There’s some strange ones!
Final Fantasy XVI is nearly here, and we already know most of it will revolve around the series’ beloved summons. The Final Fantasy series is home to some of the coolest summons in the history of gaming, magnificent creatures that would easily squish any Pokemon in existence. It’s also home to some of the most batsh*t bonkers summons ever, so let’s take a break from worshipping the ever-popular Bahamuts and Shivas and celebrate the weird ones!
9. Fat Chocobo from Final Fantasy VII
SquareSoft set out to change how the world saw the Final Fantasy series with its seventh installment, which apparently meant they had to change how people saw Chocobos as well. The result is a summon called merely “Fat Chocobo”. That’s it, that’s all it is — a giant Chocobo. Its mighty secret ability? None. We just summon him above our enemies and have gravity cause him to fall on their heads. The Fat Chocobo’s model isn’t even animated, meaning that the creature might already be dead by the time we drop it.
We understand Square meant this as a tone-deaf joke, but the concept of Fat Chocobo gets more insidious once we think about it. Chocobos don’t get like that in the wild. Also, the world of FFVII is filled with Chocobo creators, meaning that there’s at least someone out there breeding Fat Chocobos for the purpose of selling them as weaponized anvils. FFVII’s Fat Chocobo would be the original angry bird if he had the energy to muster hate without it immediately resulting in a fatal heart attack.
8. Doomtrain from Final Fantasy VIII
The success of Final Fantasy VII embedded SquareSoft with the unwavering belief that they could do no wrong going forward. FFVII featured some peculiar summons, yeah, but it’s with FFVIII that they popped open the forbidden well of summoning wackiness. Whereas the weirdness of FFVII ends at “Chocobo that’s inexplicably fat”, such a creature wouldn’t even make the list of strangest summons in FFVII’s unfairly maligned sequel.
One of the wackiest Guardian Forces, the name VIII uses for its summons, is Doomtrain. The name isn’t a joke. This is an actual doomed train that also spreads doom to everyone it runs over.
So, how does he hit the enemies? Couldn’t they just step aside and not die? Well, no, because Doomtrain also raises knee-high barriers along its tracks that somehow prevent even flying enemies from just moving a few feet away to avoid getting run over. Now that it totally makes sense, let’s take a look at what it does. One would think that a train collision would cause massive damage to the victims, but nope. Doomtrain deals no damage and instead just infects enemies with a plethora of awesome status ailments.
And that’s not even where things stop getting weird.
In FFVIII, players can usually get summons by either defeating them in combat or by extracting them from other enemies. That’s not how you get Doomtrain. To get it, players will have to find a special ring, conjure a bunch of different materials and then invoke it. Players will get contacted by the Doomtrain itself via the only in-menu message we ever get in the game. Pretty chilling stuff.
Doomtrain might just be the weirdest summon and the weirdest train in Final Fantasy history — yes, there’s stiff competition in both fields.
7. Eden from Final Fantasy VIII
Eden from FFVIII is a creature beyond comprehension. It’s such a mysterious entity that not even the paranormal journalists in the world of FFVIII ever make any mention of it. Is it an alien ship? A satellite? It features possibly the longest and definitely the weirdest summoning animation in the history of the series. It’s as beautiful as it is hard to comprehend.
Eden’s summoning animation is so long that it allows players to use the GF boost ability to maximum effect. This grants Eden the power to finally break the rules of the Final Fantasy series itself and surpass the imposed damage limit of 9999 per hit. Few players are ready for the moment when they witness their Eden dealing over 40,000 damage to an enemy.
6. Shiva from Final Fantasy XIII
Ok, let’s get this one out of the way: every summon in FFXIII is arguably dumb as hell, but we have a special place in our hearts for its version of Shiva.
So, first off, this game doesn’t feature just one Shiva: it’s the Shiva Sisters. That feels unnecessary, but we get that Square would try to do something to keep things fresh. The problem is that it didn’t stop there. You see, these two sisters then go on to merge and become not just one single entity, like the Shiva we all know and love, but a goddamn motorbike.
We know summons exist to serve our cast of heroes, but a motorbike that exists for the hero of the story to ride is kind of weird — especially in a post-Days Gone world.
5. Magus Sisters from Final Fantasy X
Sandy, Cindy, and Mindy, The Magus Sisters Aeon from FFX, are the first summons in the series that only do whatever they want. Instead of the regular “Attack” and “Magic” commands, Yuna can merely suggest they do stuff, and they operate via a secret motivation gauge. That’s what determines whether they’ll do something useful or just take a break and throw a turn away. They have a very powerful Overdrive attack — one they don’t usually refuse when Yuna suggests it — but it’s actually not even their strongest attack.
The Magus Sisters are the most powerful summon overall in the game, but they also have the potential to be its biggest pain in the butt. They can as easily obliterate an enemy in one second as they can cause a Game Over screen to pop up because they’ve decided to take a nap. It’s as if they’re constantly telling players we don’t have enough Pokémon trainer badges to control them in a world where there’s no way to get such badges in the first place.
4. Yojimbo from Final Fantasy X
Yojimbo from FFX only works for money. That’s weird because he’s our summon, a creature that only exists when we call upon it to fight. He never gets to go shopping! Maybe that’s why he doesn’t understand money and will work for one Gil the same way he would work for one hundred Gil.
Even though his basic concept is ridiculous, he’s one of the most interesting summons in the entirety of the Final Fantasy series. Yojimbo, much like the Magus sisters, features a special mechanic. He has an unseen affinity gauge that players can make use of to get the best out of Yojimbo. And it’s pretty simple. Yojimbo likes money, and he doesn’t like to get hit to get KO’d or to be sent back to his Aeonball. Treat Yojimbo well and he will use Zanmato, a skill that will kill any enemy in the game in one hit. Yes, any. Even the final boss, the slug that turns immune to physical attacks, or even Penance, the hardest boss in the game.
3. Gilgamesh from Final Fantasy VIII
Although he appears in other games, Gilgamesh shows up later in Final Fantasy VIII to replace Odin. Remember Odin? It’s that summon so badass he summons himself whenever he wants to and just kills enemies in one hit. At some point in the game, Odin bites more than he can chew and ends up dead. Then, just as players begin to get sad about such a huge loss, a new entity shows up to collect Odin’s sword. This newcomer is Gilgamesh, a four-armed creature that arguably looks even more badass than Odin.
Whereas Odin would always perform a one-hit kill because of his ultra-powerful sword, Gilgamesh randomly picks between one of his four swords, and three of them suck. One of them is even called Excalipoor, and it only ever deals one point of damage to any enemy. The laughter that immediately ensues makes sitting through the entire animation almost worth it.
2. Zodiark from Final Fantasy XII
Few things are as funny as collecting every single goddamn Esper [summon] in Final Fantasy XII to unlock the battle against Zodiark, the most powerful one in the bunch, only to find a little fish in its place. Final Fantasy XII features one hell of a lot of summons, so we just love imagining the faces of players who go through the dozens of hours required to get Zodiark and then find this thing.
We mean no disrespect, though. Though he’s very funny-looking with his tiny arms and legs, his attack animation looks absolutely gorgeous, and its power level is absolutely off the charts. We just find it very funny that he looks like the tiny baby version of Anima from Final Fantasy X.
Speak of the devil!
1. Anima from Final Fantasy X
Let’s talk about Anima now that Nu Metal is as dead or dormant as we could ever hope it to be. We know that Anima from FFX is a fan-favorite but holy crap, that’s one of the most messed-up-looking creatures in the history of the franchise.
In our headcanon, that’s the creature that sang the lyrics to Otherworld, the wacky metal song Nobuo Uematsu got tricked into believing fit the themes of Final Fantasy. We can’t blame him, though. Acts such as Slipknot and Rammstein somehow really did rule the world in those days. The best thing about Anima is that its upper half would be more than enough to earn it a spot on this list, but the lower one is somehow even worse. great job. How is this in what is ostensibly a PG-esque game? This thing is terrifying even if you ignore the fact that Anima is powered by Seymour’s mother. Yes, that monster carries the soul of someone’s loving mother.
Sweet dreams, Seymour.
More Stories by Tiago Manuel
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