Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age on PS4 is a massive upgrade over PS2, but PS4 Pro owners benefit the less- report

By Sherif Saed

Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age has received complete reworks to many of its effects, textures, and overall presentation compared to the PS2 game.

In new analysis by Digital Foundry, the site confirmed that the game runs at 1080p on PS4, and 1440p on PS4 Pro, compared to the PS2’s meagre 512×448.

Both consoles run at 30fps, though, which is a bit disappointing. Beyond the base resolution, the port uses a form of mip-mapping alongside solid anti-aliasing to have an almost jaggies-free image. This is so sharp that the site reported a negligible loss in quality when running the game on a standard PS4 hooked up to a 4K TV.

But resolution and AA upgrades are to be expected, so in order to test out if the rest of the presentation was equally upgraded, the site ran an emulated version of the original PS2 game in 1080p. The first thing that jumped out was the texture quality, and how improved it is in the remaster.

Similarly, lighting shadows have been reworked to enhance the look of the game, and together with ambient occlusion add depth to the overall image. Modern features like specular and diffuse layers are used to make metal-based items shine.

Frame-rate holds up at 30fps throughout most of the game, though sometimes you’ll see a single frame drop. Sadly, PS4 Pro’s only advantage in this is the 1440p resolution, which as we pointed out above isn’t all that better than 1080p even on a 4K screen.

Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age is out now, and we’ve got a few tips to help you get started, including how to wrap your head around the Gambit system.