Correct. Also, judging by the trailers and gameplay videos we have seen for FFXIII, it will be the same way as well.

In FFX, yes, they were very useful. You're acting like you had assess to Quick Hit and Auto-Life the entire game.

I remember using them alot in FF7 and FF8 as well. For FF9.......not so much. They were still MUCH more useful then the Espers in FFXII though.

Your question is a non-sequitur. What I said had nothing to do with whether or not its hype is big enough for the score not to matter. I just said that one blockbuster not getting the perfect score from Famitsu doesn't suddenly mean said outlet is a bastion of independence and integrity.

As for your hype, I wasn't trying to be unkind. It's just that I never saw you mention FFXIII with great reverence anytime last year or in the first half of this year. Then suddenly you're making 3 threads a day about it and proclaiming it "BEST GAME OF THE GEN WITHOUT DOUBT" in every other post. Perhaps I only noticed your eagerness for the game lately when in fact you've been keen on it for ages; apologies if so.

Give me an example of a battle in FFX in which you didn't have access to both Quick Hit + Auto Life and actually needed to use Aeons as a way to win.

Most people found the hardest battles being Seymour Flux, Monster Arena Battles and Dark Aeons. By Seymour Flux you would already have Quick Hit and Auto-Life for both Yuna and Tidus, so that was covered. By the time the hardest Monster Arena Battles hit, you would have had to develop your characters way further than the main story required you too, so you'd have acess to Quick Hit + Auto Life to your main party characters, the same goes for Dark Aeons, as they were even tougher than Monster Arena Battles.

Oh and don't even forget that the hardest Story Battles, the ones in which probably you would have need for Aeons, were the ones in which your Aeons had Banish cast on them.

I'm not even saying that espers were useful in FFXII, they weren't. But to consider summons useful in any FF game, is stretching that definition too far.

You used them so your white mages could inflict more than double-digit damage. You're correct that they're not as good as Black Magic in that game, but you have to remember that they're assigned exclusively to support characters, so to me it balanced out fairly nicely (it'd be cheap if my white mage was also a heavy hitter!).

@noname2200

Fair enough, I guess people built a strategy out of that, yet having your white mages constantly on low MP due to summons, not a good idea.
Plus Eiko already had a four digit damage spell, Holy, which actually did the same damage as Maduin for 1/4 of MP.

Me, I rather have my white mages supporting and healing, when played correctly, both Protect, Shell, Reflect, Might, Curaga and Full-Life are amongst the most awesome spells in the game and surpass in usefulness every summon by miles ;)