Quote Originally Posted by Zantetsuken View Post
The point Yoshi was making is that the summons were rare because there was only one (Ifrit) in every FF world and it was exclusive to the player-controlled party.

FFXI broke this with every Summoner walking around with their own Ifrit. (ie, there were many 'Ifrits' in FFXI) -- and even though the lore kind of explained it, the overall feeling was that the power of Ifrit was diminished by turning him into a breed of pet for people.

Yoshi wants there to be only one Ifrit, and he wants him to be very powerful.

Other lesser summons like Carbuncle and Cait Sith could replicate themselves and be used for a SMN job in this game, but for the big summons, there will be only one version at any given point.
I figured out the general idea of what you were saying.

An Ifrit Materia or Esper could be used to summon the essence or the effect of Ifrit but to summon him it is to be expected that you can only do it once at any given time. It gives primal's a life of their own when they are treated as autonomous beings and not elements.

The Summoner should really be called a Channeler as they channel Ifrit like power rather than summon.