The Under-appreciated Elements

This is more of a gripe of FFXII I have, though I'm certain other FF games are guilty of this as well.

Every game has their elemental system, and by and large these elements are fairly well represented with spells, elemental weapons and so on. But then sometimes there are a few odd elements that exist, but don't really fit anywhere. They're present and can be useful, but you're not really given many resources to actually utilize that element.

FFXII is probably the best example of this. Water magic which was heavily prominent in the FFX series, was reduced one tier I magic spell, a few weapons, and a water mote, and a summon.

FFXIII had water magic again, but for some reason removed it entirely in FFXIII-2.

Earth magic has worse luck. Featured pretty prominently in FFVII, in FFXII it had a pole, a rod, an ammo and a quiver of arrows to its name. And a summon. That is not much to work with. FFXIII has an equally barren way to deal Earth damage: the TP skill Quake.

I don't really get why they would go through the trouble of including an entire element in the game and don't really give you the tools to actually use them.

I never really felt bothered by it, considering elements rarely have any importance in FF outside the very early stages of the game. Want a game that really uses its element system to its fullest? Try MegaTen.

I always liked the Shadow element. I know it was in IX and maybe VII but any of the others?

I think Shadow is also an element in IV, but really outside of Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Holy, the Final Fantasy games doesn't give much prominence to elements. Formahault actually that sounds like a lot for earth given in other games it's showed a lot less love. in Final Fantasy IX the only way to deal earth damage is with Quina's Earth Shake or with Fenrir who isn't that powerful of a summon. You have a few monsters that use it too. For some reason Poison is both a status and an element in VIII. It's been a while since I played VIII so I can't really comment on how important it was, but my mind is telling me it was barely there outside of Bio. I'm not sure how many enemies were weak to it or hit you with it without also inflicting poison.

Wind also gets kicked to the side. In Final Fantasy IX enemies use the Aero and Aera spell, but for some reason Vivi can't cast them. Your only two ways to deal Wind damage is through Quina's Twister and Eiko's Millenial Decay which you might not know even exists for several playthroughs. The wind element also has hardly any summons. It's a secondary attack for Fenrir and I think XII has one, but I think that's it. The game where water probably has the most presence is in Final Fantasy X because elemental attacks are way more emphasized in this game compared to all the others I've played. Nearly all flans can be taken out with a single spell from their elemental weakness and due to the sensor ability that is extremely easy to get you always know when an enemy is weak to a certain element. It's the only one in the series I think that gets three tiers of spells like the fire, ice, and thunder trinity. Oddly, despite this Leviathan isn't in this game. Hey, but the protagonist's signature weapon is a water element weapon.

I think Holy has always been just one spell, a weapon or two, and sometimes a summon in the whole series. While this is similar to other elements I've mentioned I feel it's ok with Holy. The spell is always among the most powerful you'll have and it's even considered as the most powerful VII as being the counterpart to Meteor. Actually, I think this the only case in which the spell is in the game, but not available to the player.

I quite like the elemental spells in the games, but when stuff like the aero situation in IX pops up it annoys me. I'd like to see a little more focus on them, not necessarily on the level of X, but maybe like how IX did it. I always liked how they put the mid tier trinity elemental spells on their own staff.

Maybe it is because I tend to use magic more in my games - it just felt funny for a game to have an elemental system and under-utilize like two or three elements.

Poison is an element in FFII and VI-VIII but hasn't really regained it's status since then.

Holy gets quite a few options in early FFs but becomes more scarce in later entries with VII having one summon with the element and the actual spell being a plot device, in fact after VI, the spell doesn't get many options until FFIX and then you have to skip to X-2, XI, and XII.

Dark varies from game to game. It's featured in FFIV and then doesn't reappear until FFTactics, it shows up in four FF games as an actual element which are FFIX, XI, and XIV. It appears in more side games than it does in the main numbered entries.

Earth, Wind and Water vary but they generally get the most love in the 16-bit era and the MMOs with a few exceptions.

In terms of under-appreciated elements that have varied through the series or been fazed out, I miss enemies that have scripted counters for certain attacks. I mean VI-IX had them but either the game mechanics made them negligible or they simply lacked the bite of early installments.

I will also give a shout out to the Gambit system, which is still the best party A.I. set-up I've utilized in any game.

I actually kind of like having certain elements under represented, it makes them feel a little more exotic.