Weekend Question: What's the best summon you ever summoned to help you out in an RPG?

[PCG Jody]

I ask the PCG staff a regular Weekend Question and post the answers on the site. If you'd like to throw in an answer here, I'll squeeze the best into the finished article!

This week's question is: What's the best summon you ever summoned to help out in an RPG?

If you were having trouble with Malenia in Elden Ring, you could rely on Let Me Solo Her to win the fight for you. If you were having trouble with pretty much anything in Final Fantasy 7, the Knights of the Round could be relied on to drop over 100,000 points of Arthurian damage on it. And in Yakuza: Like a Dragon you can whip out your phone and call a storm of lobsters to fall on your enemies as the "Plague of Pincers". Relying on a summon to help you win a particularly hard battle isn't cheating—it's just phoning a friend.

 

[Zloth]

I would give it to the original Final Fantasy 7, Neo Bahamut's summon: Giga Flare. There are stronger summons for sure, but this one is the most fun just for the spectacle of it.

Honorable mention to the Anima summon of Final Fantasy X, and the tornado spell from Dragon's Dogma.

 

[Pifanjr]

I feel there must be a much better answer, but the first thing that comes to mind is the Dremora Lord from Skyrim, one of the strongest summons in the game and great for keeping your enemies busy for a while, if not outright killing them.

 

[Sarafan]

There can only be one winner - Planetar summoned by high level Mages in Baldur's Gate 2. He's almost invincible. This celestial being is capable of taking out whole groups of enemies and we're talking here about high level enemies. Planetar has some impressive resistances and a 25% chance of decapitating any opponent with a single blow, if that target fails a Death saving throw. What more, he's capable of casting Priest and Mage spells. If you pair him with one or two Mordenkainen's Swords, you'll have a team that's capable of taking out almost anything the game throws at you. The only exception are the top level bosses, but even then these summons are an immense help.

 

[McStabStab]

I'm a huge fan of the Bone Widow in Divinity: Original Sin 2. My ranger character has points in Necromancer abilities and I use the spider to distract and soak up damage from enemies while I hurl arrows at them. It's great for a 1 memory slot skill so early game it's a boon.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

The one that stocks out in recent memory is my Ancestral Follower from Elden Ring who I used right up until the end. I did try the Mimic Tear but it wasn't as good at breaking poise as the Ancestral Follower who also fires arrows from range, and tbh I just got quite attached to having the giant horned dude around.

 

[UNST3RBLICH]

Read Dead Online: I'm part of a crew called The Regulators whose primary game focus for the last few years has been Red Dead Online. The virtual western frontier is a place that invites danger just about everywhere you go, especially in the form of "griefers". WIthin our community is a group of individuals we call The Lawmen. It is their volunteer duty to respond to any instance of griefing against a Regulator, and not only are they really good at it, they quite enjoy it for the PvP thrill and practice. There have been times were another group have tried to steal or destroy a delivery wagon from someone in our crew, and as soon as the call goes out you just see the minimap getting sprinkled with blue dots (friendlies) and immediately converging in a thunderous applause of hoofbeats and gunshots on the red dots (not friendlies). It's a glorious sight and experience.

 

[Pifanjr]

I remembered another great summon because of Jody Macgregor's answer: Cylostra Direfin's ghost cavalry summon from Total War: Warhammer 2. The Damned Knights Errant, which can be upgraded to Damned Questing Knights or Damned Knights of the Realm are probably the strongest, most reliable summon I've seen in Warhammer 2 so far. Nothing quite like some completely expandable cavalry to take out the enemy's artillery and/or ranged units before they even get to your army.

 

[Zimbaly]

Mass Effect when ya summon lasers from space to save the day. Nuke it from space as they say.