With FFXII: The Zodiac Age available on all current gen platforms, now might be the perfect time to revisit one of the most innovative Final Fantasy games in the series so far. With the introduction of real-time battle, FF12 paved the way for modern Final Fantasy titles. If you’re a fan, this is a game you’re definitely not going to want to overlook. As if the game wasn’t already good enough on its own, we’ve got mods. And lots of ‘em that could improve your experience even further.
20. DrakLab – Mod Loader
Check Out This Mod With all the great mods coming up, you’re probably going to want to try most of them. This mod basically provides you a user-friendly menu interface that makes it much easier to manage your mods. You won’t have to work with the actual files either, as everything can be done from within the loader itself. And it’s a good idea to have this at the ready before getting started. Another neat feature with DrakLab is that it automatically makes backups of original files before installing any mods, so you won’t have to worry about destroying your saves.
19. XII Hook
Check Out This Mod XII Hook is mostly a quality of life mod that includes a number of different features. It allows for a free camera, which lets you detach from your party and independently explore the world. Which is awesome by itself. But this also allows you to modify certain visual aspects of the game, including speed multipliers, FOV, and gamma, among others. One of the biggest features of the mod is its ability to unlock FPS. Given that the game was released a few years back, your current system can probably handle running it at higher frames. If you don’t want to be limited to 60 frames per second, this is the mod you’re looking for.
18. Enhanced Face Textures – Party Pack
Check Out This Mod Continuing on with graphical upgrades, the Enhanced Face Textures/Party Pack does exactly that: improves facial textures for the main party. The mod doesn’t make major changes in terms of appearance. But rather focuses on each of the characters’ eyes, skin, and lips, to make them look more realistic. Skin and lip textures were improved along with eye colors to give the characters more life and detail. This particular pack only affects the main party, but there are packs available for guests, NPCs, and judges as well.
17. Enhanced Clothing
Check Out This Mod To further enhance the FFXII visuals you can make changes to the character’s clothing as well. This simple mod by Skopin (who also created the Enhanced Face Textures Packs) doesn’t aim to make drastic changes to the game’s appearance. Instead, he prefers to maintain the vanilla look as much as possible, while improving what’s already there. The mod makes multiple texture and color changes to Vaan, Ashe, Penelo, and the rest of the gang – making for more vibrant outfits. Subtle as they may be, the little changes go a long way in terms of improving the dulled-out look of most of the characters.
16. Weapons Re-Upscaled
Check Out This Mod Since you’re playing an HD remake anyway, why not make the game look the best it possibly can? This time addressing weapons, though. The Weapons Re-Upscaled mod makes graphical improvements to weapons and shields in the game. And it’s noticeable. All 200+ weapons were actually down-sampled to their native resolutions, and re-upscaled to make everything look much smoother. This took a lot of work, so really you’ll be amazed at the end result.
15. Vaan Reskins
Check Out This Mod If you’re looking to make more drastic changes to the game’s appearance, well character reskins are a great way to go. Whether you’ve gotten tired of what your characters are wearing, or just want more clothing options, reskin mods are what you need. This particular mod gives Vaan a total of four outfit options to choose from, so you can pick whichever looks best to you. Or worst, if you just hate Vaan. There are reskin mods for the other main characters in the game as well, so you can pick and choose as you like. I’m a bit fond of this chainmail for Fran.
14. No Overhead HP Bar For Allies
Check Out This Mod One minor visual detail that many fans didn’t like was the overhead HP bars. It’s quite redundant as HP levels for each character are already neatly displayed towards the bottom of the screen, so the health bars mostly just obstruct your view during battles. With this quick fix, you won’t have to worry about those HP bars anymore. You can still see enemy bars though, which are super helpful to keep.
13. Daedalus FF12 TZA Mega ModPak
Check Out This Mod The Deadalus pack is a compilation of a few quality of life and visual mods for FFXII. This pack includes the ability to remove overhead HP bars as well, but gives you a ton of other options at the same time. One of the unique features included here is its ability to remove black bars from cutscenes. With the game being an HD remake, it’s unfortunate that cutscenes haven’t been optimized for widescreen displays. That’s no longer an issue though. Now you’ll be able to enjoy upscaled cutscenes in 16:9 widescreen goodness.
12. Sounds of Ivalice – Audio Replacement Tool
Check Out This Mod If you want to take this game even further, the Sounds of Ivalice mod is worth looking into Beyond visually upgrading the game, you can have complete control over sound as well. The tool basically lets you remove or add any sound to the game, be it music, character dialogue, sound effects, basically anything. I think the creator himself has a pretty good idea in the description, “if you want the pacman death sound to play every time a character dies, this is for you.” The mod truly gives you complete control, so do whatever you want.
11. Trial Stage Selector and Stage 100 Save Option
Check Out This Mod Grinding for loot can become quite frustrating in any game with RNG. The trial stages in The Zodiac Age are no different, and you’ll most likely come to a point where you’ll be spending most of your time trying to get specific items from specific stages. This mod helps with that by letting you access any specific trial stage you want. It’ll save you tons of time not having to keep restarting trial mode just to get to that level you wanted to grind.
10. All Ninja Sword Licenses for Shikari
Check Out This Mod The introduction of the license board in FFXII gave Final Fantasy fans a new way to look at levelling. Though it aimed to give more options in terms of character development, the job system is far from perfect. One particular job in the license board that fans were annoyed with is the Shikari path. The Shikari path made it possible for characters to access ninja swords in the game. But with job limitations in place, it meant that not all could be unlocked in a single playthrough. Thanks to modder Jacobs20, this is no longer the case. He made changes to the licenses themselves, making it possible to unlock all four ninja swords natively without cheats. Well, modding but that doesn’t count.
9. Longer Buffs
Check Out This Mod Buffs play a major role in mostly any RPG game. The Zodiac Age is no different. Some games get pretty hardcore in terms of buff times, forcing you to be more strategic. Modder Vampblader noticed the same with FFXII and eventually got annoyed at having to cast Decoy over and over in each battle. He addressed this by changing buff times for all buff spells making them last as long as Libra, which is the longest lasting buff effect in the game. This may be a bit cheat-y to some… but really, buffs are a huge part of FF12 and they make the gameplay so much more enjoyable. If longer buff times are something you’ll want quite often, go ahead and install this mod.
8. Durable Story Bosses
Check Out This Mod If you find yourself on the opposite end of the spectrum and are looking to make the overall gameplay more challenging, there’s a number of mods that let you do exactly that. The Durable Story Bosses mod is probably the simplest way to start, giving mandatory story bosses more HP. Modder watafuzz felt that main story bosses were just too easy to beat. So he gives us options to boost boss HP by either 50% or 100%. He’s tested the mod to make sure that bosses are doable, so it just makes for more drawn-out battles. It’s probably a good idea to go into each battle more prepared though. Phoenix downs are a must.
7. FF12 Randomizer
Check Out This Mod Another fun tool that adds a bit of challenge is the FF12 Randomizer. The mod basically gives you options to randomize everything in the game including item costs, licenses, shops, enemy stats, and more. If this isn’t your first playthough of FFXII, then this is a great way to make for a completely new experience. Almost nothing will be as it was before, for better or worse. Whatever plan you had from your first playthrough can be thrown out the window here. That’ll keep you busy for a while.
6. Generous Montblanc With True New Game Plus/Job Reset
Check Out This Mod This mod has a number of features, mostly centered around Montblanc’s behavior in Clan Centurio’s Guild Hall. It adds a couple new dialogue options changing the way you can interact with him. But the mod also makes Montblanc more generous as you can now ask him for money, items, equipment, and even magic. This particular feature is definitely a cheat, but it is optional, so use it as you like. What’s really interesting about this mod is that it gives you the ability to start a true NG+. Montblanc can give you the option to start from the earliest point possible in the game, while keeping all your equipment, stats, and skills.
5. Play as Reks Fully
Check Out This Mod Reks is the first character we’re introduced to in The Zodiac Age. During the prologue, he’s the first playable character – but we soon find out that the story is not focused on him at all. Which is a bit of a ripoff, no? Great storytelling Square-Enix. Well if you wanted to see more of this guy, here’s a mod actually makes it possible to play the entire game as Reks. I won’t go into much detail to avoid story spoilers, but you’ll basically have Reks instead of Vaan for the entire game, along with his own stats, equipment, and licenses.
4. FFXII and the Eorzean Age
Check Out This Mod The job system was expanded on after its introduction in FFXII. But modder Armagetz wanted to see The Zodiac Age’s new job system improved even more. Taking from new jobs added in Final Fantasy XIV, this mod adds Paladin, Dark Knight, Ninja, Warrior, Samurai, Dragoon, and Bard classes to FFXII. As if the vanilla license system didn’t already give you enough options, you’ll now have more to choose from to tailor fit each character to your play style. More jobs in a Final Fantasy game? That’s a big yes from me.
3. Less BS
Check Out This Mod RNG plays a big role in The Zodiac Age. And this can make the game quite tedious, especially for completionists. Well one modder had enough of it. Which resulted in him creating the Less BS mod. The mod aims to lessen the hassle caused by RNG without affecting the game too much. Basically, he wanted to lessen RNG impact without cheating. So this affects chest spawn and item spawn rates, making grinding for specific items much more manageable.
2. The Struggle for Freedom
Check Out This Mod There are a couple overhaul mods for The Zodiac Age if you’re looking for a completely new experience. The Struggle for Freedom is one of them, except this focuses mainly on rebalancing the license board. A common criticism of the FFXII license board is that it can be so open to the point that you can basically use it to mold any character into any role you want. Struggle For Freedom makes the game more challenging by making the license board more linear – jobs are now character-specific so each party member will have to play their role. The same approach was taken for weapons and magic, so this will definitely change the way you play the game.
1. Foreign Lands
Check Out This Mod Foreign Lands completely overhauls the game, introducing new eastern-inspired jobs, new weapons, new abilities, and new magic too. There are 12 completely new boards to explore, so you’ll be discovering new ways to maximize each of your party members throughout the game. There are also new spells and weapons, along with rebalances designed to make the game feel completely new and more challenging at the same time. For new spells, I think the addition of Poisonga is really nice. But check out the mod page for more. In comparison to SFF, Foreign Lands isn’t afraid to stray far from vanilla gameplay – so if you’re looking for a completely fresh experience in The Zodiac Age, this mod is the single best way to get exactly that.
