Barring delays, there are still over five grueling months left to wait before Final Fantasy 7 Remake hits shelves. But Square Enix steadily releases new information about the game to keep fans held over until they can get their hands on it. Last time, the official Final Fantasy 7 Remake Twitter account gave fans a look at one of Tifa’s Limit Breaks. This time around, it released a clip of Producer Yoshinori Kitase discussing the specifics of the game’s summoning mechanic.
Summons in Final Fantasy is a mechanic that allows the player to call upon powerful entities to do battle alongside them. These entities tend to be intertwined with the lore of Final Fantasy and are considered mythical. While the main characters of Final Fantasy change every numbered title, most Summons, like Ifrit, tend to stick around from game to game.
In Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Yoshinori Kitase explains that in order for players to perform a summon, they’ll need to equip "summon" materia. While the player battles against a boss or other strong opponent, the equipped materia will resonate and — once certain special conditions are met — allow the player to call on a Summon. Once on the field, a Summon will fight alongside the player autonomously. When the player fills up their ATB (Active Time Battle) gauge, they can empty it to trigger one of their Summon’s abilities, which tend to be powerful dynamic attacks.
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Yoshinori didn’t explain what “special conditions” needed to be met for Summons to hit the field, but fans are a little worried about it. If these conditions turn out to be anything like Final Fantasy 15's, players may not see specific summons as often as they would like or be able to choose which Summon they actually want to bring out like in previous games. There's currently no in-game footage that shows Cloud and the gang meeting these summoning conditions either, so fans have no hint as to what they could be aside from the ones in Final Fantasy 15.
Still, having a Summon actually battle right alongside you like a typical team member is an exciting bit of news, so the information balances — somewhat. Whatever the case, Final Fantasy 7 Remake looks like its shaping up to be a crowd pleaser. Even fans who never had the pleasure of playing the original Final Fantasy 7 are looking forward to the game. Here's hoping the wait won't feel too bad.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake launches March 3, 2020 for PS4.
Source: Final Fantasy VII Remake/Twitter
Final Fantasy 7 Remake Dev Explains How Summons Work
Square Enix's Yoshinori Kitase, a producer on the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, detailed how the summoning system will work in the game.
