Esper? WTF!!

[Anno Domini]

my favorite ff game is hands down X. i heart it. not sure why, but i do. i really enjoyed how the aeons were tied in to the story, provided aid in big fights (i never have taken down sin with a weapon) and i also liked their attack structure (characters, not time).

i was extremely dissappointed with the way FXII handled espers. they ended up being extremely useless to me, and you had to fight them to get them! also, they were timed so they went away before they could help. i am so very dissappointed.

thoughts?

[TyphoonThaReapa]

my favorite ff game is hands down X. i heart it. not sure why, but i do. i really enjoyed how the aeons were tied in to the story, provided aid in big fights (i never have taken down sin with a weapon) and i also liked their attack structure (characters, not time).

i was extremely dissappointed with the way FXII handled espers. they ended up being extremely useless to me, and you had to fight them to get them! also, they were timed so they went away before they could help. i am so very dissappointed.

thoughts?

I agree completely. They were way too easy to defeat, too useless in battles, and had little involvement in the storyline. Espers is one of the main reasons I consider this FF one of the worse.

[Benry]

i agree as well, but my main problem with them is that your party has to disappear except for the summoner, i found this very limiting and i couldn't use them in big fights because they could be killed so quickly. overall i fond the espers a big letdown.

[Ayreon]

Until any of you can present your ideas in a literate fashion, your opinions are worthless. While espers where nigh useless in the end-game, if you got them earlier, they were incredibly useful. They all have several moves, but its tricky to get them to be used. But if you can, they certainly have their moments.

[Vivisteiner]

They were disappointing overall.


But try and post in English.

What does 'i heart it' mean?

EDIT: Aha!

[BG-57]

In principle, the idea of evil Espers that had to be subdued and enslaved was an intriguing one. It certainly dovetails nicely with the Lucavi of FFT; now we know what the other possesors of the Zodiac Stones would have become had they been corrupted.

It felt like the Esper designers took Anima to the logical extreme. The concepts of slavery and bondage (especially with Mateus and Zalera), along with large monsters like dragons and tortoises echoes rather explicitly the enslavement of Rabanastre and its people. So they fit in (although in a disturbing way).

As for actual usage, they are generally overpowered for most regular monsters, so I use them the most for Marks and some bosses, especially ones with elemental weaknesses to exploit. But unlike some of the most devatating summons (like KoTR), I don't generally use them against the toughest bosses and Elite Marks; there's simply better ways to deal damage.

I think Anno Domini means 'I it.'

[Ashley Schovitz]

I agree about them being useless because for a great majority of the game they can easily be killed even by regular enemies. Belias is partial fun when you first get him, but afterwards there was no point in them, besides having some extra challenging battles and extra MP. They weren't even story related either which made them less memorable. You said something about having to fight them is a minus? In several FFs you had to fight at least one summon before you get them like Anima in X, almost all of them in VIII, I don't think any in VII, but I have to play that again, and I definetly know in IV you had to fight several in that as well.

[Skyblade]

I think Anno Domini means 'I it.'

Anno Domini means "The Year of (Our) Lord", not "I it". Your translator must be screwy. Oh, you meant what Anno intended to say. *Gets hit for being a smart@$$*

The Espers actually fail because of the Mist System, which was, in my mind, a insanely bad execution of FFTA's JP system. The two systems are very similar, involving a point tabulation that could be used to either unleash a combo attack or summon a monster. Unfortunately, unlike FFTA, the points required to use those abilities in FFXII are also your MP. End result: You have a single stat having its functionality split between too many different purposes for it to be effective. As in FFVIII, magic gets cannibilized to different purposes. It didn't work then, it doesn't work now. Switch Mist Charges back to a separate counter that isn't tied into your buffing/healing abilities, and I think the Espers would have worked fine. Square Enix just needs to stop screwing with alternative uses for magic.

[Ouch!]

As far as their function in battle, Espers were an incredible failure. That's indisputable. Their usefulness was exceedingly limited, and because of the system described above, the MP they used could be put to infinitely more effective manners of defeating enemies.

That aside, I felt that the Espers in FFXII were among the most interesting to appear in any game in the series. Their history revealed in the bestiary entries was really interesting. I generally found the back story of Ivalice far more interesting than the actual story of FFXII, and the Espers were a good part of this. It was also nice to see a deviation from the staple summons of the series. A little break from the norm is nice every so often.

[Serapy]

The espers are just for fun, something that you would do if you were bored

[Big D]

As far as their function in battle, Espers were an incredible failure. That's indisputable. Their usefulness was exceedingly limited, and because of the system described above, the MP they used could be put to infinitely more effective manners of defeating enemies.

That aside, I felt that the Espers in FFXII were among the most interesting to appear in any game in the series. Their history revealed in the bestiary entries was really interesting. I generally found the back story of Ivalice far more interesting than the actual story of FFXII, and the Espers were a good part of this. It was also nice to see a deviation from the staple summons of the series. A little break from the norm is nice every so often.

I agree with all this.
I found the espers sporadically useful at lower levels, but less helpful as my posse got harder.

Still, if the espers were as tough as the summons in previous games, then (the same) people would be complaining that they're too powerful and they make combat too easy. FFXII's espers are weaker, but far more strategic in their use.

[Roto13]

Final Fantasy X's summons were ridiculously strong. You could kill the final boss with, like, one hit from the Magus Sisters' overdrive. The summons in XII are at the opposite end of the suckiness spectrum. :P

[remnant1]

Espers do suck,but i have one use for them,hit-and-run sniping.it sounds odd,but it works.i usually use it when im overwhelmed(wich is rare now)and i have only 1 person alive.i summon an Esper and i use it to kill the enemies from afar,while running back and forth to make sure that the monsters are at maximum hitable distance

[ff is da best]

the onli time i used espers were when i was training by mself.
whenever i used n esper agianst a boss they would normaly die in 1 it which was stink.

[Yeargdribble]

Espers is one of the main reasons I consider this FF one of the worse.

Yeah... when I decide whether I like a game or not, I don't care about graphics, gameplay, story... none of that... what I look for is if there are summons that are deeply tied to every element that are so overpowered that they make the game a breeze. That's the only thing that really matters.

[/sarc]

While they might've played a bigger role, I don't think the game is horribly at fault for not making them center stage. FF VIII and FF X both had ridiculously overpowered summons that took away much from the gameplay (though FFX handled it better imo).


With every FF that comes out I see people jumping to compare how it doesn't measure up because it didn't copy the exact system used in a previous FF. However, the moment they keep something exactly the same, another group will complain about the lack of originality by the designers.

They are all decent games with flaws and triumphs that cater to the tastes of different people. Rather than letting one tiny flaw (subjective flaw) ruin the game for me, I look at what's good.

Anno Domini means "The Year of (Our) Lord", not "I <3 it". Your translator must be screwy. Oh, you meant what Anno intended to say. *Gets hit for being a smart@$$*

wins