Final Fantasy has become one of the most iconic video game franchises in history.
Ranking the existing Final Fantasy games available always makes for a good debate, but you’ll most likely find that FFX is usually towards the top of most lists.
With the games being remastered to include both FFX & FFX-2, let’s take a look at how the modding community has made even further improvements.
This is pretty much a staple for anyone getting into FFX modding.
Untitled Project X is a powerful tool with tons of graphical options available, including DPI scaling fixes, PS4 button replacement, and reshade settings.
What makes this so important, however, is its texture replacement and injection ability.
Since most mods on this list are aimed at improving visual aspects of FFX, you’ll be needing Untitled Project X before moving forward. A definitive must-have.
With FFX & X-2 being a port of the original PlayStation 2 release, there are bound to be visual improvements.
This mod gives the game’s main characters even further improvements, more in terms of facial textures – adding more detail and higher resolution textures.
The pack includes face textures for Tidus, Yuna, Rikku, Wakka, and Auron, so you’ll be pretty much covered.
Some of the biggest improvements are that facial hair now looks much more realistic, shadows and textures in the face are more defined – so much so that you can even see Tidus’ freckles now.
Yes, apparently he has freckles.
You’re going to be staring at these character’s faces for pretty much the entire game so this is something you may wanna try out.
If you’re looking for a more extensive upgrade to character visuals, the FFX re-texture mods are pretty much dominated by a modder known as Catachrism.
Catachrism’s mods are unique as he provides both 4K and 8K resolutions in each of his packs.
Yes, he does address that 8K textures might sound crazy.
But he promises that in a game like FFX, 8K isn’t actually as demanding. So it might be worth giving a try.
He also explains that his aim is to make textures that looked more up to date, and is happy with how they turned out. You will be too.
Give this a try and see for yourself. Of course, you’re not going to want Tidus to stick out throughout the game, so you may want to check out his re-textures for Yuna, Wakka, Rikku, and the rest of the gang as well.
Having been present since the very first Final Fantasy game, Bahamut remains to be one of the most recognizable Aeons in the series.
Anyone who’s played Final Fantasy will know what it’s like to finally conquer The Dragon King and have him in your arsenal of available summons.
FFX is no different, as Bahamut is a featured Aeon who can be summoned into battle as well.
Of course that means Catachrism wasn’t far behind, as his Bahamut re-texture will have you staring in awe.
Including the existing visual improvements that came with the HD remaster, Bahamut is much more detailed now in FFX. You’re not going to want to miss this, making one of the coolest summons look even more intimidating than ever before.
The Sphere Grid in the HD remaster has been criticized for its lack of graphical improvements, and that includes the character icons.
Lucky for us, Catachrism already made re-textures (of course) making the character icons much clearer at 1440p and up.
This seems like a minor upgrade, but it makes the Sphere Grid look much better overall. You’ll love going in there to rev up your character’s stats each time.
Besides, why would you want those blurred images when you can have much clearer, crisper icons in their place? Easy to install too.
Speaking of the Sphere Grid, why not just give it a complete overhaul?
Now that you have upgraded character icons, you can get the HD Spheres and Sphere Grid pack by… who else but Catachrism.
There are other Sphere Grid re-texture mods out there, but they’ve been criticized for changing the look of most of the icons.
This can be confusing for players who are used to the original icons, so this mod tries to keep them as accurate as possible.
A lot of effort was put in here, as each icon is recreated from scratch.
But it definitely paid off, as the Sphere Grid will be much easier to see and will look much better than before. Seriously it’s noticeable at first glance.
We’ve covered pretty much everything in terms of improved visuals, but it feels like we might have forgotten something…
That’s right, that menu UI from FFX-2 was just downright ugly.
It’s as if they didn’t even take the time to remaster it to HD. Not to mention the original color scheme and vignette style just looked worse when upscaled to higher resolutions.
This mod fixes exactly that problem – giving the UI a much-needed re-texture, along with better colors to make it easier on the eyes overall.
The vignette effect was removed as well, making everything look much clearer.
Modder Kilbanne aims to take things a step further here
Instead of just improving textures to a higher resolution, he wanted to completely change the look and feel of the characters as well.
He writes that he has always felt that Final Fantasy characters were too colorful, so he took it upon himself to redesign their outfits to give the game an overall darker feeling.
Starting off we have the Gothic Outfits Set for Tidus.
It replaces all of Tidus’ outfits from the colorful yellow-sleeved shirt, to give him a much more sinister look.
Both gameplay and cutscenes will feature the replaced textures, all in 4k – so you won’t have to worry about quality here.
Kilbanne has also created re-designs for the other characters, so if you like this one, dig through his profile and see if you want to try some more.
Now that there’s an option to make FFX look grimmer than intended, how about something for the more conservative players? I’m not sure who but maybe this is better if you’ve got younger kinds diving into these games.
If the colorful outfits didn’t do the trick to make the game feel wholesome enough, this mod probably will.
The female characters in FFX-2 have been known to wear some pretty revealing clothing, and modder Gullwing felt that it was a bit too much for his taste.
He addresses this in a series of mods that basically re-texture outfits for Yuna, Paine, and Rikku, to cover them up a little bit more.
The re-textures appear both in gameplay and during cutscenes, so all you have to do is install it and you’re good to go.
Maybe you’ve beaten FFX-2 a couple of times and are looking for a more challenging playthrough.
Well here’s exactly what you’re looking for – the Gundora Hardmod by Keomaa.
This adds a whole new set of values that make enemies in the game stronger, making it overall a more challenging experience.
Almost like a NG+ feature, except your characters start right back at the beginning.
Enemies’ poison attacks now deal more damage, and heal at a higher rate than before making for tougher fights. Bosses are included as well, so be prepared.
And for FFX fans: there’s a different mod for FFX that radically increases difficulty too. Check it out here, it works a bit differently but overall your next FFX playthrough is sure to be challenging.
If you’re looking for a more drastic gameplay update, you may want to try Puppenblut’s New Sphere Grid Mod.
There are multiple to choose from, but what they all have in common is that they completely revamp the Sphere Grid and job systems of the game.
It brings the Dressphere system from X-2 into the first game, so you have more options to choose from in terms of character development and the “roles” that each character plays in battle.
It’s a huge change and will definitely give you a unique FFX experience.
Especially if you’re a fan of Final Fantasy’s job systems in other games.
Final Fantasy has always had a way of making memorable antagonists, and Seymour is no different.
As a tease, Seymour temporarily joins your party in FFX & FFX-2 for a very brief period. But he can’t be used other than that.
Well this mod completely changes that, allowing you to have him in your party from the beginning of the game, along with his Guado Gardian and Aeon Anima.
This might break the story, sure.
But you’ll be running around with one of the most powerful characters in the game. That should be fun, right?
