Summons are powerful allies you’ll unlock as early as Chapter 2 in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. When a battle drags on long enough, a Summon Meter will appear and count down to the moment you can bring a big bad Summon to join the battle. Every character has one Summon Materia slot – and summons enhance your stats when equipped.
Unlocking Summons is relatively straightforward in Rebirth, and you’re going to want all of them. Whenever you’re in a tough spot, use Summons to deal damage and draw attention away from your team – they literally fight side-by-side with your party like a fourth character. Here’s how to unlock them, how to upgrade them, and how to beat them.
There are two optional DLC summons – Ramuh and Leviathan. If you have the DLC, you can claim these summons from the pause menu after reaching the open-world in Chapter 2. Go to System, then DLC / Bonuses to claim these summons. Once claimed, you’ll be able to start equipping them right away.
How To Unlock Summons
Summons become available as soon as you enter a new region. There are six regions and one summon available per region. Talk to Chadley and use the Combat Simulator to access a Summon Materia Combat Challenge.
- Defeating the Summon Materia in the Combat Simulator will unlock the Materia permanently.
- By default, Summon Challenges are extremely difficult. To make these battles easier, search for Divine Intel on the region map.
- Divine Intel, or Sanctuaries, are minigame locations where you will enhance Summon Materia. Enhancing the Materia also makes the Combat Challenge easier.
Use towers to find Divine Intel locations. Complete all three Divine Intel minigames, then fight and defeat the Summon in Chadley’s Combat Simulator.
Titan [Grasslands Region]
- Weakness: Aero
- Exploiting its elemental weakness, blocking or evading certain attacks, and counterattacking it will pressure it. Destroying its barrier will pressure it for longer than usual.
Bring Aero / Wind Materia and Healing Materia. In the Combat Simulator, you cannot use items. Equip all the Materia you need for a long fight.
Perfect Guard his attacks or dodge abilities like Thwack or Sling to pressure him. Exploiting Wind is enough to pressure – build up Limit Break and Synergy Abilities to deal high damage while staggered.
This fight is relatively straightforward. Tifa can increase the Stagger damage bonus by using Unbridled Strength and then attacking with new [Triangle] power attacks. Use Unbridled Strength twice to really build up the damage bonus.
Phoenix [Junon Region]
- Weakness: Blizzard
- It will be impervious to damage while its creations are tethered to it. Inflicting enough damage while it is casting Empowering Flame will both interrupt and pressure it. If Empowering Flame is cast twice without interruption, it will follow up by using Rebirth Flame.
Equip Blizzard Materia and build up Synergy Abilities. It will summon minor enemies to aid it – destroy them as quickly as possible. You must destroy them or the Phoenix will be immune to all damage.
Every so often, Phoenix will begin charging Empowering Flame. If this is used twice, it can wipe your party in a single powerful attack. Stop it by dealing damage with powerful abilities or use Blizzard. I recommend bringing multiple Ice Element abilities.
Don’t use fire as Phoenix is healed with this element.
Alexander [Corel Region]
- Weakness: Thunder
- The entity will be largely immune to all attacks until both its arms are crippled. It accumulates karma by using certain attacks. The higher its karma, the more powerful its Divine Judgement becomes. Casting Esuna can remove one level of Karma.
Before this battle, equip Esuna and Thunder Materia. Esuna is incredibly important – use Esuna on Alexander to lower its Karma Level. This will greatly weaken its attacks. If you have access to Ramuh, equip this summon. Only Thunder Element attacks are strong against Alexander.
During the Punitive Sphere attack – or other attacks – you can continue to fight the arms mid-air. Use Triple Slash with Cloud or hold attack [Square] to launch. Use mid-air attacks to continue to safely damage Alexander even while it is generating ground-based AOE.
Alexander only takes significant damage while pressured or staggered. After staggering, use Synergy Abilities or increase Stagger damage multiplier. To deal max damage, use Unbridled Strength combo finishes, then Synergy Abilities to increase Stagger Timer – or increase Limit Level with Synergy before staggering.
The arms will regenerate after the Stagger timer is up. Again, the main body will become immune to almost all damage types.
Kujata [Gongaga Region]
- Weakness: N/A
- It switches between fire, ice and lightning alignments. Dealing a certain amount of damage by exploiting its elemental weakness will pressure it and remove its current affinity. If left unchecked, it will spawn a new elemental being; once it attunes to all three elements, it will unleash Tri-Disaster.
Equip Material to counter all three elements as Kujata switches. Bring Fire / Ice / Thunder / Wind elements for all your party members. Fire and Ice counter each other. Thunder and Wind counter each other. Be prepared to exploit all three elemental weaknesses.
As long as you counter the elemental weaknesses, Kujata will be unable to use Tri-Disaster or spawn elemental allies. Aerith has a special ability to recharge MP. Equip Materia to multiple characters so you can spread MP use across your entire party. Items can’t be used to MP is very valuable for this fight.
Bahamut Arisen [Cosmo Region]
- Weakness: N/A
- Scattered particles will attach themselves to you if touched and explode after a certain amount of time. Using synergy skills or synergy abilities will pressure Bahamut Arisen, removing any attached particles, and eliminate any others floating around.
Bahamut Arisen is a difficult opponent. Bring Healing and Raise Materia and be prepared for a long fight. When it charges a powerful ability, use ranged attacks like Barret’s Maximum Fury to destroy the Left / Right Wing.
Unlike other bosses, use Synergy Skills – hold Guard and unleash attacks that cost less Synergy charge. Swap often and charge Synergy to pressure Bahamut. Pressuring is your most important strategy in this fight.
Attack the wings when Bahamut uses Particle Charge. When Bahamut grabs a party member, you can free them by dealing high damage with abilities. Use two abilities – from the same character or two different characters – to free your party member.
Stopping Particle Charge is incredibly important. Save ABT and unleash Limit Breaks, Synergy Charges, or anything else you have saved up to break both wings.
Infinity’s Edge is extremely effective here. Save Cloud’s Infinity’s Edge for when Bahamt is staggered to deal 9,999 damage.
Odin [Nibel Region]
- Weakness: N/A
- Landing ATB commands, evading attacks or inflicting detrimental status effects will put Odin on the backfoot, both thrilling and pressuring him. Conversely, taking too many of his attacks will leave him disheartened, leading him to sound Gjallarhorn’s Warning and unleash his Zantetsuken.
An extremely difficult summon. You must not take too much damage from Odin or he will unleash an incredibly powerful attack. When he used Gjallarhorn’s Warning, hit Odin with powerful ABT attacks – hitting him with multiple commands will stop him.
Learning to evade Odin’s attacks is very important. Like other Summon battles, bring Healing and Raise Materia. Use Barrier + Magnify to take less damage, and Debrave so Odin deals less damage and becomes disheartened slower.
Pressuring Odin causes him to fight harder. Evade often and practice guarding. Perfect Guard will make you immune to any attack you block – except for Zantetsuken.
At about 50% health, Odin will split the arena. This is a challenging part of the fight – try to survive and dodge until the barrier splitting the arena dissipates. It is important that you don’t take too much damage and charge his Zantetsuken. Save your Summon for this phase of the battle to make survival easier.
Gilgamesh [Meridian Sea Region]
To unlock the final Summon, you’ll need to complete all Protorelic activities. There is a Protorelic in all six regions.
Protorelics may unlock later in the story. You’ll be able to collect all Protorelics by Chapter 12.
- The Corel Region Protorelic is the last to unlock. After finishing Protorelics, you’ll encounter a Mysterious Swordsman multiple times. Defeat him after each boss fight.
- To unlock Protorelic locations, complete Region Intel for Chadley. By completing a certain amount of Region Intel, the Protorelic location will be marked on your map.
In addition to Protorelics, you must also complete all six Summons. All six Summons and all Divine Intel must be completed before you can claim the final Protorelic.
- After collecting all six region Protorelics and reaching Chapter 12, a new location will appear in the Meridian Sea. Travel to Gilgamesh Island in the northeast of the sea map.
- On Gilgamesh Island, you must complete three trials. Each trial requires two fully-enhanced Summon Materia. Your party must battle two Summons at the same time to complete the trial.
These trials are recommended for Level 65. They’re extremely difficult in Chapter 12 and essentially impossible to complete. Return after finishing the main story and leveling up.
- The final battle for the Protorelics is Gilgamesh. This powerful opponent is recommended Level 70 – far more difficult than any other standard battle in the game.
- Defeat Gilgamesh to claim his Summon Materia.
