Samurai

Samurai is a recurring job class in the Final Fantasy franchise, and its first appearance is in Final Fantasy V. Samurais do not have the best Speed, although they have a high Attack power and can wear heavy armor. A samurai's weapon of choice is usually a katana, and they have various other skills ranging from special sword techniques, to the GP Toss, and to quasi-magical Draw Out abilities.

Final Fantasy V
In Final Fantasy V, the Samurai class is characterized by katana usage and GP Toss.

Final Fantasy VI
In Final Fantasy VI, the character Cyan Garamonde is properly classed as a Samurai in the Japanese version of the game, though American translations refer to him as a Knight. Since Final Fantasy VI Advance, Cyan has been correctly classified as a Samurai. Cyan has a series of charge-meter based sword abilities called Bushidos, and he uses single-edged swords for weapons.

Final Fantasy X
In Final Fantasy X, there are no proper job classes, but the character Auron has some characteristics of a wandering samurai, such as carrying a sake jug. His specific abilities are a combination of the samurai and knight classes. Auron conceals one arm inside his robe, leaving one sleeve to dangle empty, a clear homage to Toshiro Mifune's character in Kurosawa's. Auron's theme music is also titled Yojimbo, possibly strengthening the connection.

Final Fantasy XI
In Final Fantasy XI, samurai is an advanced job that is unlocked by performing a quest at level 30. The job mainly uses Great Katana class weapons. The samurai's specialty is gaining TP quickly, and being able to unleash weapon skills more often than other jobs.

Final Fantasy X-2
In Final Fantasy X-2, Yuna, Rikku, and Paine can all use the Samurai dressphere. One of the Samurai dressphere's abilities, Zantetsu, can instantly defeat any enemy in the game, even enemies immune to instant death. However, the odds of hitting an enemy with Zantetsu decrease with stronger foes and bosses.

Final Fantasy XIV
In Final Fantasy XIV, samurai is a Melee DPS job that was added with the 4.0 Stormblood expansion and is unlocked by performing "The Way of the Samurai" job quest in Ul'dah. The job uses Katanas as weapons and shares gears with the Monk class. It's speciality is the ability to deals heavy damage through the use of the Kenki Gauge which is filled by various combos.

Final Fantasy Tactics
In Final Fantasy Tactics, the Samurai is an upgraded class of the Knight/Lancer. They use the skill Draw Out, which draws energy from a certain katana in the party's inventory to unleash a spell effect. (this ability is probably derived from the traditional Japanese belief that the Samurai's sword contained his soul; thus the Samurai is "drawing out" the soul from the sword to achieve some effect) There is a chance with the Draw Out ability for a sword to break when used in this way. Final Fantasy Tactics' Samurai also have the skill Blade Grasp, which is a unique reactive skill that allows a character to stop an incoming attack completely.

Marquis Elmdor belongs to a special class called Arc Knight, which functions like the Samurai. Overall, there isn't much difference other than Elmdor's primary skill suite being Sword Spirit, which appears to be a more powerful version of Draw Out. Later on, he gets the Blood Suck ability later on, which places a target in the Blood Suck state, leaving them in an uncontrollable thirst for draining HP. Blood Suck has more to do with Elmdor's being a creepy quasi-vampire than being an almost-Samurai.