Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age is born in this fresh remastering of Final Fantasy XII. While it did hit PS4 back in 2017 and Steam last year the game has now finally settled on all platforms including the Xbox One and The Nintendo Switch.

Being able to play this on the Xbox One is something I was looking forward to, I didn’t know what I was expecting since I’ve never played much Final Fantasy since Final Fantasy 13 and nothing before that since the PS1 days. The Game has had this weird ride in the franchise being that Final Fantasy 12 was released to only some parts of the world, then releasing the title in Japan as the International Zodiac Job System to then remastering it as, The Zodiac Age.

Final Fantasy XII Zodiac Age features the option of 3 different music types; Original, Re-orchestrated and OST and also offers the choice between Japanese and English dialogue. I played with Re-orchestrated music in the end to get that complete atmosphere of the remastered game. Now, this I had to do a little research on but, I wanted to compare the graphics of original and remastered, and after some digging around I found some decent Final Fantasy 12 footage.

The texturing is so much cleaner and smoother, it feels like I’m looking at the past and the future at the same time, everything had been improved, for the better.

I was expecting the traditional lock in combat system from other Final Fantasy titles but I didn’t realize how free flowing the combat was and how well it had been improved. Everything is now smooth and flowing, from roaming to jumping into the fight as it happens on the go. The characters don’t feel sluggish and slow at all, it was really surprisingly responsive which made it very enjoyable.

Overall, the story is well told in this title and thanks to the updated graphics and soundtrack, it’s an amazing game. I would recommend this to anyone who either loved Final Fantasy 12 or wants to play it, even though it took a long time to port over, what can I say other then it’s just so well done.

Written by: Dale Carter