Summoners tend to be rather special party members in the Final Fantasy series. Many of them double up as the party’s healers and take time to build their repertoire of otherworldly allies. Once they come in full force with that full spiritual, supernatural support, they tend to overpower even the strongest enemies and monsters from any corner of the world.
As such, Summoners tend to come with all kinds of mechanical restrictions and tend to be the central focus of the overall plot, even if they rarely directly assume the role of the protagonist. A summoner is perhaps only as strong as their summons. However, a summoner’s ability to control and sustain their bonds might be the best indication of their power.
This article contains spoilers, so proceed with caution.
10 Final Fantasy Summons Inspired By Mythology
Many of Final Fantasy’s most iconic summons were heavily inspired by mythology and religion– whether it be their names or appearances.
8 The Adventurer
Final Fantasy 11
Final Fantasy 11
- Released
- October 28, 2003
- Developer(s)
- Square Enix
- Uses summon skills and blood pacts to inflict a huge amount of damage on enemies
- Used mainly as healers for parties
Using blood pacts with their various avatars, summoners call forth powerful primal and elemental forces to take down their enemies. Despite the summoner’s impressive power in Final Fantasy 11, especially for the more seasoned veterans, the job is most prized in player groups for its ability to support parties.
Many of the series’ well-known summons, such as Alexander, Shiva, and Ramuh, can be bought from merchants or unlocked after defeating them, similar to the blue mage class. The Summoner is one of the most interesting and flashy jobs to rep. However, for the sake of game balance, the class never quite hits the highs that other summoners from across the other games hit.
7 Eiko Carol
Final Fantasy 9
- The most competent six-year-old summoner in the series
- Can summon four powerful eidolons
Eiko’s ranking here is probably a little unfair, given that she is only a six-year-old girl. But for her age, she is still a significantly powerful caller of eidolons, Final Fantasy 9‘s incarnation of summons. Throughout the game, she has access to four of them: the party-buffing Carbuncle, the fire and life-returning Phoenix, the wind-earth wolf, Fenrir, and the holy lion-dragon, Madeen.
Although she demonstrates maturity beyond her years, with more experience, Eiko could rival any of the series’ other summoners. That being said, the four eidolons she can call are amongst some of the most powerful in the series. As the last of her kind, she is found in the village that once housed a great number of summoners. Her most defining feature (at least for non-summoners) is her horn, which all summoners are born with on their forehead.
6 Rydia Of Mist
Final Fantasy 4
Final Fantasy 4
- Released
- July 19, 1991
- Genre(s)
- JRPG
- Also a talented white and black mage
- Has sole access to over 15 summons
The sole survivor of a summoner bloodline from the town of Mist, Rydia first appears as a child throughout the opening acts of Final Fantasy 4. She uses white magic but is quite vulnerable, requiring protection in each encounter. After seemingly falling to her death from an airship flying above the sea, she is transported to Feymarch, where the flow of time moves at an increased speed.
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She reappears as a young woman, having aged several years offscreen in the other world, and has lost her ability to cast white magic spells. However, she discovered black magic and the summoning magic of her lineage. Now able to command a score of powerful mythical allies, she becomes one of the party’s most powerful members.
5 The Warrior of Light
Final Fantasy 14
- Debuted in a playable state, became one of the most fun classes to play
- Summons of earned organically through the story
With the base game’s complete revamping, Summoners in Final Fantasy 14 never truly felt like the special classes they had been depicted as for most of the series’ modern history. However, with the introduction of the Stormblood and Endwalker expansions, when the Warrior of Light is playing with powerful series staples, such as Bahamut, the summoner class finally feels like the real deal.
According to lore, the player character, the Warrior of Light, is the first to rediscover this ancient art. Each summon (beyond the starter, Carbuncle) is gained organically as the story progresses and as more primals are encountered and beaten and the essences acquired.
4 Garnet Til Alexandros XVII / Dagger
Final Fantasy 9
- Has access to most of the summons of the game from the get-go
- Her summons have the power to bring nations to their knees
As well as being a powerful personality in her own right, Garnet is one potent summoner. Unbeknownst to her, she and her mother were refugees from a summoner tribe, and she was adopted by the roal family after washing up in their kingdom. The horn on her that usually distinguishes a summoner from other humans was removed.
From the start of the game, Garnet has access to an incredible list of summons, but not enough MP to call them. They are stolen from her and used to enact terrible damage against entire civilizations. When she later relearns them, she is able to cast the spell to summon them with ease, making her an incredibly powerful member of the team.
3 Yu Yeven
Final Fantasy 10
- Uses one, invincible summon that persists for centuries
- Brought the whole world under his control with his power
Seymour, also from Final Fantasy 10, certainly deserves a mention for being one of Spira’s greatest summoners and wouldn’t let even something like death stop him from achieving his ambitions. However, Yu Yeven, the impersonal progenitor of Sin, the invincible entity that kept sentient life from progressing beyond primitive modes of living, is undoubtedly the much more powerful master of Aeons.
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With overwhelming power and the will to use it, Final Fantasy villains are consistently terrifying. Which antagonist is the most intimidating?
While he is never seen in-game, at least in his human form (and therefore wouldn’t quite make it to the most iconic Final Fantasy villains tier list), his avatar is that of a parasite or bug that resides at the center of its soul-solid armor. Even when Sin is defeated by a “final aeon,” Yu Yeven is able to reconstruct Sin from the body of the Aeon, starting the cycle anew.
2 Clive Rosfield
Final Fantasy 16
- Has access to world-warping entities
- Transforms into summons (eikons) rather than calls them
Although Clive (or any other dominant) is never referred to as summoners in Final Fantasy 16, he still pulls from a well–established canon of Final Fantasy summons which essentially provides the same service: extreme levels of force against enemy combatants.
Besides having many other merits, Clive is unique among the other dominants (whose innate power sets them well above the rest of society, as might be expected) in that he has access to multiple eikons rather than just one. Given how much of an (understandable) impact eikons had on the history of Valisthea, Clive arguably stands worthy of this high rank.
1 Yuna
Final Fantasy 10
- Able to hold summons to aid the party in battle
- Saved the world by killing Yu Yevon
The world region of Spira revolves around summoners. They are praised as saviors from the most destructive entity in the world, Sin, and are secretly lorded over by the summoner who originally created it. However, only one managed to end the cycle for good: Yuna. She is skilled not only in calling aeons, but holding them and commanding their actions in battle, a first for the series.
In terms of gameplay mechanics, Yuna is able to break the damage cap much faster than any other summoner, and with her celestial (ultimate) weapon, Nirvana, she is also able to cast any magic spell at the cost of a single magic point.
