their attack.

There are so many abilities in ffx i would put below pray in usefulness. I actually use pray.

Atomos really was such a disappointing eidolon, because that FMV was quite horrifying and what it ends up doing in battle is such a whimper compared to that... Not sure why they didn't just make it a nom-elemental summon. Could have been one of Garnet's top summons if it had been more reliable, if for the animation alone.

Wild putting Tonberry on here and citing AP costs as a downside like the cactuars in the desert giving 20AP each don’t exist

I’m sure he won’t mention it, but pre-Endwalker Titan from the SMN job - you had to choose between three summons, Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda. Iftit did more damage on single target, Garuda on AOE, and Titan sacrificed had, instead of two charges of one of its attacks, two charges of applicable shields. Thus, its damage output was super low, and in order to actually use it defensively, you had to use a move summoning it, waiting for its summon animation to conclude, and then use the skill, after which you had to wait for it to apply - all in all, about 8 seconds between you deciding you need some defensive utility and actually getting it - by which point whatever was gonna hit you already did. So you had to either take a MASSIVE damage loss, or foresee an emergency almost 10 seconds in the future.

All summons in ff12 are useless

I'm going to have to push back a little on FF4. The hidden summons in FF4 are not useless at all. Goblin is great if you want to farm monsters that use summon or alarm to bring in other monsters. Regular attacks kill the summoner or alarm too fast but Goblin keeps that fight going so they can keep bringing more enemies to the battle. Cockatrice can instakill. Bomb is based on your current hp, so if it's high it's a great low cost spell. Mindflayer is probably the most "useless" out of them all. Now, you could argue that because of the RNG involved and the grinding it takes to get almost anything in this game, that ALL summons are useless because your characters are so OPed from the grinding.

I think that people underestimate the usefulness of the tonberry in FFVIII. The combination of item refinement, haggle, and sell high allows for an infinite money loop, which can be translated into an infinite number of stat up items, thereby allowing max stats at any level.

While I am not surprised FF8 made this list since FF8 has been in EVERY "7 X That Ended Up Being Almost Completely Useless" list, I am surprised Tonberry was chosen instead of Gilgamesh. Tonberry's shop abilities were so useful in the endgame since shops was only available through Tonberry and I never used GFs for damage at that point, except Eden. Also the LV Up and LV Down abilities made my low level runs so much easier for farming spells. It more than proved its worth except for speedrunners. Gilgamesh on the other hand only arrived at the end of Disc 3. By that point I did not do much random battles anymore. So it only a small percentage chance of appearing in the few boss battles before Ultimecia. I think I only seen him once in my many playthroughs and he used Excalipoor. Thanks for the 1 damage bro!

Idk, I’m playing FF8 currently and that LV Up and LV Down from Tonberry has been great for my magic stocks lol

Here's an obscure one: Bahamut in Final Fantasy Record Keeper.... sort of. For the game's second anniversary in the global version, every player was given Bahamut for free. This was a big deal--it was a 5-star ability, the highest available at the time, and getting enough of the items required to create those ranged from extremely difficult to literally impossible. Unfortunately, DeNA screwed up, and the version of Bahamut that was given to players was accidentally a not-intended-to-be-for-players one used in an early game tutorial, and it was EXTREMELY weak. Its damage multiplier was a mere 5, meaning it could be outdamaged by 3-star summons like Shiva, or even the 2-star Chocobo summon if it was a single target. Their response was to rename the pre-existing, obtainable Bahamut in-game (whose multiplier was 16.5, for comparison) to Bahamut (V) and let players keep the wrong version, which ended up being colloquially referred to as Bughamut. Incidentally, this ended up being the only "ability" that was unique to the global version of the game--the JP version had different rewards entirely for its second anniversary. (I might have messed up some of the details here, since it's been a long time since it happened, but that's the gist of it.)

Reflect in FFT was not only not random in its targeting, but incredibly useful in extending caster's ranges, and did not double reflect nor go back to the caster. It took into account the distance and orientation of the caster to the target with Reflect, and plotted a target on the far side from the caster in the same range and orientation to decide what panel to hit. Think of it like plotting points on a graph. If your caster was 3 squares away from the Reflect holder, then the Reflect would bounce the spell 3 panels away in the opposite direction, effectively continuing in a straight line. If someone was in that panel 3 squares away, they're getting hit with the spell, even if they also have Reflect. Just like Arithmancy, Reflect worked in a very specific way, but it worked that way every single time, and if you know what you're doing, it can be used to extremely devastating effect. FFT Carby does not deserve this slander.

Yeah in Final Fantasy IX Carbuncle is only useful in one fight in the whole game.

I'd argue the FFVII Remake summons are all kinda useless since the game hardly ever lets you use them.

In Defense of FFT Carbuncle: Calculator/Arithmetician spells aren't reflected. And with in memory only seeing like 5 or 6 Calculators in Main Scenario Fights, You can have high Faith characters (to have higher firepower of their own magic) be defended with Carbuncle reflecting up your party, heal/buff with Math, but Black/Time Magic/Yin Yang Magic to attack. A high Faith Melee ranged fighter can bounce the damage they would've taken to friendly fire onto enemies instead, if you aim it right.

Tonberry almost completely useless!? Naaaaaaaaah

I thought reflect in FFT bounced spells the same way they were cast. For example, you cast a spell 3 tiles ahead of you on a reflected character, the spell bounces on them and affects the tile 3 ahead of them. It’s not random, is it? Anyway, still quite useless. Enemy characters could use it to their advantage too easily and could calculate the bounce to hit your characters from farther away. Especially since once it was reflected, it wouldn’t be reflected again on the next character it hit.

Most of the summons from Explorers, especially after you gain access to ones like Cloud, Bartz and Phoenix. The first 2 for damage and Phoenix for free revives and minor damage.

I give bonus points to the Tonberry summon for being so fun to watch over and over...That doink!.

Ok, you have officially reached the end of Final Fantasy. I'm out. God speed...

Speaking of summons. I pray to all that is good and holy that Knights of the Round is not obtained through Chadley in the next instalment of the FFVII Remake series. I want to actually pick up the materia from the Round Island.

At some point you will have to make a supercut of all summons from worst to best.

Wasn't Terra's dad some kind of leader among the Espers? Weird because he was weak gameplay wise... Wait a minute. If Terra's dad was a leader, does that make Terra royalty among the freaking summons? Now when I thought she couldn't get any better ❤

I'm loving the videos, are the character origins ever gonna come back? I miss those

Every summon in FFXII, FF XV and FF VII Remake... they never want to help.

wow i love final fantasy union, so much so that i made it here to type my comment first

It’s Friday baby!!! New FFU <3

FFX2 was a weird game

In terms of scope, VI is a big game. If they tried to turn it into a 'Rebirth' style game , it would be massive.

FFVII style remake of Chrono Trigger.

FFVI is perfect just the way it is.

I’m playing it rn (not original) and you still get the choice but you don’t get the cutscene he just goes back upstairs and talks about it to the boss or something like that

what version of FFVI is that? christ, that looks ugly

I never hear anybody talk about how a plant monster that had devastating breath attack shares a name with long running brand of cigarettes.

HATED how it looked, didnt even realize until right NOW that it was even out. Been playing FF7, 8, X, and 12 past few months - Will NEVER play another Square game unless that bring back the real FF style. This "button bashing live action" gameplay is literally TRASH :)

They sure got hot.

At the end of the third part we will learn that Sephiroth had been possessed by Ultimecia and that the group must travel to the reality of ff8 to defeat her. We will play this ff8 with Squall but sometimes the group will lose consciousness and will see the actions that Cloud and the others are taking.

Love hearing production stories and histories. The Golbez hp informs so well how much thought and detail goes into things. Not always, but maybe more than we think. Evil and atonement, what a fun opening message to level up.

Aw fuck. Is Nomura going to ruin 6 after he's done ruining 7?