Final Fantasy VII: Chocobo Raising Guide by Ninja

Version 1.1, Last Updated 1999-01-04 View/Download Original File Hosted

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* |J@p@NKl@N| Entertainment Strategy Guides - Final Fantasy VII :
Raising Chocobos - v1.1 *
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Copyright notice at the end of the document.

This document is completely original. Information in this document has
been found trough the Final
Fantasy VII game (PC US version) [and a huge 6-days long Chocobo
hunting session].

Version History:

* Reported the possibility of having more than 1 special chocobo of

each type on the PC version.
(thanks to Francisco Moraes)
* Fixed some formatting
* Fixed Section 8 wrong information about Cactuers
* Fixed Section 9 wrong number of wins required to get promoted to a
new chocobo class

Index

1. Where to find Chocobos

2. Where to find Chocobo Sage
3. Preparatory steps before breeding the special Chocobos
4. How to Obtain the River (Blue) Chocobo
5. How to Obtain the Mountain (Green) Chocobo
6. How to Obtain the River-Mountain (Black) Chocobo
7. How to Obtain the Ocean (Gold) Chocobo
8. What to do with the Gold Chocobo
9. Chocobo Racing
10. How to get the Chocobuckle Enemy Skill

1. Where to find Chocobos

Chocobos can be found in 7 different areas of the World Map. These

areas are marked with Chocobo
tracks. To actually meet Chocobos in combat, you need the Chocobo Lure
Materia.

*?* Where is Chocobo Lure Materia?

*-* You can find Chocobo Lure Materia at the Chocobo Ranch, just east
of Kalm and Midgar. You can
purchase it for 2000 gil, or (much better, since you will not be
needing chocobo hunting until
disc 3) you can wait to reach disc 2 or 3 and find one for free near
the now empty Chocobo fence.
In every area, Chocobos come with a variety monsters, however the
chocobo/monster combinations are
fixed, and are useful for determining beforehand what kind of Chocobo
you are fighting. The
Chocobo type is discovered either by noting which monster came with the
Chocobo or by Moving
Chocobos from the fence to the stables in the Chocobo Ranch.

*?* What should I do at Chocobo Ranch?

*-* To get the Gold Chocobo, you will need as much as 4 stables (for a
mere 10000 gil each). Rent
them from the guy in the western building of the Chocobo Ranch.
When you have Chocobos, you will also have to Feed, Ride and Mate
them. All this option are
available trough Choco Billy in the Chocobo Stables (eastern building
of the ranch). We will
explain feeding and mating later.
When you encounter Chocobos, you have to kill all the monsters that
come with them in a very
short time, WITHOUT attacking the Chocobo. If you want to buy some
more time, buy some greens
(the cheapest ones, Gyashkl, are just perfect) from Choco Billy and
use them on the Chocobo you
encounter. The Chocobo will start eating the greens, giving you some
more time to catch it.

*?* When should I start hunting Chocobos?

*-* My personal suggestion is to wait the third CD, until the Northern
Cave Dungeon becomes
available. Before that time, you don't have probably enough chance of
getting the vast amounts
of gil needed to breed champion-class Chocobos.

These are the 7 areas where you can find Chocobos and the comment that
Choco Billy will give you
about them:

Area 1 : Chocobo Ranch Area

Description : The Chocobos you find here are pretty weak and useless.
The only reason to encounter
Chocobos here is that they are the only Chocobos that use Chocobuckle.
Refer to section 10 on how
to get Chocobuckle Enemy Skill attack.

Monsters with the Chocobo Choco Billy Comment

Quality
2 Mandragora "This one doesn't seem very
good" Poor
1 Mandragora & 1 Levikron as above
Poor
2 Levikron "I really can't raccomend this
one" Weak
2 Elfadunk as above
Weak

Area 2 : Junon Area

Description : Completely useless. The Chocobos you find here are not
good at anything.

Monsters with the Chocobo Choco Billy Comment

Quality
2 Capparwire (front-view) "This one doesn't seem very
good" Poor
2 Nerosuferoth as above
Poor
3 Capparwire "Mmmm, this one's not bad"
Fair
2 Capparwire (side-view) as above
Fair

Area 3 : Gold Saucer Area

Description : One of the components for the River and Mountain Chocobo
comes from this Area,
so watch closely :D

Monsters with the Chocobo Choco Billy Comment

Quality
1 Harpy "This is a pretty average
Chocobo" Average
2 Flapbeats as above
Average
2 Spencer "Mmmm, this seems like a good
Chocobo" Good

Area 4 : Rocket Town Area

Description : useless. You can find the same Chocobo you need for the
River and Mountain Chocobo
in Mideel, where you also gain more EXP and AP.

Monsters with the Chocobo Choco Billy Comment

Quality
1 Velcher Task & 1 Kyuvilduns "This Chocobo's so-so"
Mediocre
2 Velcher Task as above
Mediocre
2 Valron "This is a great Chocobo"
Great
2 Kyuvilduns as above
Great

Area 5 : Wutai Area

Description : Completely useless. You might want to control Razor Weeds
to gain the Magic Hammer
Enemy Skill, but this doesn't concern Chocobo hunting :D

Monsters with the Chocobo Choco Billy Comment

Quality
3 Tail Vault "This is a pretty average
Chocobo" Average
2 Tail Vault (front-view) as above
Average
2 Tail Vault (side-view) "Mmmm, this one's not bad"
Fair
3 Razor Weeds as above
Fair

Area 6 : Mideel Area

Description : One of the components for the River and Mountain Chocobo
comes from this Area, so
watch closely :D

Monsters with the Chocobo Choco Billy Comment

Quality
3 Headhunters "Mmmm, this one's not bad"
Fair
2 Headhunters as above
Fair
1 Spiral "This is a great Chocobo"
Great
2 Spirals as above
Great

Area 7 : Icicle Area

Description : It's the only area where you can hope to find the
components for the Gold Chocobo...

Monsters with the Chocobo Choco Billy Comment

Quality
2 Bandersnatch "I really can't recommend this
one" Weak
1 Bandersnatch & 1 Jumping as above
Weak
1 Jumping "This... is a wonderful
Chocobo!" Wonderful
2 Jumping as above
Wonderful

Now that we know where to find what, let's start the stressing path to
the Gold Chocobo...

2. Where to find Chocobo Sage

Chocobo Sage can be found only if you have airship Highwind (or the
Gold Chocobo, of course :D).
He lives in a small house just a bit north of Bone Village (the place
with the archeologists). He
is the only one that sells Sylkis Greens, the best type of green, but
he is otherwise pretty
useless since he will always forget what he was saying (it's faster
reading this guide, than
going around into the world, get back to the Sage, running around some
more, get back to the Sage,
... you got the idea).
Get ready to buy loads of Sylkis greens from him (don't use Sylkis to
catch chocobos! Throw them
those cheap Gyashkl ones!).
BTW, the Green Chocobo that lives in the Chocobo Sage house will give
you an Enemy Skill Materia
if you "talk" to it (at that point of the game, i found that materia a
bit useless).
3. Preparatory steps before breeding the special Chocobos

Make certain you have:

* rent 4 stables at the Chocobo Ranch
* 3 Carob Nuts
* 1 Zeio Nut
* at LEAST 50 Syklis Greens (yes, that's 250.000 gil flying away)

*?* Where to find the Carob Nut? No one sells them!

*-* There are two ways to find Carob Nuts:
1) you can win it for a mere 300 GP in the Golden Saucer Wonder Square
(DISC 2 or 3 only). It's
the first prize marked as ?????. I don't know if you can win more
than one, so you might have to
use also way 2).
2) Equip the Steal Materia (quite easy to find troughout the game) and
go to Bone Village with
the Highwind. Do you see those small islands just south of Bone
Village? They are 3, one is
incredibly small, another is long and another one is almost square.
Land on the square one (it's
about 10 x 12 "paces", it has no sand on it and is covered half with
pale grass and half with
dark grass) and start running around. Here you can find pesky
squirrel like creatures (not even
a match, they are ridiculous at any stage of the game) or the mighty
Vladorakos. Well, the
Vladorakos has your Carob Nuts, so steal from him. After beating it
the first time, run around
some more time and get 3 of those Carob Nuts. You won't need more.

NOTE : Vladorakos has something like 40000 hp, but has ridiculous
attacks, so don't worry, just
hack him away.

*?* Where to find the Zeio Nut? No one sells them!

*-* This is extra-easy, much easier and quicker than the Carob Nut
affair. Fly with the Highwind
to the northeastern group of islands (just head straight east from
Bone Village). One of them is
covered with a forest. Land there and run around the forest until you
encounter Goblins. Steal
from them and you will get the Zeio Nut. Another thing you can get
from the Goblins is the very
useful Goblin Punch Enemy Skill that deals non-elemental damage (and
deals a LOT of damage if
you are fighting a creature that has the same level as you currently
have) and costs ZERO MP!
(yes Zero).

*?* I don't have a lot of money, what should I do?

*-* You might win the GIL Up Materia for a hard 1000 GP at the Golden
Saucer Wonder Square. The
best way to win it is keeping going and exiting the Golden Saucer and
hoping for the GP smuggler
to pass by. When you arrive at the Golden Saucer Ropeway Station (on
the Saucer, not at Corel),
 there will be the hostess and the chocobo-suited animator. However,
from time to time there will
be a guy near the save point, the GP smuggler, who will convert up to
10000 gil in 100 GP. Keep
doing this and you will reach the GIL Up Materia. To make this
efficient, it's better if you make
some winning at the Chocobo Square Bookmaker's Office, gaining GPs
instead of useless items
(except for Megalixirs, perhaps). Don't worry about winning, since you
will earn a lot of items
in your Gold Chocobo jockey life (much later, though...).

4. How to Obtain the River (Blue) Chocobo

This one is really easy, as the Mountain. Reach the Golden Saucer Area,
and catch a Good Quality
Chocobo (2 Spencer). Then reach Mideel Area and get a Great Quality
Chocobo (1 or 2 Spiral). You
could also get the Chocobo near Rocket Town, but in Mideel you get
more EXP and AP. In order to
get the River Chocobo, you need a MALE Great Chocobo from Mideel and a
FEMALE Good Chocobo from
Golden Saucer. Mate them with the Carob Nut and you will receive the
Blue River Chocobo. After
breeding, release the parents of the River Chocobo, you will not be
needing them again.

*** UNIVERSAL TRICK FOR CUTTING TIME *** When you catch a Chocobo and
send it to the Stables, its
sex has not yet been determined. Chocobo sex is determined when you
move Chocobos from the fence
to the stables (so, in Chocobo Ranch). Always save just before
entering Chocobo Ranch! This way,
if you mess up with Chocobo sexes, you can reset and restart.

[NOTE FOR PC USERS: If you have FF7 for the PC and have installed
DirectX 6.x, you might find that
if you quit from FF7 and then relaunch it, FF7 halts and freezes the
system. To overcome this
problem, just enter a fight and cast Ultima on your own party. In less
than 30 seconds you will
be asked to load a game, removing the need to quit from FF7 :D).]

5. How to Obtain the Mountain (Green) Chocobo

This one is also really easy. Reach the Golden Saucer Area, and catch a
Good Quality Chocobo (2
Spencer). Then reach Mideel and get a Great Quality Chocobo (1 or 2
Spiral). In order to get the
Mountain Chocobo, you need a FEMALE Great Chocobo from Mideel and a
MALE Good Chocobo from Golden
Saucer. Mate them with the Carob Nut and you wil receive the Green
Mountain Chocobo. Again,
release the parents of the Chocobo, you don't need them.

*** MAKE SURE YOUR MOUNTAIN CHOCOBO IS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX OF YOUR
RIVER CHOCOBO!!! ****
[Note for PC Users: It is confirmed that you CAN have more than one
type of special chocobo at a
time, for example 2 mountain and 1 river or any combination. It *seems*
(not confirmed yet) it
just becomes harder to get special chocobos you already have.]

6. How to Obtain the River-Mountain (Black) Chocobo

This needs some more time than the Mountain and River Chocobos. Feed
your Blue and Green Chocobos
with Sylkis Greens until their stats stop growing (if the only effect
of a feeding is "They are
getting along better" it means that that Chocobo has reached its
limit). This might require
somehitng like 15 Sylkis greens each. It's better to give them large
amounts of Sylkis, instead
of giving them one by one.
After the feeding, go to the Gold Saucer Chocobo Square. There, on the
Staff Room door, there will
be Ester waiting for you (she's the one that makes you run on the
Chococos when you are thrown
into the Golden Saucer jail in the desert). Ask her to register a
Chocobo for the next race and
keep racing until your blue and green chocobos are class A (or, much
better, S). Refer to Section
9 for Chocobo Jockey tips.
When your Chocobos are both at least class A, get back to Chocobo ranch
and mate them with the
Carob Nut, a nice Black River-Mountain Chocobo will be born. You will
obtain the Gold Chocobo
shortly, so don't even ride out with this.
As before, release the parents of the black chocobo, you will not
needing them any more.

**** NOTE ***** If you reach A class with all your chocobos in a VERY
short time, when you get
back to the Chocobo Stables, Choco Billy will say that he can't mate
freshly born Chocobos. If
this happens, do something else for a while (i.e. running some more at
the Gold Saucer (in the A
Class you can win nice prizes, or stock on GP for getting that GIL UP
Materia or the EXP UP
Materia for 2000 gp in Wonder Square) or entering the Battle Arena).
After some time has passed,
you will be able to mate your 2 chocobos and obtain the black Chocobo.

7. How to Obtain the Ocean (Gold) Chocobo

This is quicker than the Black Chocobo. Feed the Black Chocobo with as
much Sylkis as you can,
until his stats are at maximum (again, if you get only "They are
getting along better" after a
feeding, it means that the Chocobo is at its maximum), then make it run
at the Golden Saucer and
reach at least class A (at this point, reaching class S should be easy
enough). After reaching
class A, go to the Icicle Area and hunt a Wonderful (1 or 2 Jumping)
Chocobo of the opposite sex
of your Black Chocobo. Feed it with as much Sylkis as you can afford
(at this point you might
have spent something like 400.000 gil) or, much better, to its limit,
and make it run at the
Golden Saucer, reaching class S. Save before Mating these two Chocobos,
because the chance of
getting the Gold are lower than the others (I think that if you do
things the right way, the
chance for getting River and Mountain Chocobos are something like
100%). Mate the Black Chocobo
and your Wonderful Chocobo with a Zeio Nut and you will finally gain a
Gold Chocobo (if you spent
a lot on Sylkis, it should be some kind of monster with a top speed
around 190-200 and stamina
around 1500)!!!.

It might take around 4 hours to get the Gold Chocobo. Many people say
that it's needed much more
because they do not know that the Quality of a Chocobo is linked to the
monsters it comes with.

8. What to do with the Gold Chocobo

You can do a lot of nice things, which are:

* Reach the Circular Mountain Range with the Waterfall in it, put
Vincent Valentine in your party,
enter the cavern behind the Waterfall and get his Limit 4 Manual
(CHAOS) and his Ultimate Weapon
(Death Sentence). If they doesn't appear immediately, just pass by
again later.
* Reach the uncharted island at the far Northeast of the map to get the
legendary Knight of the
Round Summoning Materia, the most damaging materia of the game (with a
255 Magic pg, it does
around 90.000 damage) and the only way to beat the Weapons without
dying of age :D
* Reach the cavern on a peninsula near Wutai and get the Mime Materia
(that is NEEDED if you want
to have a hope of beating Ruby Weapon or Emerald Weapon)
* Reach the cavern on a peninsula near Mideel and get the Quadra Magic
Materia
* Reach an island south of Cosmo Canyon (keep going south) where you
can find the Cactuer, an
ominous creature immune to everything except Poison, Ultima and KoTR
(might be hit by something
else, don't remember). You can morph it for Tetra-Elemental.
* Reach the Cave in the desert, near North Corel where you can find the
(IMHO useless) HP<->MP
Replace Materia.
* Reach the Old Forest, in the forest just uphill near Cosmo Canyon
where you can find, along with
other goods, the Slice All Materia that makes the Battle Arena the
easier job of your life [You
can reach the old forest also by beating Ultimate Weapon, that will
destroy the mountain that
 blocks the passage to the area].

9. Chocobo Racing

Chocobo Racing is really enjoyable. If you followed the suggestions

written here, you will gain
Chocobos with incredibly high stats and always win!

Some miscellanous tips:

* IF in Automatic mode you see that the Chocobo sprints immediately
(wings set up, and Chocobo
icon showing a grim face) after the start, switch immediately to
manual (unless you want to lose)
and just keep pressed (not pressing, pressed) the Speed Up button (not
the Sprint/Turbo one).
* It takes 3 or 4 wins to get promoted to a new class.
* When you reach class S, if you win 10 times you will be proclamed
"Best Jockey ever since Joe"
and you will be given 1 of every item you can win by racing in class
S!!!! (Watch out for the
Cat's bell, an accessory that makes you regen HP while you walk! [the
concept is the same as the
Tintinabar of Final Fantasy III])
* Unless they are offering Megalixirs or X-Potions (useful in the
Battle Arena), always get GPs,
so you can afford the Experience UP and GIL Up Materia in Wonder
Square.
* When you have the Gold Chocobo, you will win even against Chocobos
much faster than you. My Gold
Chocobo (POWER) has a top speed of 157 and beats without problems (and
without using Turbo) even
180 fast Chocobos.
* From time to time, rarely in class B, often in class A, and almost
always in class S, TEIOH will
appear in the race. TEIOH is a guy with a Black Chocobo (he will
"pump" it from time to time, so
don't get dizzy if in the blink of an eye he races with a 190 fast,
1800 stamina Black Chocobo).
He is the only jockey to be ware of, since the others play really lame
(they almost always start
with turbo depleting their stamina). Anyway, your Gold Chocobo should
be more than able to beat
TEIOH hard (telling the truth, i beat him repetedly with my Wondeful
Chocobo).
* Never use the Turbo command, unless you are in a neck-to-neck fight
near the goal. If you are
far from the goal (suggestion: always pick the SHORT track) just let
them pass. The jockeys are so
lame they will deplete their stamina, getting out of the way real
soon. If all the others pass by,
you might be too slow: also in this case Turbo is useless, since you
will deplete your stamina just
to catch them (and in that case your chocobo will start walking, while
the others keep running).

10. How to get the Chocobuckle Enemy Skill

This is kinda tricky. Go to the Chocobo Ranch and buy 2 Mimmet Greens
(1 is for the Chocobuckle,
the other is for the Chocobo in Mideel, if you haven't visited it yet
[yes, the white chocobo
that "doesn't like humans that don't seem to give him greens", You can
get near him and obtain a
very precious Contain Materia if you have Mimmet Greens with you]. Get
out of the ranch and equip
some Chocobo Lure Materia. Run around near the Chocobo Ranch and you
will encounter a Chocobo.
Throw a Mimmet Green to the Chocobo and then perform a L4 Suicide
Attack (you must have it on your
Enemy Skill Materia, you can learn it from the squirrels found near
Chocobo Ranch [don't remember
their name, sorry]) on the Chocobo. It will get crazy and perform the
Chocobuckle Enemy Skill.
Chocobuckle is a non-elemental attack that does as much damage as the
times you escaped from a
battle (I don't understand why it does 29 damage when I cast it... I
NEVER escaped a battle in
the whole game!). You can know how many times you escaped by talking to
the old man sleeping in
a cave near Nibelheim (not sure, sorry). You can reach that cave with
Highwind or your Gold
Chocobo.

***********************************************************************
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* |J@p@NKl@N| Entertainment Strategy Guides - Final Fantasy VII :
Raising Chocobos *
***********************************************************************
******************
Dec 8, 1998 Written by Ninja (hemgchief@geocities.com) - all rights
reserved
Jan 4, 1999 - Last Update
Final Fantasy VII is a copyright of Squaresoft LTD.
This document may be freely distributed if kept whole in every part.
This document cannot be used for
commercial purposes without the explicit permission of the author.
1998 |J@p@NKl@N| Entertainment Department
Final Fantasy VII: Chocobo Raising Guide by Ninja
Version 1.1, Last Updated 1999-01-04 View/Download Original File Hosted
by GameFAQs
Return to Final Fantasy VII (PS) FAQs & Guides