FFXII: The Zodiac Age — How to Get the Seitengrat

There are 12 unique weapons in Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age, one for each job. But there’s one other secret weapon you can get that is undeniably the strongest weapon in the game, and it can be obtained very early on. That weapon is the Seitengrat.

The Seitengrat has been a well-kept secret in Final Fantasy 12 since the International Zodiac Job System version. Getting it requires that you not only lucky enough to get an extremely rare chest to spawn but that you also time your opening of it to actually get the weapon. Otherwise, you’ll get naught but a Knot of Rust or 10 Gil for your trouble.

Some who go for this bow want to feel powerful. Some feel using it is cheating. And others just want to collect everything. No matter the boat you’re in, here’s how you grab this baby (or don’t) in The Zodiac Age.

So what’s so good about the Seitengrat?

The Seitengrat can not only be equipped by any character regardless of job, it also has the highest stats in the entire game. It has a whopping 224 attack and 75 evasion, making whoever wears it hit like a semi truck while dodging just about every attack that comes their way.

The theory about this weapon has always been that it was meant for the developers or is simply a debug weapon. Its stats are insanely high, especially for how early you can get it. Not to mention it’s completely invisible.

How to get the Seitengrat

On the PlayStation 2 IZJS version of Final Fantasy 12, players had to time going in and out of the doors near it and listen to the sounds their console made to get it. On the PS4, you need patience and good timing, which is much easier than the previous method but can still be a huge timesink.

You can do this as soon as you can take the skyferry from Rebastre to Nalbina, which is pretty early in the game.

So first things first: Head to Rebanastre’s Aerodrome and hop on the skyferry from Rebanastre to Nalbina — and be sure to choose the leisure craft option.

Getting the chest to spawn

On the airship, you need to make your way to the Air Deck area, specifically up the stairs on the Air Deck to the highest point. You should see a boy running around to the left.

There is a 1% chance that an invisible chest will spawn on the topmost platform of the Air Deck.

Check out the image below for the location — Vaan is facing and touching the chest in the image, but unlike visible chests, there is no exclamation point to show you that it’s there.

The boy you see behind Vaan will be your indicator for when to open the chest, once it finally spawns.

As chests respawn after leaving and reentering an area in TZA, you can simply repeatedly go in and out of the doors from the Observation Bay to the Air Deck to get the chest to spawn. But of course, you have to run up the stairs and ram yourself into the spot pictured above to see if it’s there.

It’s recommended you use either 2x or 4x speed to keep checking for the chest. It’s easier to control Vaan at 2x, whereas it’s definitely harder to keep a straight course up and down the stairs at 4x. Whichever speed you choose is up to you. Either way, just getting the chest to spawn is going to take several returns to the Air Deck.

Getting Seitengrat out of the chest

Running in and out of doors and up and down a flight of stairs may seem like the hard part in this endeavor (it can be ages before the chest spawns), but actually getting the chest to give up the Seitengrat is another matter entirely.

The boy mentioned above will be your guide in timing when to open the chest. As you’d expect, the timing is exceptionally hard to get down.

You have to open the chest when the boy is in the location shown above and begins to lift his arms. The video below (which is not mine) shows a player opening a chest at just the right moment. This will help a lot more than a screenshot from me could. Skip to 1:12 for the chest-opening action.

There are a few factors worth mentioning if you intend to hunt for the Seitengrat:

1. What you get out of said chest is undoubtedly not determined when you enter the Air Deck. It is entirely related to NPC movement.
2. Because the movement of all the NPCs in the area have an effect on the contents of the chest, you can’t wait for the boy to make several trips before you’re confident enough to try opening the chest. You can certainly sit there and wait for the boy to make a few trips back and forth before trying, but your chances of success will vary more widely should you wait.
3. Reloading an autosave isn’t going to help you. If you reload an autosave after opening the chest, when you return, the chest will be gone. You have to do this all 100% manually.

One could say that there is usually  a 1/10000 chance to get the Seitengrat out of the invisible chest, but just as players figured out when to open the chest via loading clicks on the PS2, the chances of getting it are far more reasonable if one uses the NPC movement method.

You will probably try for hours to get just one Seitengrat, but if you want one character in your party to be a total powerhouse and walk through the game with ease, it’s worth it. I tried for three hours and finally got mine, and you can, too. Heck, you can even get more than one if you can stomach the tedium and RNG manipulation.

If this guide helped you out, check out our other (and ever-growing) Final Fantasy 12: The Zodiac Age guides!