Aeons

[Formalhaut]

The FF producers never pay much adherence to Air, Water or even Earth. That is odd, considering the western classical elements share those w/ the Japanese counterpart (note: Japan has mountain instead of Earth).

They had a chance to rectify that in XII, but instead gave one weak water spell & only 2 Aero spells.

Yeah, Final Fantasies always seem to ignore these elements. Aero gets pretty good treatment, but Water and Earth, when they feature as an actual element, rarely possess spells or techniques that allow you to use them.

Using your XII as an example, they have the Earth element, but with no earth magick, and hardly any viable way to use it. Why bother with earth in the first place!

[Colonel Angus]

The FF producers never pay much adherence to Air, Water or even Earth. That is odd, considering the western classical elements share those w/ the Japanese counterpart (note: Japan has mountain instead of Earth).

They had a chance to rectify that in XII, but instead gave one weak water spell & only 2 Aero spells.

Yeah, Final Fantasies always seem to ignore these elements. Aero gets pretty good treatment, but Water and Earth, when they feature as an actual element, rarely possess spells or techniques that allow you to use them.

Using your XII as an example, they have the Earth element, but with no earth magick, and hardly any viable way to use it. Why bother with earth in the first place!

The only attacks I can think of that have Earth elemental are the Mud Shot, Cypress Pole, & Gaia Rod. Hashmal is an Earth Esper.

[Mirage]

FFXI has earth and wind elementals and the spells of those elements are as plentiful as for all other elements. Aero/Stone 1-5, Aeroga and Stonega 1-4 (-ga ending denotes AoE rather than the normal singletarget), Tornado, Tornado 2, Quake, Quake 2. Furthermore, buffs also have elements. Wind has blink (absorbs a set number of hits), earth has Stoneskin (absorbs a set amount of damage), water has aquaveil (reduces spell interrupt).

Almost everything has an elemental alignment in that game, which is further affected by the current ingame weather and day. Casting thunder during a lightningstorm will occasionally increase the damage and accuracy of the spell, and so on for all other spells.

That aside, and more on topic, I guess there could have been a few more elements in the game, in particular a water based aeon, as we covered all other elements. I guess the lower number of aeons is offset by giving us a lot better control over their behavior and also their development.

[Perducci]

Would have preferred Ramuh over Ixion, I think.

Leviathan is a good shout but if I had to choose another summon to put in there, I'd like to see Alexander.

[Mirage]

Well, the holy element doesn't exist in ffx, while the water element does, so that's why I am missing levi a lot more than Alex. Interestingly though, the holy element suddenly starts existing in ffx2

[Perducci]

Holy was in FFX. It's the last thing on Yuna's sphere grid as far as I remember. :O

EDIT: Also, couldn't the cure/life/etc spells all be grouped as 'Holy', too?

[Karifean]

Holy was in FFX. It's the last thing on Yuna's sphere grid as far as I remember. :O

EDIT: Also, couldn't the cure/life/etc spells all be grouped as 'Holy', too?

Yeah Holy did exist. However, Cure/Life/etc. are NEVER "holy" magic, it's "restorative" magic. There's an important difference between the two, mainly that one deals damage and one restores HP.

[Mirage]

Right, I'm just not sure if it uses the holy element, or if it's just non elemental magic damage. Are there enemies in ffx that take extra damage from holy, that can't be accounted for with the target's magic defence and caster's magic power? Are there enemies that are immune to holy but no other spells? If not, chances are that it is just non elemental in nature but with a holy spell effect.

Additionally, cure and holy actually share the same element in ffxi . They're light elemental offensive magic and light elemental defensive/restorative magic. It's not like that in ffx, of course, but it's wrong that they are never of the same element.

[Karifean]

Holy is indeed its own element. Yunalesca is weak to it.

Ah I didn't know that, to my knowledge in most FF games restorative magic is just defined via the "restorative" element. Though attacks can have mutiple elements, of course.

[Perducci]

I usually just group restorative magic in with Holy regardless of which game I'm playing. It's all white magic to me...

[magemasher]

I liked Valfor, his evasion was really useful for getting overdrives quickly. I always used to rename him "Levi" as there was no Leviathan.

[Mirage]

Valefor is female. Or at least the fayth is/was.

[Jinx]

Yeah, I don't think Ixion necessarily "makes sense", but he fits in to Spira way better than Ramuh would've. Since the fayth were actual people and none of the aeons (maybe Yojimbo a little bit) resemble humans, it would've been strange.

That said, I do prefer Ramuh to Ixion.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

Brothers would have made a good earth element Aeon.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

Doomtrain haha

No, but it would have been interesting to see how you would fit a train Aeon into battle when it has to stay on screen and fight.

Pandemona and Alexander would have been good choices.

I know Bahamut's impulse attack was non-elemental but I always see him as like a dark/shadow type.