Final Fantasy: 25 Greatest Summons

It is hard to believe that Cactuars didn’t actually make their debut until Final Fantasy VI, where they were rare and easily missable enemies that could only be found in a small patch of desert. They weren’t even called Cactuars until their third appearance, having been called Cactrots and Cactuers respectively in the original English language translations of VI and VII.

VIII was the first game to feature a friendly version of the creature, including a Jumbo Cactuar (synonymous with Gigantuar in later games) as an optional summon that was key to stat optimisation given its offering of all five ‘Bonus’ abilities and the rare Eva-J and Luck-J junctions.

Despite being annoyingly hard to hit, prone to escaping and devastating with their rapid fire 1000 Needles attack when faced on the battlefield, Cactuars are beloved and being able to summon one is therefore a gleeful experience. The fact that they can swiftly do 10000 damage (actually 9999 given the caps in place) also makes them hugely beneficial to deploy.

Cactuar’s appearances as a summon have been few and far between since VIII, having been included only in Crisis Core, selected remakes of VI and as a pre-order bonus in VII Remake. Given their adorability, however, they’ll always be welcome.