Chocobo breeding (Final Fantasy VII)

Chocobo Breeding is a sidequest in Final Fantasy VII involving Chocobos. It allows the player to breed several different Chocobo breeds which can cross different terrain on the World Map and access Materia Caves, as well as breed Chocobos with higher stats for use in Chocobo Racing.

Chocobos can be caught across the World Map by following their tracks. Once caught after a battle when all enemies but the Chocobo are killed, they can be sent back to the stable and bred with nuts. Generally, the ultimate gain of breeding chocobos is to breed a Gold Chocobo to access every Materia Cave and gain Knights of Round.

Catching
Wild Chocobos can be encountered in special areas on the World Map covered in chocobo tracks. Once captured, Chocobos can be kept in stables in the Chocobo Farm; the option to buy stables opens after the party has acquired the Highwind. The stables cost 10,000 gil and a total of six can be owned. On the farm the Chocobos can be bred to create new breeds that can access different areas on the World Map, or to be used in the races at Gold Saucer.

Nuts
Males and females can be bred together to make stronger chocobos with better stats and sometimes new abilities. To breed a Chocobo, Nuts must be used. Most of the Nuts in the game are useless, and the lower grade Nuts have a chance to produce Chocobos whose stats are lower than those of its parents. The only Nuts worth using are Carob and Zeio Nuts: The Carob Nut is used to breed the first blue and green Chocobos and Zeio Nuts are the best Nuts in the game when it comes to stats. Carob Nuts can be obtained from Vlakoradoses or from Wonder Square for 500 GP, and Zeio Nuts are obtained from Goblins.

The racing class and stats of the Chocobo being bred help decide what type of Chocobo will be born. Adult Chocobos can breed again after 3-10 battles have been fought and newborn Chocobos can breed after 3-18 battles; for a battle to count it must be won, fleeing won't count. The higher the class, and the greater the stats, the more likely a strong Chocobo will be born. Special-colored Chocobos are needed to find the treasures in the Materia Caves. There are five colors of Chocobos in Final Fantasy VII. To get the ultimate Chocobo, a long sidequest of racing and item finding must be undertaken. The Chocobo Sage hints on how to get through the sidequest in his home on the Northern Continent.

While the party can begin breeding Chocobos any time after the Highwind is obtained, they won't be able to race in Gold Saucer until Cloud returns to the party. Without promoting Chocobo classes via racing, the probability of getting a colored Chocobo is only 10%.

Cooldown and Stats
Because the game determines on whether or not a Chocobo is ready to be bred by the number of battles, when the player reaches a very high number of battles this system glitches. The game can't use a key-number higher than 32767, and so uses numbers from -32768 to 32767; thus if the player fights 32768 battles, the game considers, when it does calculations for Chocobos, them have -32768 battles. 32769 battles will be transformed to -32767 battles and so on until 65535 battles will overflow the counter and reset it. When the game considers the player to be at -32768 battles, the baby Chocobo would need whopping 32766 battles to mate.

If the player comes near to the amount of battles where the game begins to consider the number as negative, they can find themselves in a situation where they can mate Chocobos over and over again without needing to fight any battles in-between. At 32767 battles the game will calculate the player will need some new battles, but it'll be always higher than 32768 battles (as that is actually -32768), meaning the player doesn't need to fight any battles to mate the Chocobos.

Below is how a newborn Chocobo's stats are determined when the parents have been mated with a Zeio Nut:

If the player breeds a gold chocobo that would normally have below 5000 maximum Dash, it will get a bonus to its MDash in the following manner:
 * 7/16 chance → MDash = 5000
 * 2/16 chance → MDash = 5100
 * 2/16 chance → MDash = 5200
 * 1/16 chance → MDash = 5300
 * 1/16 chance → MDash = 5400
 * 2/16 chance → MDash = 5500
 * 1/16 chance → MDash = 5950

These values will get increased/decreased by a number between 0 and 25.

Through breeding, the player can gain access to each of the Chocobo breeds, beginning with the blue/green Chocobos, and finishing with the Gold Chocobo. This is needed in order to access the Materia Caves.

Materia Caves
To access the Materia Caves, which contain the Mime, Quadra Magic, and Knights of the Round Materia, the player needs to obtain Chocobos that can access each. This can be done one of two ways, either breeding Chocobos to gain access to each of the Chocobo breeds, or by defeating Ruby Weapon to gain a Gold Chocobo when presented to the Kalm Traveler.

Standard
After purchasing some stables from the farm after the party has acquired the Highwind, the player can start catching Chocobos from battles and sending them to the farm. To breed the green and blue variants the player needs a combination of "good" and "great" Chocobos; when moving the birds into the stables from the fenced area, Choco Billy will comment on their quality. The Chocobo's gender is decided when moving it in, so if the gender is undesired one can reset the game and try again. "Great" Chocobos are caught in Mideel Area with Spirals, and "good" Chocobos are caught at the Gold Saucer Area with Harpies.

The player can breed two "good" Chocobos, two "great" Chocobos or a "good" and a "great" Chocobo together to get the first colored Chocobo by using a Carob Nut (obtained from Vlakorados or from Wonder Square shop). The player can race the Chocobos to raise their rank at Chocobo Square to greatly improve the chance of them producing colored offspring. Gold Saucer reopens after Cloud rejoins the party. The player can save the game before mating the birds and try again if they don't get the desired Chocobo.

After getting the first colored Chocobo the player can mate it with another Carob Nut with their parent of the opposite gender to get the other color: the result will be either yellow, green or blue. The player must win some battles first before the Chocobos become ready to mate, so one can just do random encounters on the world map until the Chocobos are ready. The player can save their game before mating the birds and try again till they get the desired color and gender. Racing the colored bird at Chocobo Square again increases the chance of it producing colored offspring. It should be easier to race the colored Chocobo to A or S rank for its higher stats compared to the yellow wild-caught ones, and the colored Chocobos also get some perks on the tracks in not being hindered by some of the parts on the track that usually slow down racers.

Once the player has one blue and one green Chocobo of each gender they can be mated with another Carob Nut to produce a black Chocobo. If both have been raced at the Square to higher ranks this should be easy.

The player can now release the yellow Chocobos as they are no longer needed to make room at the stables. The player must now capture a "wonderful" Chocobo that only appears at the Icicle Area tracks with Jumpings. They are tricky to catch and tend to run away as their first move. When moving the Chocobo into the stables the player should ensure it is the opposite gender to the black Chocobo. Mating the two has a chance of creating a gold Chocobo when a Zeio Nut (obtain from Goblins at Goblin Island) is used. The "wonderful" and black Chocobos can also be raced at the Square for better odds. The black Chocobo should climb the ranks easily, being bred from captive-bred Chocobos and being unhindered by the slow parts of the track.

RNG Manipulation
There is a way to breed a golden Chocobo without needing to race at Gold Saucer. This means the earliest the player can get the Gold Chocobo is after obtaining the Highwind, before even reuniting with Cloud. With the right Chocobos being bred there is always a small chance the player will get the desired Chocobo, but it relies on the game's random number generator. Random number generation progresses in a predictable way, and therefore it is possible for the player to manipulate this to get a Gold Chocobo fairly quickly (under an hour). It relies on resetting the game to reset the random number generation, minimizing the tasks that generate new numbers (such as when traveling on the World Map), and orchestrating tasks that generate new numbers in a predictable way to ensure getting the correct color and gender.

The party needs 70 Krakka Greens and 1 Saraha Nut (can be bought from the farm), 2 Carob Nuts (stolen from Vlakorados) and 1 Zeio Nut (obtained from Goblins), and to buy six stables at Chocobo Farm. After catching a "Wonderful Chocobo" from Icicle Area (appears with one or two Jumpings) and a "Great Chocobo" from Mideel Area (appears with one or two Spirals), the player must send them to the stables. The player should save their game next to Chocobo Farm and hard reset the game (not using soft reset).

After reloading the game the player must immediately enter the Chocobo Farm, run in to talk to Choco Billy and ask to move chocobos. The player should move the "great chocobo" into the stable. If done correctly, it will be female. The player should immediately move the "Wonderful Chocobo" into the stable as well, and it should be male. If the genders were not correct, the player must reload their game and try do the sequence faster; the aim is to move in immediately as the game loads. After getting the correct Chocobo genders the player must head outside to save and hard reset again.

Upon reloading the game the player must rush back in and feed one Krakka Green to any Chocobo, then immediately mate the "wonderful" and "great" Chocobos with a Carob Nut while selecting the female first. The result should be a blue female. Next the player must head outside and fight six random battles, then save next to the farm and hard reset. When the game reloads the player must rush inside and talk to Choco Billy. The player must now feed 50 Krakka Greens to a Chocobo, then mate the "wonderful" and "great" Chocobos again using a Carob Nut while choosing the female first. The result will be a green male. The player must now head onto the World Map to fight eight random battles, then save next to the farm again and hard reset the game.

After speeding in and speaking to Billy the player must feed 5 Krakka Greens to any Chocobo, then mate the blue and green Chocobos with a Saraha Nut while choosing the blue one first. The result is a black female. The player should fight three random battles, save next to the farm and hard reset. If the three battles were not enough to make the Black Chocobo ready to mate, the player should fight further seven battles and this should do it. As the game loads the player must run inside and talk to Billy and feed six Krakka Greens to a Chocobo, then mate the black female with the "wonderful" male with a Zeio Nut choosing the black one first to breed a gold female Chocobo.

Trivia

 * The chocobo breeding tutorial in Final Fantasy VII is incomplete compared to the original Japanese version. For example, Choco Billy will only mention the necessity of Nuts if the player picks the "Mating Chocobos" option while not having any Nuts in the inventory. In the Japanese version Choco Billy also explains newborn chocobos and chocobos caught from the wild start on rank C but can improve their rank by racing. Players of the English version had to discover this game mechanic by themselves.
 * Unused text from the game data indicates that Choco Billy was originally intended to judge newborn chocobos' stats. In the final game, only Chole judges the chocobos' stats when asked.
 * The only Nut that will never produce a gold chocobo offspring is the Carob Nut. Even when breeding two gold chocobos with a Carob Nut the resulting offspring will never be golden.