Joseph has inherited the extraordinary and rare power of the Summoners, that allows him to invoke incredibly powerful creatures subduing them to his wills. Once, when he was just a small boy, Joseph summoned a demon to protect his village from a fierce attack. The monstrous being rebelled to the young summoner, killing all the people he loved and sowing everywhere terror and destruction. Since then, Joseph feels a deep grudge towards his powers. Now has come the time for him to depart for a long voyage, searching for the ancient rings that guarantee immense power to those who own them. In fact, the Orenia army is going to conquer Joseph's continent and he's the only who has the power to save his land. During his voyage, Joseph will meet Flece, Rosalind and Jekhart; they'll help him in his difficult mission.

Even though this story seems rather conventional, the greatness of this game resides first of all in the endless possibilities of development of its plot. Summoner is a very deep game, and in order to complete it you need at least 35 hours. Summoner is far away from the linear structure of RPGs like Final Fantasy. You doesn't have a precise order to explore the world, and you rarely have a well defined destination to reach, while you are often forced to make difficult choices that really affect the story you are playing. If this constant situation of uncertainty could bother the ones used only to Final Fantasy, the enthusiast of classic RPGs will find in Summoner the possibility to explore a game world of unusual complexity. During the game you will have to travel through two different continents, Medeva and Orenia. The former has the style of medieval Europe, while the latter has an oriental splendour. The cities are simply boundless and they never appear repetitive; at present there is no other role playing game endowed with such huge, completely three-dimensional territories. You can interact with hundreds of characters; you will talk to every single inhabitant of the virtual cities in Summoner, and these dialogues will be fundamental to complete the game. Many characters will ask your help to solve some problems: in Summoner there is an unbelievable number of sub-plots and side quests that don't necessarily need to be played, but that make this game extremely deep. Summoner is one of the first Ps2 games using the DVD format; thanks to the high storage capacity of this format, the amount of data on Summoner's disk is 6 times superior to that contained on a normal CD-ROM.

The great depth of this game becomes evident looking closer at the four main characters. Like in any good RPG, each character has his own skills, his own amount of HP and the possibility to wear different armours and weapons. There are hundreds of objects that you will find completing the secondary plots or that you can acquire in the various markets you will find roaming into the cities. In addition to armors, boots, gloves, mantles and necklaces, in Summoner the use of magic rings is extremely important. These rings allow your characters to learn new skills and increase their powers. Anyhow, you can wear only two rings at a time. Some objects can be equipped only by some of the characters; there are various armors, extremely resistant but at the same time very heavy, that only the brawny Jekhart can wear.

The battle system in Summoner is great and makes good use of real time elements. If you press one of the buttons on your digital pad at the right moment you will realize a chain attack. You have the opportunity to choose among different chain attacks. Each weapon requires a different timing in order to perform sucessful chain attacks, and sometimes you will need more than a battle to get accustomed to the weapon you are equipping. For example, Jekhart can equip an enormous axe able to inflict heavy damages to an enemy but this comes at a cost in speed. To realize a chain attack with this axe you need to figure out in which moment of the slow movement you have to hit the button, and this is not simple. This system, similar to the one featured in Squaresoft's Vagrant Story, has many other variables that you have to consider. According to the reciprocal position of your character and your enemy the efficacy of your hits will change. Besides, many weapons will be completely useless against certain enemies.
During the battles, Joseph has the power to summon demonic creatures to help you in your fights. Once invoked, these amazing creatures can be controlled like one of your characters but you have to remember that if Joseph dies while one of these creatures is on the battle field, they could attack furiously your own companions. And this is bad, trust me.

The gameplay in Summoner could have been considered one of the best seen on an RPG in the last years, if the developers had been able to avoid such long loading times that partially ruin the game experience. They become unbearable when it comes to the random fights you have to face during your explorations. It surprises that Volition developers, who have been able to create perfect games in the past, have not succeeded in solving this problem that goes against the fun of playing this awesome game. Anyhow, the score is high, because this is one of the deepest games for PlayStation 2.