Quote Originally Posted by Mercen-X View Post
Which one was that? Did it use Beta or fire magic of some kind?
He debuted in FFVI and was an Earth Elemental summon that taught Quake.

What if past characters (be they protagonist or villain) began to appear, perhaps in expy form, as recurring bosses for a while? Let's say toward the end of the game, you had to fight bosses such as Seraph Sephiroth or Kuja, and they used this treatment for a number of entries in the series. Would change your mind about them becoming summons? Would you even at all approve of them being used as bosses, optional or otherwise?

EDIT: Ansem... to clarify, if the character from KH were to become a recurring boss or a one-time summon in FF, I'm pretty sure they would just call him him Ansem and not Xehanort's Heartless.
I would hope that SE would never reduce their main villains to that to be honest. I don't mind them getting used like that in say Kingdom Hearts or the TheaterRhythm games, but those games are built on the very premise of fanservice so I can't really argue. The main series to me though is sacred and unless the game flat out states it is a bit of a fanservice/throwback title, I have a hard time rectifying re-using past major villains like that except as shameless promotion. The Ivalice titles only kind of got away from it because outside of a few nods to the originals story or abilities, the Lucavi/Esper versions of past villains are largely original beings whose connections to their former bosses tend to be more of a fanservice shout-out than a serious attempt to say summon Sephiroth into battle.

While I feel their are certain things created specifically to be passed on between game to game, I feel that trying to bring in something as iconic as a major villain or hero from a previous game largely undermines the basic foundation the series was built on which was not to rely on past successes to score easy victories and instead always strive to create something new and fresh. Bringing back a major character like that tends to throw everything else out of focus. Ehrgeiz is a wonderful example of an interesting 3D fighter that got completely undermined by kneeling to fanservice because it's more well known as the "fighting game with Cloud" than it is for what it was actually. I would hate to play through FFXV and see the only people would talk about is the rematch fight with Kefka or how Kain Highwind became a summon. How can the new series shine when it is getting overshadowed by past successes?