The evolution of Final Fantasy summons

Leviathan

As summoned in: 3, 4 (2US), 5, 6 Advance, 7, 8, 9

Signature attack: Tidal Wave

In the Bible, Leviathan is a horrendous sea monster and one of the seven princes of hell. So Hades is not all fire and pitchforks, as you may have originally thought. Thanks to Melville’s Moby Dick, the word Leviathan is colloquially associated with whales but Final Fantasy reinterprets the creature with a decidedly more Eastern aesthetic.  This Leviathan is a blue dragon whose attacks deliver a monstrous amount of damage.

Weirdest one-offs

The Final Fantasy series’ popularity follows Moore’s Law and approximately doubles every year, thanks to the fact that every time a newly minted gamer goes on the internet he is forced to endure endless forum threads promoting Final Fantasy Whichever as obviously the best game evar (NO BIAS.) Consoles follow Moore’s Law too, because they have computer processors in them, so each new generation of hardware has given developers room to expand on the concept of summons. By the time the PlayStation era arrived, Final Fantasy summons were long enough to debut at Cannes and compete for Oscar noms. Bizarre new creatures began appearing in the roster alongside our old faves, only to vanish back into obscurity at the end of the game. What follows is a collection of the weirdest, wackiest one-off summons that made us wonder WTF those guys were smoking when they came up with that. (Ed. note: it was banana peels or possibly old gym socks.)

Anima

Knights

Doom Train

Tonberry

Typhoon

Yojimbo

Mar 5, 2010

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