Final Fantasy XV Reviews: 10 Early Reactions You Need To Know

5. Summons Are Incredible, But Tricky To Master

"You won’t acquire your first Summon until deep into the 40-hour journey, and even once you do, you cannot call them in at will. Even after playing all the way through and getting some hints from Square Enix on how to trigger them, the exact method still eludes me. The secret seems to be a random mix of how badly hurt my party is, how badly hurt my enemies are, and how long I’ve been fighting for." - IGN

"Each of the four Astrals you acquire call for very specific battle conditions, but even if all criteria are met - being dangerously low on health in the vicinity of water, in one case - there's no guarantee an Astral will actually appear. Where you could always count on summons to save the day in previous Final Fantasy games, it's disheartening that they usually fail to appear during Final Fantasy XV's most difficult battles." - Gamespot

Any who played or saw the various gameplay demos of Final Fantasy XV pre-release will remember the genuinely jaw-dropping Ramuh summon, where a screen-filling summon (here called an Astral) popped on the screen to decimate opponents, leaving a flash-fried and lightning-scorched landscape in his midst.

It's a shame then, that such things aren't more dependable in-game, though on the other hand you could argue that having these almost cutscene-like summons on-tap would've seen repetition settle in fast. After all, something like FF VII's Knights of the Round divides fan opinion thanks to its length, like that of the ongoing debate between active and turn-based combat.