Summary
If the combat and story are the bread and butter of JRPG games, then summons is the dessert. There’s nothing like the feeling of activating your most powerful spells to control the field and do as much damage as possible or simply to heal your party before things get too out of hand during battle.
There are lots of things to consider when talking about the best summons of the genre. Is it simply about the power, or does the summon being popular get taken into account? Here, it’s all about three things: the power, the utility, and what makes them unique. In a world of dragon-based summons, it’s better to be a sentient plane.
Updated May 28, 2025, By Rena Darling:you’re able to build your party’s strength up to pull off amazingly powerful moves that can easily eviscerate enemies daring to stand in your way. However, what’s better than paying a small price in the form of MP or SP to have someone come and handle your light work for you? With the powers of a deity in the palm of your hands, you are almost indestructible. So, with that in mind, this list continues to give you the best of the best in terms of power, size, and overall scale, just to show how cool it is to have these powers at your beck and call. Handle them with care.
11Mitey - Ni No Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch
He May Be Small, But Don’t Underestimate His Might
As the first Familiar you gain in the world of Ni No Kuni, you are bound to find some that may be stronger physically or have better powers, but Mitey consistently keeps his strength consistent with Oliver’s growth as the story progresses. Mitey is your A1 from day one of your journey.
Mitey is a physical attacker with his sword and is well-rounded when it comes to stats and defense. After he gets his level 20 move, Ray of Light, there’s a pretty large gap in learning his next ability, but he more than makes up for that with his loyalty and cuteness.
10Knights Of The Round - Various Final Fantasy Games
Power Times Thirteen
There are few other summons in the Final Fantasy series that are as iconic as the Knights of the Round. One could argue Shiva or Ifrit as far as visibility goes, but despite appearing only in two games these powerful, godly men have made an impressive impact on the fandom. Whether it’s due to their overwhelming power, or how long it takes to finish the summon animation in Final Fantasy 7, they’ve made their mark.
However, they take on a whole new terrifying context when they turn that fearful power toward you, and unleash their most powerful attack, Ultimate End. Granted, it doesn’t take quite as long as it does in the original, but it’s still a sight to behold.
9Izanagi-no-Okami - Persona 4
Leading The Battle Against His Godly Wife
For one reason or another, when people discuss summons, the Persona series tends to not be as talked about. Whether it’s due to how liberally you’re able to use it in battle, thereby decreasing the ‘feeling’ of having godly power at your fingertips, or the sheer vast number of persona you can fuse or find.
Izanagi-no-Okami is no simple persona though. He only reveals himself as a summon if you are on the path to the true ending takes a total of 12 persona to even fuse for him, and is the only persona whose mythological spouse shows up inside the game. A battle for the ages, to be sure.
8Ramuh - Final Fantasy 15
True Power Incarnate
The summoning system in Final Fantasy 15 drew a lot of contention between fans who loved how the gods looked andfeltas they answered Noctis’ silent pleas for help, while others didn’t love the fact that you had no actual control over any of them in how they choose to assist you.
But when you see the Thunder God Ramuh appear for the first time after gathering him, the sheer size and power he wields toward your enemies is nothing short of cinematically amazing. For the first time in the series, the godsfeel like gods.
7Catastrophe - Golden Sun: The Lost Age
Weapons Taking A Monsterous Form
Imagine you’re in a battle, and you’re facing off against some characters that are already fairly tough. You’re struggling, but it seems like you might have a chance to take them out so long as they don’t heal. Unfortunately, you start to see summon magic performed.
Out of the sky, a huge suit of weapons descends upon the land and looks down on you as it pulls out a gigantic sword and summons dragon-shaped lightning to decimate you. It’s the last thing you see. That is the sheer power of Catastrophe. In Golden Sun: The Lost Age, Catastrophe is the strongest summon you can muster and earns its fearsome reputation.
6Hresvelgr - Bravely Default
Sometimes, You Just Need To Fly A Plane
Bravely Default does something different with its summons. Instead of completely pulling from various mythological figures from around the world, they instead turned to our world for inspiration. Buildings, power poles, and the like and bring them to life as manifestations of power. There’seven a train that eats the targets!
The one that stands out the most is Hresvelgr, which borrows its name from Norse mythology as a giant eagle from where the wind originates. In the game, it takes a more mechanical form. Its attack has a plane doing some awesome evasive maneuvers before mustering up all its wind magic into one attack straight for its target. It’s an explosive attack without the explosion.
5Queen Twister - Legend Of Legaia
Queen Goddess Of Wind
The queen of wind is here, and in Legend of Legaia, she isn’t playing around. First, you may’t just find her and make her your summon; you have to learn all of the character’s 20 moves, then fight a boss battle that will open your path to travel back to an area you’ve been to before to speak to a spirit. Only then will you be able to receive the blessing that is the Queen Twister. Her attack is a sight to behold.
It starts with the queen launching a run-of-the-mill tornado attack toward your target. The next attack she throws looks quite different from the first. Its colors are black and red and have a sinister aura to them, as though it was the void itself swallowing the enemy in blackness. All while she’s posing for the camera in front of all the destruction. She is a true queen indeed.
4XG Summon - World Of Final Fantasy
Immortal Mecha, Reimagined
There are few games that fans have been asking for an update for than the PS1 classic Xenogears. For the longest time, it was thought that the original game had been long forgotten by developers. But, its appearance in World of Final Fantasy offers hope that maybe it will rise from the ashes.
Getting the summon isa herculean task in itself, for it does not offer itself easily as it attacks you with hard-hitting attacks similar to those found in its parent game. Thought to be a Cogna, living machines that create destruction wherever they go, but that line of questioning would have destroyed another world altogether, according to Tama, your moonless assistant. Phew.
3Anima - Final Fantasy 10
A Child’s Fear, Taking Aeon Form
There are plenty of excellent summons in Final Fantasy 10 that deserve mentioning on this list. Yet, for how great they all are, Anima herself stands out. Summoned from the literal depths of hell, she attacks with the pain she feels (literally) and isn’t above dragging you to hell to give you several punches to the face.
She is the only summon whose backstory is explored at length within the story, and without delving too far into spoilers, it’s a tragic story of how she came to exist in her current form. She shares the pain she feels tenfold.
2Saints - Chrono Cross
The Angels Descend To Cleanse The Field
You could go and beat the whole game of Chrono Cross and not realize there are summons you can attain and use in battle. Summoning them takes quite a bit of work. First, you have to verify the battlefield is all a single element, and then the person casting the summon spell must have the matching innate element to do so. Oh, and if an enemy decides to use a spell in the middle of you turning the field the color you need, well, you’ll just have to start over.
High risk, but the payoff is so worth it. In the case of the Saints, that payoff is at its peak. Not only does it deal a reckless amount of damage to its target, but it heals the party for a significant amount of HP. Though you can only use it once per battle, it could be the defining element in whether you win or lose the fight.
