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Final Fantasy III introduced summons into the Final Fantasy series, and they've been omnipresent ever since. From Final Fantasy III's summons to Final Fantasy XIV's primals, summoning powerful creatures to fight for players on the field of battle has been a huge part of the series' lore and gameplay, and they have shown the capabilities of each game's battle system.

Final Fantasy XV continues the tradition, with a bevy of Eidolons planned for the player to summon to their side. The Eidolon of thunder and lightning, Ramuh, is the first that gamers have been able to summon themselves in the recent Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae demo.

The above video, recorded by Alex "Arekkz" Noon in the Final Fantasy XV: Episode Duscae demo, is the first glimpse gamers have had into the new Eidolon system. The gameplay displays a fierce encounter between Noctis and Behemoth, the main boss of the demo. After taking serious damage in the fight, Noctis triggers the summoning of Ramuh, whose first on-screen appearance is his hand alone. Ramuh, who is massive, protectively scoops up Noctis from the field of battle and promptly sends a Judgment Bolt after Behemoth, defeating it and ending the fight.

Ramuh strongly resembles the majority of his former incarnations from other Final Fantasy games, but the epic scale is unique to Final Fantasy XV. There has been some concern amongst fans that Final Fantasy XV wouldn't live up to expectations after being moved from last-gen to current-gen, but this single sequence shows that Square Enix is taking full advantage of the latest generation of consoles.

Ramuh's summoning sequence is visually dazzling and teases the idea of what else Final Fantasy XV may hold for its eager fans. It's possible that all the Eidolons will be massively larger-than-life, or this could be something unique to Ramuh. It's also worth noting that Ramuh can only be summoned once the player has taken a significant amount of damage: might there be specific requirements for all summons? We also have no clues as to whether this is a scripted encounter specifically for this boss fight, or if Ramuh summons will look like this in every battle he's summoned into.

Still, some gamers have found the elaborate summoning sequences to be stunning once, and irritatingly long in all subsequent uses in prior Final Fantasy games. With any luck, Final Fantasy XV will continue the trend of (mostly) skippable summoning sequences after each Eidolon's first use.

Source: IGN, Arekkz Gaming