I liked how they did other things then battle. For those of you who said it was cheap that you could just re-use them, summons weren't very usefull in FFVIII and I liked that. Well they weren't very usefull to cast. As juctioning and stuff worked together with the summons, and in my opinion, junction is the best system of gaining stats, FFVIII earned my best one.
At what point was this about Stats/equipment system.....I thought we were talking about the SUMMONING system, which is what happens when you use the summon command in battle and your summon creature (ie, Shiva) comes out and does their job. So what does this have to do with the worth of the summoning system? As for the "not useful statement" well.......I've wittnessed the horrid unrestraind summoningt tactics in action, and they win the battles qicker than anything else for people who do it......hmm, must of been a different game than I played.

This abomination of a summoning system allowed you to summon an Aeon to take a hit for you. All fine and dandy. But not only could they take a hit for you. They could also get in several attacks before taking that hit, and then once they die, it's your turn again. In my opinion this was the worst because it allowed you to fight basically through your Aeons alone. I know that's kind of the story of the game but it's also kind of stupid how you can just have one really powerfull aeon who has high speed and they can come out, take an attack (or more then 1 attack,) and then prevent you from taking any damage. The only saving grace of this system was that many bosses had the ability to instantly dispatch Aeons, but it still gave you an extra turn where the boss didn't attack.
Gee that must of been a completely different version of FFX that I played....or that statement is just pure senselessness........I am not sure, all I know is I didn't play a game like that.