Best Shops in Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age (Ranked)

In a cruel twist of fate, FFXII: The Zodiac Age seemingly has more shops than the Mall of America – yet each one will eat up your gil faster than a fat Chocobo in a pile of gysahl greens if you splurge too hard.

The saving grace of capitalistic Ivalice is that they never really punish the consumer with false scarcity. As long as we’re in the market for a shiny new helmet or bludgeon of death, chances are we’ll be able to find it (if we know where to look).

But Ivalice is a big place with estranged entrepreneurs everywhere. We can find shops in underground ruins, and in the middle of the blazing sand seas.

So if you’ve been penny pinching because the prospect of stealing the fur off every wasteland animal leaves you feeling emptier than the corpses you’re looting, then I’m here for you to help you find all the equipment, magicks, and gear you need.

Let’s take a look at the best shop locations to lighten your purse in FFXII – and hopefully we can find one before another vague bazaar description makes you wish there was a “sell all” button.

5. Airships

The various airships that transport you from place to place may not sell a lot.

But they do offer unique goods that are definitely worth buying.

To start, they’re the earliest buyable source of Teleport Stones. Look for these after the events of Mt. Bur-Omisace.

Plus these airships also sell various status recovery items, and they’re the sole source of buyable Serums later on, which allows your party members without Remedy Lore 3 to cure Disease.

The different fangs are also buyable, which are sometimes nice to have when grinding certain elemental vulnerable enemies.

4. Necrohol of Nabudis

This hidden shop deserves a special mention because of how hard it is to find, and because they sell some unique wares.

These include motes, ammo, and later on, the incredible Esunaga spell.

To find this shopkeep, go to the Cloister of the Highborn area and move to the northernmost room.

From there, jam yourself into the southwestern corner of the main room and it should give you a prompt to interact with this mysterious merchant.

3. Mosphoran Highwaste

As the first big shop on a new leg of the adventure, the Mosphoran Highwaste vendor offers just about everything you’d want to help you cross the long stretch to the better shops.

Unfortunately there are a few things that it doesn’t have…

And it doesn’t offer anything unique.

But it is higher quality than Mt. Bur-Omisace, which means it’s the better choice to hit and get prepped.

2. Rabanastre

Acting as the central hub for at least the first 30% of the game, Rabanastre’s ever-increasing stock is a sigh of relief for those who need a place to update the old gear on party members.

The Gambit shop especially is a godsend when you’re low on gil and constantly picking up new gambits to tweak your strategies before owning them all.

Despite waning in usefulness later on, Migelo keeps his shop prepared into the late game, and the Clan Provisioner keeps providing more and more interesting items as you hunt the baddies to extinction.

By the time you’ve achieved the ultimate rank, you’ll have access to enough motes to turn around any encounter.

The only shortcoming is that the shops in Rabanastre are all spread out.

But at least you’ll be building damage for the Traveler technick.

1. Balfonheim Port

Balfonheim comes in as the best shop for a few reasons.

It’s got every necessity you’d need consumable-wise, and so it stands as a great place to restock your supplies.

This is especially convenient since it’s near the Cerobi Steppe, a place where many players will spend exorbitant amounts of time grinding for end game loot.

And speaking of grinding, the weapons on offer here are some of the best in the game.

While not comparable to the more difficult-to-acquire ones (like rare drops), these shops do offer some assurance that if your luck isn’t great, you’ll still be able to buy something strong enough to finish the story.

And this port city also has Teleport Stones on sale, to help with cleaning up any side content you’ve yet to do.