Chocobo (Final Fantasy VII transportation)

Chocobos are a gameplay element in Final Fantasy VII. Used as a common means of transportation, Chocobos can be raised and bred at the Chocobo Farm, used to travel to locations otherwise inaccessible, such as Materia Caves, and can be raced at the Chocobo Square in the Gold Saucer. When riding, the player encounters no enemies.

Chocobos can first be acquired on the world map after giving them greens. Later, after obtaining the Highwind, they can be raised and bred in the farm to be used throughout the world.

"Chocobo" in the original Final Fantasy VII is capitalized.

Use[]

Chocobo breeding[]

Main article: Chocobo breeding (Final Fantasy VII)

Chocobos can be bred and raised on the Chocobo Farm. They come in various breeds and are either male or female. The bird's gender is decided when the captured chocobo is moved into a stable from the yard; the player can save their game and reset and try again if they get an undesired gender.

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 farm; the option to buy stables opens after the party has acquired the Highwind. The stables cost 10,000 gil and six can be bought at once. On the farm the captured chocobos can be bred to create new breeds, or to be used in the races at the Chocobo Square. This will allow players to access the Materia Caves.

Chocobo tracks[]

Around the world there are tracks where wild chocobos may appear in random battles. They only appear when the Chocobo Lure Independent Materia is equipped. The Materia can be bought at the Chocobo Farm on Part 1, or found lying around the farm later in the game. The maximum Chocobo Lure rating is 32. Level 1 Chocobo Lure adds +8, Level 2 adds +12 and Level 3 and Master add +16. The effect stacks to the maximum of 32 by equipping multiple Chocobo Lure Materia. Different tracks have different chances of attracting Chocobos, the track near the farm being the easiest.

With a Level 1 Chocobo Lure Materia the player has 75% chance to encounter a Chocobo battle on the tracks near Chocobo Farm, 50% chance on the tracks in Junon Area, and 25% everywhere else. With a Level 3 and mastered Chocobo Lure Materia the chance to encounter a chocobo in a battle on the tracks near Chocobo Farm and in Junon Area is 100%, and 50% everywhere else. With two Level 3 or higher Chocobo Lure Materia equipped, the player will always encounter chocobos on all the tracks.

Along with the Chocobo are several enemies. The enemies must be beaten without scaring the chocobo away. The default chance a Chocobo will run is 50%. Greens (see below) can be used to keep the Chocobo occupied for a number of turns and to reduce the chance of it fleeing. Attacking it will cause the Chocobo to retaliate with weak pecks or the Enemy Skill Chocobuckle before retreating. The Chocobo cannot be defeated. If all other enemies are defeated, the Chocobo is captured.

Greens[]

Greens can be given to chocobos in battle to reduce their chances of running away and keep them occupied for a number of turns. When fed to chocobos in the stables the greens boost the bird's stats making them better racers in Gold Saucer.

Sylkis Greens are twice as good as Reagan Greens and are the best greens to raise Dash, Run, Stam, and Co-Op. Pahsana Greens are the best to raise Int. The only Greens that raise Accel are Mimett Greens, and there is only a 25% chance for an increase. Feeding a chocobo greens can improve its stats, but only to the maximum of the chocobo's potential. The only way to attain higher maximum Run and Dash is by breeding.

Greens can be bought from the Chocobo Farm and from Chocobo Sage.

Green	Battle effect	Stat boost when fed
Gysahl Greens	Keeps a chocobo occupied for 2 turns.	Dash +0–3 Run +0-2 Stam +0-3 Co-Op +1
Krakka Greens	Reduces a chocobo's chance to run to 33.3%.	Int +1–2 Co-Op +1
Tantal Greens	Keeps a chocobo occupied for 3 turns.	Dash +1–4 Run +1–4 Stam +1-2 Int +1 Co-Op +1
Pahsana Greens	Reduces a chocobo's chance to run to 20%.	Int +1–8 Co-Op +1 (25% chance) or 2 (75% chance)
Curiel Greens	Keeps a chocobo occupied for 5 turns.	Dash +0–3 Run +0–3 Stam +3–10 Co-Op +2
Mimett Greens	Keeps a chocobo occupied for 1 turn and makes it use Chocobuckle.	Dash +1–16 Run +0–3 Stam +3-10 Accel +0 (75% chance) or 1 (25% chance) Co-Op +2
Reagan Greens	Keeps a chocobo occupied for 8 turns and reduces its chance to run to 12.5%.	Dash = [Speed * 34] x = [Dash/20], y = [between 0 & 10] Dash +50%[x+y], 50%[x-y] x = [Run/20], y = [between 0 & 10] Run +50%[x+y], 50%[x-y] x = [Stam/100], y = [between 0 & 10] Stam +50%[x+y], 50%[x-y] Co-Op +3
Sylkis Greens	Keeps a Chocobo occupied for 1 turn and makes it use Chocobuckle.	Dash = [Speed * 34] x = [Dash/10], y = [between 0 & 10] Dash +50%[x+y], 50%[x-y] x = [Run/10], y = [between 0 & 10] Run +50%[x+y], 50%[x-y] x = [Stam/50], y = [between 0 & 10] Stam +50%[x+y], 50%[x-y] Int +1–4 Co-Op +4

Stats[]

Choco Billy at the Chocobo Farm can rate the strength of a captured chocobo for the races. If he does not give a positive adjective in his rating ("good", "great", "wonderful"), the bird is not worth the effort of raising. Good, great, and wonderful chocobos have greater responses to their stats when fed greens, as do their offspring (color or ordinary).

Below is the strength of the caught chocobo compared to the rating Choco Billy gives it:

Rating	Rank	Choco Billy Opinion
Wonderful	1	"This... is a wonderful Chocobo!"
Great	2	"This is a great Chocobo."
Good	3	"Mmm, this seems like a good Chocobo."
So-so	4	"This Chocobo's so-so.
Average	5	"This is a pretty average Chocobo."
Poor	6	"Mmm, this one's not bad."
Bad	7	"This one doesn't seem to be very good."
Terrible	8	"I really can't recommend this one."

A Chocobo has several stats, and only some of them are visible to the player. By feeding the Chocobo greens its stats will be augmented. Every time the stats are increased, the Final Fantasy VII version of the "Victory Fanfare" plays.

Stat	Description
Dash	The chocobo's sprinting speed when holding in the races.
MDash	The maximum Dash that the chocobo can attain (Max MDash = 6000).
Run	The chocobo's running speed.
MRun	The maximum Run the chocobo can attain (Max = 6000).
Stam	The chocobo's (technical) Stamina. (Max = 9999).
Accel	The chocobo's Acceleration (Max = 100).
Co-Op	How well the chocobo obeys manual control (Max = 100).
Int	How well the chocobo races on auto control (Max = 100).
Races Won	The amount of races the chocobo has won.

The stats the player can see are speed and stamina.

Speed = [Dash/34] (Max = 6000/34 = 176)

Stamina = [Stam/10] (Max = 9999/10 = 999)

Newly caught chocobos fall in one of the aforementioned eight categories; these ratings determine the chocobo's stats. It is possible to get fairly good racing chocobos by feeding greens to caught high-rating chocobos, but their stats will never go as high as bred chocobos' stats.

Rating	Max Speed*(the max speed the chocobo can attain)	Speed*(the current speed the caught chocobo will have)	Stamina	Accel*(always a multiple of 10)	Int*(always a multiple of 10)
Wonderful	99-121	50-97	337-463	60-70	50-60
Great	85-110	42-88	287-393	60-70	50-60
Good	79-101	39-81	247-363	50-60	30-40
So-so	67-92	33-74	247-343	50-60	30-40
Average	55-86	17-70	167-263	30-50	0-20
Poor	49-71	15-58	87-213	30-50	0-20
Bad	40-63	12-51	67-143	20-50	0-20
Terrible	34-57	10-46	37-113	20-50	0-20

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A newly born chocobos' stat depends on the nut the chocobo was fed, and on the average of the two parents' stats. However, all newborn chocobos are set to have the following stats:^[2]

Stat	Value
Acceleration	Average of Parents' Acceleration
Co-Op	0
Intelligence	Average of Parents' Intelligence
RT Count	0
Races Won	0
Gender	50% chance of Male or Female

Steed[]

FFVII Chocobo Riding WM — Chocobo riding on the world map.

Chocobos can be ridden on the world map, directed with the D-pad. The terrain they can cross depends on their color variation. Yellow chocobos can only traverse parts the party can travel while on foot, but faster and without random battles. Blue chocobos can cross shallow water like the buggy, and green chocobos can cross mountains. Black chocobos can do both and gold chocobos can even cross the ocean. After catching a chocobo from the tracks the player gets to mount it, but once dismounted with the cancel button it will run away unless the player has rented stables at the Chocobo Farm where an option to send the dismounted chocobo to the farm opens up.

Chocobos from the farm can be taken out to be ridden and since they have been tamed they no longer run away when dismounted and will wait in the spot the player left it. Chocobos waiting on the world map appear on the map as a blinking dot. To mount a tame chocobo the player simply needs to press the action button next to it. This can lead to a vehicles glitch if the player is also near another vehicle, thus attempting to board two "vehicles" at once. Tame chocobos can be taken aboard the Highwind by boarding the airship while mounted on a chocobo. If the player enters the Highwind as an in-game location while the chocobo is on board it can be interacted with in the stable and been given hay, although this does not affect anything.

The player is prompted to ride a chocobo once in the story to cross the marshes outside Mythril Mine, but doing so is not mandatory.

The Double Chocobo glitch involves having two Chocobos appear on the world map simultaneously, and has varying effects depending on the console it is performed on.

Breeds[]

There are several different chocobo breeds, many of which can be attained by the player through breeding in the original Final Fantasy VII. Others can only be seen in races. Chocobos can be one of the breeds and male or female.

Yellow[]

Wild Chocobos are yellow. They are the most common breed and have no special abilities other than being a faster alternative to traveling by foot on the world map. Yellow Chocobos cannot travel through water, high mountains or ocean. "Good," "Great" and "Wonderful" chocobos are required to breed chocobos of different colors. The standard chocobo Cloud is given in Gold Saucer in his first race is yellow.

Blue and green[]

Blue Chocobos, also called River Chocobos, can run over rivers and shallow water, but not deep ocean or mountains. Green Chocobos, also known as Mountain Chocobos, can cross mountains and cliffs, but cannot enter water. Both types are born from great and good chocobos using a Carob Nut.

Green Chocobos can be found on Mideel Area (those accompanied by one or two Spirals) or Rocket Launch Pad Area (those not accompanied by Velcher Tasks), and good ones on Gold Saucer Area (those accompanied by two Spencers).

The player can mate either two great chocobos, two good chocobos, or use a mix. Once one colored chocobo of either blue or green has been born, the player can mate the colored chocobo with its parent for a chance to get either green, blue, or yellow chocobo. The player can try and breed the chocobos, and if they get an undesirable result, reset the game and try again. Due to the game's random number calculation, one will receive the same color/gender combination after every "hard reset" (switching the console off and on) and reload directly outside of the farm. A simple way to bypass this is to feed a random green to a random chocobo after the reload forcing the next random number being calculated, and one receives the next color/gender combination.

It is typically advisable to get two sets of parents so that once one of the two special chocobos is born, the player can save and keep trying with the second set of parents until they get the complementary chocobo. Otherwise the player has to wait until the parents of the first are ready to breed again. Chocobos that have won races in the Gold Saucer have a much better chance of producing colored offspring. The wins are shared between the breeding pair, so the player only needs to race one of them. To get a blue/green chocobo the pair needs four race wins between them for 100% chance.

In the Gold Saucer races, a programming error reverses the abilities of these colored chocobos. Green chocobos are unaffected in the space section of the short course as well as the water section of the long course, while blue chocobos climb hilly terrain easier. This can be seen easiest in the short course; given the same or comparable top speed, the blue chocobo will conquer the rising spiral at the beginning far more handily than a green or yellow chocobo.

Black[]

Gold[]

Other breeds[]

In the chocobo races the player can spot white, pink, red, dark blue, and purple chocobos. They function the same as yellow chocobos and there is no way for the player to acquire chocobos of these colors in Final Fantasy VII. A single white chocobo is found in Mideel, and when given Mimett Greens and tickled behind its ears, it relinquishes the Contain Materia.

Gold Saucer has staff dressed in chocobo costumes. Two can be found at the Wonder Square who are intended to appear in different sizes, a regular sized one and an unrealistically small one, yet due to a bug this is not the case in the PlayStation versions and they both appear at regular size. After obtaining the Highwind the larger one disappears and the smaller one comments on being alone. There is also a chocobo painted on the background of the Event Square and a chocobo mascot on the ticket office in Round Square.

Other specific Chocobos[]

Enemy Skill[]

Main article: Chocobuckle

A Chocobo appears in the Chocobuckle ability that can be obtained as a skill in an Enemy Skill Materia. The Chocobo resembles the Fat Chocobo more than the regular Chocobo, having stunted legs. Chocobuckle can elude some players due to being a difficult spell to obtain. Firstly the player must locate a wild Chocobo whose level is divisible by four, such as the level sixteen Chocobo on the footprints near the farm—and give it some Mimett or Sylkis Greens. The character with the Enemy Skill Materia equipped must cast L4 Suicide, which can be obtained from the Mus in the area near the farm. After being hit by the spell, the Chocobo will cast Chocobuckle in retaliation and flee.

The Chocobo's level can be determined either by using the Sense command, or by the monsters the Chocobo appears alongside with. The level 16 Chocobos near the farm are invariably encountered with either two Elfadunks or two Levrikons. Chocobos with any other monster combination are level 13. The level 24 Chocobo near Mideel only appears with a single Spiral.

Enemy[]

Main article: Chocobo (Final Fantasy VII enemy)

Chocobos are fought as enemies on the Chocobo tracks on the world map when the party has a Chocobo Lure Materia equipped. They cannot be defeated, as thus give no EXP or other spoils; their only purpose is to be captured to be used as steeds and for breeding at the stables. Chocobo battles have unique battle music.

Mideel chocobo[]

A white Chocobo is found in Mideel. When given Mimett Greens and tickled behind its ears, it gives the Contain Magic Materia.

Sage's Chocobo[]

A green Chocobo is found at the Chocobo Sage's house. When the player interacts with it, it drops a rare Enemy Skill Materia.

Teioh[]

Teioh is the Chocobo belonging to the jockey Joe. His stats are based on the player's racing chocobo, and are always greater (even surpassing the maximum stats available to the player). Teioh's speed will always 10% extra, and his stamina also 25% greater. Teioh appears in the races when the player is racing with their own Chocobo, appearing randomly in classes B, A and S; the higher the rank the more likely it is that Joe and Teioh will make an appearance.

Kalm traveler's chocobo[]

Once the player defeats Ruby Weapon and gives the Kalm traveler the Desert Rose, the Kalm traveler will show the player his Gold Chocobo, and give it to them.

Quests[]

Midgar Zolom evasion[]

During "Going After Sephiroth", to pursue Sephiroth and reach the Mythril Mine, the player must traverse the swamp in front of it, which is guarded by Midgar Zolom. Attempting to defeat the Midgar Zolom is not advised as the player is unlikely to be at a level where they can compete with it. It is possible but difficult to evade the Zolom and cross the swamp on foot (although by saving and reloading the game to reset the position of the Zolom, it is significantly easier), the preferred and intended method is to cross by chocobo. The player may visit the farm nearby and purchase a Chocobo Lure Materia, then fight on the tracks outside. Once it is captured, the party can cross the marshes to reach the mines.

If the player skipped Kalm, Cloud's party members stop him from going deeper into the mines, telling him to go back to Kalm. If the player crossed the marshes on a chocobo, Cloud asks his steed to wait for him outside, which normally cannot be done.

Materia drops[]

Chocobos can create and cough up Materia: the Choco/Mog Summon Materia is obtained from the chocobos at the Chocobo Farm, while the Contain Materia is obtained by giving the white chocobo in Mideel some Mimett Greens, then tickling it behind the ears. An Enemy Skill Materia can be dropped from the green chocobo at the Chocobo Sage's house.

Chocobo racing[]

Main article: Chocobo Square (Final Fantasy VII)

In the Gold Saucer resort chocobos race in the Chocobo Square. The inmates from Corel Prison can escape the jail by winning a chocobo race. Cloud Strife wins his party's freedom this way after being captured while hunting for Sephiroth. He is taught how to race by the racing expert Ester. Cloud is the default party member to race, although Tifa and Cid may also volunteer when they are in the party.

This is a minigame the player only has to win once in the storyline. The chocobos in the races have two stats: Stamina and Speed. Speed determines how fast they run, and Stamina determines how long they can run at top speed. On the left side of the screen is a red meter that shows how much Stamina the chocobo has left. When the chocobo runs out of Stamina it will slow down to a crawl and is easily overtaken. To restore Stamina, the player can hold down the two right shoulder buttons ( and ) (for the PC version, hold down Page Down and Target), which means one can push the chocobo harder throughout the race. While riding a chocobo two forms of control can be used: Manual and Automatic. Automatic gives complete control to the Chocobo, while Manual gives the player control.

For winning a race the player receives an item, which can either be kept or be traded in for GP, the currency of Gold Saucer. There are four classes for the race: C, B, A and S. Each is more competitive than the last, and requires a better chocobo to win. To advance to the next class three races in the current class must be won.

A talented jockey named Joe and his black chocobo, Teioh, infrequently appear in Rank B races, occasionally in Rank A, and frequently in Rank S. He is more of a challenge than the other racers because Teioh always has 25% higher Stamina and 10% higher Speed than the player's chocobo.

Winning ten times in a row will prompt the message "This is the winningest jockey in S rank ever since Joe" from Ester, and the player is rewarded with a prize package of items won from the races.

Materia Caves[]

Main article: Materia Cave

To access the Materia Caves, which contain the Mime Materia, Quadra Magic Materia, HP↔MP and Knights of the Round Materia, the player needs chocobos that can access each. This can be done one of two ways, either breeding chocobos to gain access to each of the breeds or by defeating Ruby Weapon to immediately gain access to a gold chocobo when presented to the Kalm traveler.

Citations[]

[GameFAQs-1] Final Fantasy VII – FAQ/Walkthrough by Absolute Steve (Accessed: April 24, 2020) at GameFAQs

[GameFaqs_2-2] Final Fantasy VII – Chocobo Breeding Guide by gmo7897 (Accessed: April 24, 2020) at GameFAQs

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