Well, I love those new Summons (Mateus and Chaos mainly <3), but since I didn't play XII, I can't have an opinion about them being useful or not.

But in other FFs, usually, Summons (the command; it's obvious that Espers and GFs _are_ essential, for magic and Junction, respectively) never were THAT useful. Mainly in FFIV, where Square made the stupid error of putting Rydia in the Black Mage/Summoner class. Lv3 elemental spells, Meteo and maybe Flare outclass Leviathan and Bahamut (the only two summons that are worth your attention, damage-wise). And aside of "FFII" of SNES, Asura is not so useful. I mean, I've yet to find a usefulness for Protect in this game. Or a situation where Asura's multitarget revive comes just when you need it. @_@

And, why would FFXII 's Summons be useless? What do they do in battle? I can't find a good explanation, not even on GameFAQs.