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Summoning Materia from FFVII Remake

Summon materia icon.

Equip summoning materia to call a legendary entity into battle. The summoned creature will also provide stat bonuses for the character equipped with their materia. This special materia can only be set to a specific slot in a character's weapon.

Summoning materia is a unique set of materia in Final Fantasy VII Remake and "Episode INTERmission" that allows summoned monsters to be called in battle and fight alongside the party.

Summons are fearsome creatures that are the embodiment of ancient knowledge, condensed into materia.[1] The summons appear during a video in the Shinra Building's Visual Entertainment Hall on the Cetra civilization.

Mechanics[]

You're willing to step up for us?

Aerith summoning
Tifa summons from FFVII Remake

Summon command.

One summoning materia can be equipped per character, fit into a dedicated slot in the weapon. Each equipped summoning materia also grants bonuses to specific stats. Summoning materia cannot level up, but the summon shares its level with its summoner, and thus grows stronger as the party levels up. Equipping the Mythical Amulet increases the level of the equipped character's summon by 5.

Summons cannot be used at will, and require special conditions to be activated. One of them requires characters to sustain damage during battle. During boss battles, summons can be used once the boss takes a specific amount of damage. If either condition is met, a green energy will manifest in the air, high above the characters, and a Summon Gauge appears, with a set time required before the summon can be invoked. Summoning requires ATB, and can be used once per battle. Certain summons can only be used in specific boss battles, while others can be summoned at any, including against normal enemies. The size of the summon is a factor in which fights it can be summoned in; the smaller DLC summons can be used in any fight where summoning is possible, while larger summons, like Leviathan, are limited to larger, more open arenas. If no summons that are compatible with the arena are equipped, the Summon Gauge will not appear.

Once invoked, the summon will fight as an independent ally, but special actions can be activated by any character with the required ATB gauge(s). Once the time limit is reached, the summon will execute its ultimate attack before departing. The summon also uses its ultimate attack if the summoner is KO'd.

Summons are categorized by their roles in battle: Carbuncle, for example, is a Support/Healer summon while Ifrit is combat-focused.

The summoning materia for Chocobo Chick is available to those who pre-ordered any version of Final Fantasy VII Remake. The Digital Deluxe Edition provides the Carbuncle and Cactuar summoning materia, where only the latter is available in the Physical Deluxe Edition. All are added to the player's inventory at the start of the game, and if the player has any of them, the summoning materia slot will appear in Chapter 2, "Fateful Encounters". Otherwise, the slot does not appear until players receive the Ifrit materia from Jessie at the end of Chapter 3, "Home Sweet Slum". Chocobo Chick, Carbuncle and Cactuar have since made into free DLC, and are also compatible with "Episode INTERmission"; without the DLC summons, the player can only use Ramuh in INTERmission.

Summoning for the first time unlocks the trophy "My First Summon", while finding the Chocobo & Moogle materia grants the trophy "Cleanup Crew".

List of materia[]

Materia ATB Summon Abilities Role Acquirement
Carbuncle 1
  • Ruby Light
  • Nacre Light
  • Emerald Light
  • Diamond Dazzle (Ultimate)
Support/Heal Digital Deluxe Edition
Cactuar 1
  • 1000 Needles: deals non-elemental damage.
  • 10,000 Needles?: non-elemental ultimate attack.
Combat, deals fixed damage Any Deluxe Edition
Chocobo Chick 1
  • Chocofire: deals fire damage.
  • Chocoblizzard: deals ice damage.
  • Chocothunder: deals lightning damage.
  • Chocogust: deals wind damage.
  • Chocoflare: non-elemental ultimate attack.
Combat, deals various types of elemental damage in area Base game Pre order Bonus
Ifrit 1
  • Radiant Plume: fire-elemental area damage.
  • Crimson Dive: damage enemies from above.
  • Hellfire: fire-elemental ultimate attack.
Combat, deals fire damage Automatically obtained
Chocobo & Moogle 1
  • Moogle Blast: deals area damage.
  • Chocobo Kick: significantly increases stagger.
  • Stampede: wind-elemental ultimate attack.
Combat (Chocobo: deals wind damage, Moogle: deals non-elemental damage) "Inside the Ventilation Fan"
Shiva 1
  • Icicle Impact: significantly increases stagger.
  • Heavenly Strike: significantly increases stagger.
  • Diamond Dust: ice-elemental ultimate attack.
Combat, deals ice damage. Chadley's VR Missions
Fat Chocobo 2
  • Kaboom: significantly increases stagger.
  • Bombs Away: deals area damage.
  • Kerplunk: non-elemental ultimate attack.
Combat, deals non-elemental damage Chadley's VR Missions
Leviathan 2
  • Briny Bellow: significantly increases stagger.
  • Gyre Spume: damages nearby enemies.
    Tidal Wave: non-elemental ultimate attack.
Combat, deals non-elemental damage Chadley's VR Missions
Bahamut 2
  • Umbral Inferno: multi-hit non-elemental attack.
  • Umbral Strikes: non-elemental attack.
  • Megaflare : non-elemental ultimate attack.
Combat, deals non-elemental damage Chadley's VR Missions
Ramuh 1
  • Voltaic Lance
  • Circuitous Bolt
  • Judgment Bolt: lightning-elemental ultimate attack.
Combat, deals Lightning-elemental damage Chadley's VR Missions in Episode INTERmission

Behind the scenes[]

Design[]

Shiva concept art from Final Fantasy VII Remake

Concept art of Shiva.

The developers knew from the beginning that the Remake would only cover the story parts in Midgar, and thus they would need to decide which elements to include from the original game. In the original Final Fantasy VII the player does not gain access to summons until after leaving Midgar, but since summons are a big part of Final Fantasy and players would be expecting them, the developers added them in "early".[2] The team decided that simply recreating the summons as they were in the original Final Fantasy VII would not be enough for modern graphical designs. The summons went through many iterations to make them feel "magnificent, supernatural, and majestic" and were given glowing particle effects to capture their essence.[1] Ifrit, as a fire summon, was made to express his ferocious brutality through cracks in burning lava and black volcanic rock formations. Shiva's color tones were made cooler, and she was given metallic accessories. Bahamut also went through many iterations before his final version was chosen.[1]

The developers originally wanted to bring back Ramuh who appears in most Final Fantasy games. He was dropped in favor of Leviathan to allow players to summon the water serpent in Mako Reactor 1, something that was possible in the Final Fantasy VII demo, during chapter select.[1]

Summons as rewards[]

Shinra Combat Simulator Portable Version from FFVII Remake

Chadley's portable VR battle simulator.

Because of the lore of the summons, it would not make sense for the party to run into them in Midgar. Therefore, summons were introduced as VR battles as a tribute to Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- where virtual battles were used for SOLDIER training. Since the Shinra Combat Simulator does not appear until the Shinra Building near the end of the game, the portable VR headset was given to Chadley, as inspired by PlayStation VR.[1]

The developers wished for summons to feel like a special event,[3] but also like a reward for the player. Early on in development, it was decided that summoning materia could only be obtained by defeating that monster in battle. This was not present in the original Final Fantasy VII, where summons are found among the story areas, and rewarded for completing side objectives, but for Final Fantasy VII Remake, the developers wished for players to feel a greater sense of achievement when obtaining them.[1]

Gameplay balancing[]

When bringing back summons from the original game, the developers wanted to ensure that they (along with any mechanic brought back from the original) could not simply be used as a sure-fire way to win a battle, feeling that this would lead to battles becoming repetitive. Summons were balanced by limiting their use with the developers also feeling they would be more memorable if experienced as a "fever time" where summons would stay and help the player thereafter. To make up for the restriction, the MP cost was reduced to 0.[3]

The developers also wanted the summons to stick around and give the player the ability to control them.[3][1] The original plan was for summons to have individual ATB bars and be given commands once filled. This was removed in favor of allowing party members to consume their own ATB to command summons, as though it allowed summons to feel collaborative, it did not change the feel of battles in a meaningful way, and lacked the desired "special feeling from summoning something strange in battle".[1]

Each character is limited to holding one summoning materia so players would not agonize over whether to bring a summon (as summoning is not always available) or to constantly change it based on what they would be fighting.[4]

Reception[]

Among survey respondents, Bahamut was the most popular summon at 40%, followed by Shiva at 20% and Ifrit at 19%.[5]

Etymology[]

Evocation is the act of calling upon or summoning a spirit, demon, god or other supernatural agent, in the Western mystery tradition. Comparable practices exist in many religions and magical traditions and may employ the use of mind-altering substances with and without uttered word formulas.

Materia means "matter" or "substance" in Latin, Spanish, and Italian; it also means "subject" in Italian and Spanish, and is the root of Portuguese "Matéria".

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Hamaguchi, Naoki (2020, June 22). "How Square Enix created the Summons in Final Fantasy VII Remake". From PlayStation Blog. Archived from the original on June 22, 2020.
  2. Team, FF7 (2020, August 28). "Final Fantasy VII Remake Ultimania Interview with Motomu Toriyama, English Translation". From game8. Archived from the original on 23 February, 2021.
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 Juba, Joe (2020, May 21). "Final Fantasy VII Remake Creators Answer Our Questions About Summons, Combat, And Dance Scenes". From 'Game Informer'. Archived from the original on May 21, 2020.
  4. Team, FF7 (2020, August 28). "Final Fantasy VII Remake Ultimania Interview with Motomu Toriyama, English Translation". From game8. Archived from the original on 23 February, 2021.
  5. Square Enix (2020, August 14). "Results of the FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE Post-Play Survey". From Final Fantasy Portal Site. Archived from the original on August 14, 2020.
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