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Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age Espers - How to Unlock and Use Espers, All Esper Locations

If you're struggling to get your head around how Espers work in Final Fantasy 12, then check out our guide on how to unlock and use every Esper in the game.

Guide by Sayem Ahmed Contributor
Updated on

Final Fantasy 12's Espers are this iterations version of the traditional Summon. These monsters are able to unlock certain segements in Licensing Boards (mainly the ones that utilise magic skills.) and are pretty useful while in Combat. We'll run through the Final Fantasy 12 Esper locations for you.

Final Fantasy XII Espers

Espers come in 3 Levels, which is noted by the difference in summoning costs, displayed below. Each of these Espers are some of the most difficult fights in the game, so we'd recommend to leave the higher level ones until late in the game. Only after you defeat these Espers that they appear on the License Board, but be warned, the Espers can only be assigned to one character each, so choose which Esper would align with how you have chosen your character's jobs. You don't want to be stuck with an Esper that unlocks abilities that are of no help to your character.

These Esper Summons have no charge time, and replace two of your characters in battle. They can easily be summoned via the main battle menu under 'Mist', and can even be performed when your characters are silenced. These Espers will also deal a lot more damage if you are able to manage to trigger their final attacks, which are notoriously tricky to activate.

In this version of the game, Espers are not quite as useful as they are in the vanilla release, however you can still seek them out for fun and collect them for your own posterity. In many cases, Quickenings will be a lot more useful for you and your party than Espers, so we would actually recommend using a Quickening and chaining them over an Esper, who might not do as much damage, and who do not actually use up any of your Mist Gauge-if you use them correctly.

Wondering where to seek these beasts out? Well, no fear- we've already taken them down ourselves and listed the locations and conditions of their appearance, as well as segmenting them down into levels, which is indicative of their summoning costs in addition to licensing costs (with the exception of Zodiark, who has a ridiculously high licensing cost).

Final Fantasy XII Espers Locations

Level 1 Espers

Belias

  • Element: Fire
  • Location: Tomb of Raithwall
  • Licensing Cost: 10 LP
  • Mist Charge Cost: 1

Mateus

  • Element: Ice
  • Location: Stilshrine of Miriam
  • Licensing Cost: 25LP
  • Mist Charge Cost: 1

Adrammelech

  • Element: Lightning
  • Location: Zertinan Caverns
  • Licensing Cost: 25 LP
  • Mist Charge Cost: 1

Zalera

  • Element: Death
  • Location: Barheim Passage
  • Licensing Cost: 25 LP
  • Mist Charge Cost: 1

Level 2 Espers

Shemhazai

  • Element: Soul
  • Location: Giruvegan
  • Licensing Cost: 50 LP
  • Mist Charge Cost: 2

Hashmal

  • Element: Earth
  • Location: Pharos
  • Licensing Cost: 50 LP
  • Mist Charge Cost: 2

Cúchulainn

  • Element: Poison
  • Location: Garamsythe Waterway
  • Licensing Cost: 50 LP
  • Mist Charge Cost: 2

Zeromus

  • Element: Gravity
  • Location: Stilshrine of Miriam, accessed in hidden chamber (Must use Stone of the Condemner at a Way Stone)
  • Licensing Cost: 50 LP
  • Mist Charge Cost: 2

Exodus

  • Element: N/A
  • Location: Empryan Seats - Mosphoran Highwaste (Must activate shrines)
  • Licensing Cost: 50 LP
  • Mist Charge Cost: 2

Level 3 Espers

Famfrit

  • Element: Water
  • Location: Pharos
  • Licensing Cost: 90 LP
  • Mist Charge Cost: 3

Chaos

  • Element: Wind
  • Location: Cloister of the Highborn - Necrohol of Nabudis (Accessible only after collection of 3 medallions and defeat of 2 bosses in the area)
  • Licensing Cost: 90 LP
  • Mist Charge Cost: 3

Ultima

  • Element: Holy
  • Location: Great Crystal - Giruvegan
  • Licensing Cost: 90 LP
  • Mist Charge Cost: 3

Zodiark

  • Element: Dark
  • Location: Hidden Special Charter Dig Area - Henne Mines
  • Licensing Cost: 200 LP
  • Mist Charge Cost: 3

We have a variety of other guides on Final Fantasy 12 here at USgamer, including how to earn Gil quickly and easily, as well as how to understand Licensing Boards.

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