Quote Originally Posted by Sigiria View Post
Ah, yes, nothing more traditional than good ol' FF12 summons or fans favorite ff13 summoning. Also even if both have the summons stays for a bit they're both temporary so in function not that different from demi-bahumut and demi-phoenix. You have more of a case with ff10 but then again if you just wanna be smug, what are you doing? FF11 is right here.
Summon Ally is as 'traditional', in the strict sense, as Summon Cutscene is -- insofar as it's a facet of the series that's been present for several iterations. That's really all you need to be a 'tradition'.

This does get in the way of invoking the word 'tradition' as a talisman.

Point is, out of 16 main entries FF, 9 have summons that show up only to do one attack, 2 don't have summons, 2 have summons temporarily out on the field, 2 have persistent summons that function as a pet and 1 is FF16.
8 cutscene summoners, 2 non-summoners, 5 ally summoners, and then FF16. Counting both old and new versions of FF7, and not counting FF14 since it's the subject of argument (and also it uses both types of summons, lmao).

Also I don't really consider the distinction between temporary and permanent allies to be relevant here, since there are equally large distinctions in the cutscene varieties that you're ignoring to make your argument.

Like, FF6's 'only once per battle from an item you choose and equip beforehand' magicite system has as much or more conceptual distance from FF14's spam rotation, as temporary allies do from permanent ones.

I'm not gonna argue with how the gameplay feels, I can understand people not liking it. But honestly I think the current summoner feels thematically way closer to what summoning has been in FF history rather than coughing on a monster to give it the flu then give it an infection while a little deformed aberration sometimes gives a hit in between two pleas to be put out of it's misery. The previous summoner felt more like the mad scientist job.
Couldn't disagree more. You spend most of your time rapid-casting weak Magic Missiles, and when you do get to summon, everything's instant so you don't get the visceral experience of a charge-and-release cast, plus your main 3 still look like deformed digimon for the whole leveling experience and whenever you get synced down.