Espers in FFXII

[Cleric]

So, I have played this magnificent game through once, and I am planning to play it through yet again very soon. One thing I was thinking about though is how little I used the espers in ffxii. Now, I am a huge fan of summonings in final fantasy games but for some reason I felt like the espers in this game were more or less useless. However as an aspect of the plot I thought they were a great addition(as well as paying homage to ff6) and not only that but getting them was often a very entertaining challenge...

But basically I am opening this thread to get y'alls opinion. How did you use them effictively? How did you feel about them, etc. This is an open discussion, and I welcome any and all feedback

[theundeadhero]

Other than when mandatory I never used them but I did collect all thirteen. Gotta catch them all!

[qwertysaur]

Espers were really only useful during the Zeromus fight since other magick was lost and quickenings didn't help against all the skeletons that spawned. Also Zodiark is nice for some quick easy damage.

[Dynast-Kid]

First off, I loved the summons! They all had cool designs, were really fun to collect and capture, and they were based off the Zodiac, which is awesome!

I didn't use them a whole lot, just whenever I wanted to watch their battle animations! xD

[Big D]

People have spent years complaining that FF summons are too overpowered and cheap, and now FFXII has given us weaker summons that are less useful and they get a lot of flak

Granted, I don't use the FFXII summons that much either. But their use is quite strategic and tactical, dependent on elemental properties, enemy patterns, that sort of thing. Apparently the terrain and weather can influence things too.

Not to mention that the esper boss fights and bestiary back-story entries were epic in their own right

[Heath]

I thought that the Espers were handled better in this game than in any other. Excellent back story, great boss battles and really cool and original designs. But they were simply not worth using in battle. I thought it was a pretty good idea, to have you fight alone with your Esper, but it could've been handled much better; such as having the Espers be actually beneficial in battle. I got them all because I'd be annoyed if I didn't. But beyond trying them out for the first time, I never really used them. Pity.

[rubah]

it was pretty cool how they just kinda appeared on you and trapped you. I mean I enjoyed every moment of that 3 hour battle against whoever it was!

[Marky Tee]

nah they sucked
as has been said appart from using them the first time,only for them to get the kicked out them straight away,i barely ever used them again

[Wolf Kanno]

I love the Espers and used them when the situation needed it. By end game, I found them more useful than Quickenings cause apparently I have the worse luck with them on this forum...

Summons work like earlier summons in the series (pre-FFVI) in which you can't be expected to use all of them all the time cause they become obsolete fairly quickly. Still, Ultima, Zodiark, Exodus, and Chaos are all incredibly useful and hold their own fairly well even by end game. The Espers are useful as long as you know how to use them. They are "glass cannons" so to speak in that they murder everything around them fairly well but can be killed quickly if you are not careful...

Except for a few I feel its safe to say they are not designed for crowd control as much as they are designed to take advantage of enemy weaknesses (hey just like the pre-VI summons ) Most are worth it if you can fulfill the prerequisites for their special attacks (some of the best in the series) In fact Zodiark not only has one of the strongest attacks in the game but his is the easiest to get off in the game. You can even set it up so Zodiark prepares his ultimate attack as soon as he is summoned.

I like how they are set up except for one major flaw... Most of the summons require their summoner to help them from being swarmed or flat out killed but its difficult to do so if the summoner blows all their damn MP to summon the esper. Had the Esper replaced the summoner and fought along side the two party members (even one if specs couldn't have all three of them on the screen. Just not the summoner.) who actually have MP and crowd control abilities then I feel they would have been far more accessible.

One cool trick is to use them to level up a single character while farming for loot. The Esper gains no exp. so the summoner gets all of them. I also used Ultima alot in the Zodiark tunnels cause everything their is weak to Holy and her Holy attack is faster than the actual Holy spell.

Overall, I feel they are pretty good they just require a different strategy of use than previous games. Personally, I'm just happy XII stuck with X's way of doing summons cause I feel this system works better with the concept of "summoning". Before X, summons were just overpriced, over-bloated black mages...

[Bolivar]

They're definately useful to a point. Don't expect your level 1 espers to continue holding their own after a while, move up to level 2 and eventually 3. If you can get one around the enemies' levels, with an element they're weak against you got a great combo. There's a whole guide on using them well on GameFAQs, granted not every esper is worth using, but you can't say they're unusable.

Hunting down the non-mandatory espers and collecting them in the bestiary was alotta fun.

[Roto13]

Yeah, they can be useful in certain situations, but not that useful. xP In fact, as far as I'm concerned, most of the situations in which they're considered 'useful' by most people, I consider them to just be slightly less useless, since it's not like any of the regular monster fights are particularly hard. :P

However, it's kind of nice to summon an Esper right before using a save point, since that way you can do it without losing all of your MP, making them purely a bonus.

[Big D]

Espers have unlimited MP, so Syphon's handy for stealing some MP back from them after summoning. You need to have the Augment licenses that restore MP, or simply wait to regain some MP by moving around; but a strong mage can purloin a lot of MP from their Esper.

[Cleric]

Yeah, they can be useful in certain situations, but not that useful. xP In fact, as far as I'm concerned, most of the situations in which they're considered 'useful' by most people, I consider them to just be slightly less useless, since it's not like any of the regular monster fights are particularly hard. :P

However, it's kind of nice to summon an Esper right before using a save point, since that way you can do it without losing all of your MP, making them purely a bonus.

Hahha that's a great idea. I never even thought of that, but that's how much I use espers in this game.

It is nice that they still incorporated summonings into ff12 because that has always been an aspect of FF I have greatly enjoyed. I think though that the developers may have purposefully utilized espers as more of an effective story line boost than a battle boost.

[Muse Junkie]

I never really used the espers. I loved the story they provided and that was pretty much it. I don't think I ever used it them when it wasn't mandatory.. But they looked really freaking awesome :mog:

[Saber]

The espers were only good for a large amount of enemies. But like said before. I never used them after the first time.