There's Something ...Different... About Rydia....

There is one more summon to be gained before moving on with the adventure. Rumor has it that there are actually a number of other summons, none of which are too particularly useful, that can be won from various random monsters. I personally believe this is a load of hogwash, but there are enough FAQs and Walkthroughs out there that say otherwise that lead me to have my doubts. One of these summons, for example, is Imp. You have a 1/64 chance of winning the summon from battling Imps or Imp-like enemies. I personally have tried to obtain these summons every time I've played through this game, both on the SNES and right now. Earlier today, in fact, after gaining Leviathan I spent close to an hour and a half and fought over 100 battles with Imp enemies outside of Baron and never got this supposed item. Because I have tried so many different times on different playthroughs on different copies of the game, I find it hard to believe that any of them actually exist without the use of a Game Genie or Game Shark.

At any rate, the final summon that I know actually does exist is Bahamut, found in an isolated cave on the moon. Before reaching Bahamut, the party must battle through a cave that contains the Genji equipment for Cecil, marking the second appearance for this storied armor. The items are only a small upgrade over the Diamond equipment, but the difference is notable in battle. This cave also contains three Behemoths that appear as random encounters, but are always encountered at the same three places. The Behemoths are pretty tough, as they counterattack everything directed at them, but can be brought down without too much difficulty.

Bahamut, on the other hand, is a different matter. The King of Dragons and leader of the Summons is also more difficult than FFIV's final boss, though not as hard as the moving wall. Bahamut only has one attack, but it is a whopper. He counts down from five and then unleashes MegaFlare, the strongest attack in the game. The only way to dodge this is by casting Wall spells on the characters. This reflects the damage back on to Bahamut. If two characters are Walled, he will sustain 9999 damage. A couple rounds of this brings the beast down and earns you the best spell in the game. What makes the fight difficult is that the Walls wear out pretty quickly, and the game gives you no indication they are gone until you get hit with a spell. The walls also last longer on some characters than others, making it hard to predict when it will dissipate. Even so, careful attention to detail will win the fight in the end. To give you an idea how close it can be, on this playthrough Rosa was the only one still standing when Bahamut died.

After defeating the dragon king, the Master Summon offers his services to Rydia. This, in my mind, confirms that there must be something different about Rydia that sets her apart from the other characters. I mean physically. Bahamut immediately saw she was a summoner, Odin immediately saw she was a summoner, the Slyphs immediately recognized her as a summoner. And this is without even going into the other NPCs that knew she was a summoner. How is this possible, if Rydia looks like the other characters? There must be something physically different about summoners that is impossible to see in 16-bit graphics. Whatever it is, it must be pretty obvious, and Edge obviously does not mind it. Heck, he's probably attracted to it!