While Final Fantasy VII Remake has been around for a few months now since its April 2020 debut, Square Enix has been offering up more details about the game since its launch. Most recently, Co-director Naoki Hamaguchi took to the PlayStation Blog to talk about the Final Fantasy VII Remake summons. Things were changed up a bit here, with more available in Midgar than in the original game and each summon fighting alongside the party briefly after being summoned instead of only unleashing one attack and going. To help provide a better idea for how things happened. Hamaguchi shared details and design documents. He also mentioned that Ramuh almost made it into the game.
First, here are five Final Fantasy VII Remake summons design documents. To be more specific, Hamaguchi offered a look at what went into bringing Bahamut into the game. Bahamut is one of the six who returned from the original game and is only unlocked as an option after you complete Chadley Battle Intel Report 20. What’s interesting is this is one interpretation, and the designs here didn’t show up in the final version of the game
When talking about the different Final Fantasy VII Remake, Hamaguchi said the goal was to make the summons feel powerful, with the summons being “meaningful moments” resulting in a “collaboration in battle.” This is why the time period when people could summon them and their new ATB bars and commands appear.
Hamaguchi also revealed one summon who didn’t make it into the first part of the remake: Ramuh. He noted:
I’m happy with the final designs–-although I do have one minor regret. We actually originally wanted to include Ramuh as a Summon—fans of the original game will remember him fondly!
Unfortunately, we had to give up on the idea for two reasons. Firstly, we thought there would be fans who would like to use Leviathan in Mako Reactor 1 like you could in the demo for the original game. Secondly, we also thought that fans would be disappointed if they could not see Bahamut in a Final Fantasy game—I know I would be!
So unfortunately, Ramuh doesn’t appear in the game – but he’ll definitely be in the running next time we make a decision on what Summons to use!
Final Fantasy VII Remake is available on the PlayStation 4. As a reminder, its exclusivity arrangement will end on April 10, 2021, which will then open it up to a release on more platforms.
