Carbon Ocelot's Final Fantasy VII Walkthrough

Chocobo Stuff

Start with a stable:
OK. You can't start raising Chocobos until you have the Highwind (even if you backtrack at the very beginning of disc 2, you can't do it). You can do this in pieces, or in one fell swoop. Be prepared to spend a couple hours, though, if you want to do it in one sitting. It took me 6 hours to go through this at once, but I was writing this walkthrough and taking breaks (eating, etc).

Once you get the Highwind on disc two, you can pilot it to the chocobo ranch and talk to grandpa (six annoying times) to rent all six stables. Fair warning - if Cid/Tifa is your party leader (trying not to spoil anything here) you won't be able to get into the Gold Saucer (Dio closes it because, um, he doesn't want them to race Chocobos? lol).

The bottom right corner of the screen showing the outdoor chocobo pen has a 2nd chocobo lure materia. Be sure to equip both of these as well as any enemy lure materia you may have when you go out hunting. The chocobo ranchers will keep the last four chocobos you "send back to the stable" in the pen area out front. You may also want to stock up on some greens, while you are at it (if you need to).

My guys are fast enough that the chocobo doesn't get a battle turn before I'm done killing off the dudes it's with, so I can just ignore the greens usually. If you talk to Choco Billy's sister Chole, she'll tell you to only scratch a white chocobo behind the ears. Remember this if you are headed to Mideel - but only if you have the right kind of greens. The one in my game liked Samolen greens. You may have to take one of each to find out what he likes. (You'll get a contain materia from him.)

Chocobo Sage:
You'll need information and powerful greens to get all the best stuff, so head to the Chocobo Sage's house up north by Bone Village. Remember the cave you climbed out of when you scaled the glacier before? Right across the valley from that is the mountain range protecting the Sage's House. Fly the highwind there and land in the little green patch beside it. You'll see a green chocobo in the pen next to the door. The first time you come here, go talk to it. You'll get ANOTHER enemy skill materia. Because you really need four, right?

The sage remembers things over time, but you have to do two things to get him to remember something different. First, once he tells you something, head back to the chocobo ranch and talk to Chole. After that, fight 10 battles, then go back to the sage. Repeat the process until the sage tells you he can't remember anything else. At this point, you should have learned everything you need to know to make the most powerful Chocobos in the game. At any point here, you can then tell Chole "Let me jot this down" and she'll tell you all the cool stuff you've learned from the sage.

Since you'll need to level up your chocobos, you should also buy 99 Sylkis Greens . Yes they are expensive. No, there's not really a good substitute. If you don't have the cash, consider selling off a master level all materia. See the level up section for information about how to quickly level up both your characters and your materia.

Breeding 101:
This may come as a shock to you, but to breed a chocobo, you will need a male and a female chocobo. You'll also need a nut. Depending on what kind, level and racing rank of chocobos you have, and what kind of nuts you feed them, you will get various differences in your chocobos. There are 7 classes of chocobo, ranging from poor to wonderful. Only certain combinations of certain genders will produce useful offspring.

The only combinations you care about are:

1. Great Chocobos can be bred using a Carob Nut to give you a Green/Blue/Regular Chocobo (more on this in a minute).
2. Blue and Green Chocobos can be bred using a Carob Nut (after racing them to Class S) to give you a Black Chocobo.
3. Black Chocobos and Wonderful Chocobos can be bred using a Zeio Nut (after racing them up to Class S) to give you a Golden Chocobo).
4. Golden Chocobos can be bred together with a Zeio Nut (after being raced up to Class S) to get even faster Golden Chocobos - to a point. Be sure to chech with Chole to see if your new chocobo is any better than your previous ones.

Feeding and Racing:
To get past the Blue and Green chocobos, you'll want to feed them greens and race them at the Gold Saucer to make them "level up." Once you've got Cloud and Tifa back, you can race the Blue, Green, Black, and Wonderful Chocobos you have at the Golden Saucer. See the section below called "going for black" for information about how to level-up and race your chocobos.

Random Encounters and Materia:
You'll be getting into a fair amount of battles during the chocobo side quest. Be sure to equip double AP weapons and armor where you can, and don't bother with enemy skills materia. Use worse weapons/armor if you have to (not single instead of double, though) in order to have the most materia slotted, then equip all the materia you might not otherwise use. Especially command materia, magic materia and summon materia. You'll be using these battles to level up the materia so you can get master level materia later on.

Good Chocobos:
At a glance (See below each section for more information):
When: Meh
What: Good Chocobos
Where: South east of Gold Saucer
With: 2 Spencers or 2 Flapbeats (ONLY flap beats behind him work!)

Again, there's a lot of confusing about this on the web. You really don't need these guys. See below for getting great chocobos and use those instead! But if you really want good chocobos (e.g., you can't kill off the spirals with great chocobos with enough time to capture them), here you go:

Point the Highwind toward the Gold Saucer and park it due east and slightly south. In other words, off the south end of the bay just to the east of the Gold Saucer. You should see some chocobo tracks there. Go ahead and land near them and equip your chocobo lure materia (and enemy lure materia, if you have it) then run around in the tracks.

You should run across the chocobos fairly soon. Use the greens if you need to, then kill off the other enemies. You are looking for a chocobo with 2 spencers or 2 flapbeats BEHIND him. Don't capture any that are with other enemies or that have the flapbeats in front of them. A chocobo with a harpy is "Pretty Average." Make sure you "Turn it loose" with those.

When the battle is over, dismount and "Send the Chocobo back to the stables" if he was with two spencers or flapbeats. Keep track of how many you have released. When you have cought and released four (as many chocobos as will fit in the pen), head back to the ranch. Save your game just outside the ranch, and then go inside and talk to Choco Billy about "Moving Chocobos."

Move them all into the stables. Talk to Chole to find out which ones are best. Keep the best male and female, but let the rest go.

Great Chocobos:
At a glance (See below each section for more information):
When: First
What: Great Chocobos
Where: Near Mideel
With: one or two Spirals (nothing else!)

Unless you've been level grinding a bit, these are a tiny bit harder to catch for two reasons. First, they run away faster. Second, the spirals are harder to kill in one shot (unless you use high power magics; I recommend bio 3 and comet - but avoid comet 2 and any magic materia junctioned with all materia!!!). Stock up on gyshal greens, then point the Highwind south of Fort Condor toward Mideel.

The chocobo tracks you want are located due south of Fort Condor. The Chocobos with Headhunters are "Not Bad" chocobos, so you don't want them. You want the ones with Spirals (one or two, it doesn't matter). These are great chocobos. Equip all the chocobo lure materia and Enenmy Lure Materia you have, then wander around for a bit. When you have killed off all the enemies it's with, you'll catch the Chocobo.

If the Chocobo was with Spirals (not spirals and other enemies, JUST spirals - one or two is fine), send it back to the stable. If you catch a chocobo with anything other than Spirals, just let it go. You'll want to catch four, then head back to the stables. Save your game outside before you go into the stables. If you have not yet visited the Chocobo Sage, be sure to go chat with him so you have some information to share wtih Chole.

Talk to Choco Billy about moving chocobos and name/move all your chocobos into the stables. Again, I pick names like "GudMal3" and "GrtFem1" so I can tell them apart just by the name. After moving all the chocobos into the stables, talk to Chole. If you have shared info from the chocobo sage, she will now tell you which chocobos are best at which things. Use her info to decide which male and female Great Chocobs are best, then let the other ones go. See the Mating for Blue and Green Chocobs section below for instructions on mating these Great Chocobos.

If the golden saucer is open, you can always enroll your chocobos in a race in order to see their top speed and stamina values. If you're not sure which one is best based on Chole's observations, this can be a helpful way to make up your mind.

Wonderful Chocobos:
At a glance (See below each section for more information):
When: After you have a black chocobo
What: Wonderful Chocobo
Where: South and west of Chocobo Sage's House (or the town on the Northern Continent)
With: Jumping Rabbits (nothing else!)

Carob Nuts:
On an Island due south of bone village run around in the light green areas until you come across an enemy called Vlakorados. Use bad breath, magic hammer, magic breath, comet and demi 3 on this guy. He'll go down eventually. If you defeat him, you'll get a Carob Nut , but that's a terrible waste because a) you can steal/mug one from him, and b) you can morph him into an Elixir . Yes, you read that correct. My favorite strategy is to cast bad breath to put him to sleep, then use magic hammer to steal all his MP - then steal his nut and cast demi 3 over and over until he's got so few HP that I can morph him. I use a character with massive strengh (see the Level Up section for info on Morphing enemies for stat-ups.)

If you have already gotten your blue chocobo, see the section below about acquiring the surprisingly useful quadra magic materia. Junctioning this with gravity materia can let you cast demi-3 four times in a row, which should radically reduce the amount of time this will take. If you're having trouble with this guy, you can also buy a Carob Nut for 500 GP at the Golden Saucer. GP is hard to come by, though, so it's probably more efficient to just level grind your guys instead.

Mating for Blue and Green Chocobos:
Again, there's a lot of confusing on this one floating around the web. You don't need Good Chocobos - just Great ones. You *can* use Good Chocobos if you can't catch the great ones, but I'd recommend getting your characters leveled up and going after Great Chocobos rather than wasting time on Good Chocobos. Refer to the Great Chocobos section above for info on capturing your Great Chocobos.

Save before doing this - you need one blue and one green of opposite genders, and the genders are random. Talk to Choco Billy and select "Mating Chocobos." From talking with Chole above, you should have decided narrowed your chocobs down to two Great Chocobos - one male and one female. Choose to mate those two and give them a Carob Nut when he asks. If you've been racing these chocobos, there's a 50% chance it will be blue, and a 50% chance it will be green. If you haven't been racing them, there's about a 25% chance it will be green, and a 25% chance it will be blue. The other 50% chance is that it will be a dud. If you saved above, you can try again.

It takes fighting 10 battles before you can mate these guys again, so once you have one blue/green, go fight and return so you can try for the other color and gender. Eventually, you should have one green and one blue chocobo of opposite genders. It can take a while, but keep trying. When you are getting into battles between matings, consider going to the area with lots of Spirals south-east of Mideel and morphing Spirals into Guard Source items to buff up your characters. It's a great way to pass the time and level your team pretty quickly.

If you are doing these tasks with Cid/Tifa as your party leader, you cannot yet breed for Black or Gold Chocobos. However, you can use your blue (river) chocobo and green (mountain) chocobos to go and get some great loot. Skip down a bit. If Cloud is your party leader while you're doing this, save your game once you have a blue and green chocobo of different genders, then see the Going for Black section below.

Going for Black:
Again, you cannot do this if the Golden Saucer is closed, so if you're running around with Cid/Tifa as a party leader, skip to the sections below to get river/mountain chocobo accessible loot. Otherwise...

Let's get ourselves a black chocobo. To get the black chocobo, you'll need to lots of cash (you can sell one master-level all materia and get 1.4 mil gil - enough for two or three batches of 99 Sylkis Greens ). You're going to have to feed your green and blue chocobos some Sylkis Greens to make them raceable, then you'll race them to top of their class. If you used Great Chocobos instead of Good Chocobos, I've found you only need to feed them 25 each. YMMV.

If you haven't visited the Chocobo Sage, see the section above and do so. Be sure to talk to him every time you visit to buy stuff, then tell Chole so you can refer back to this stuff later. After feeding your blue/green chocobos the greens, fly to north corel and take the tram up to the golden saucer. Head to the chocobo racing attraction and talk to Ester in the over by the staff room. She'll let you race your chocobos. Keep racing your blue and green chocobos until they are at least in in class A. I use the short courses for these races.

Press start to start the race then select to take over manual control of your chocobo, then hold down R1,R2,R3 and R4 while you press circle. When your stamina gets to half, let go of circle and press Square until your stamina recharges. When it's recharged, use circle again. If you have not been feeding your chocobos, you can beat these guys, but you'll be totally out of stamina by the end of the race. You'll have to time it just right. Play around with it for a while.

If you *have* been feeding them, these races should be trivially easy. Even at rank B, your chocobo should be able to win these races in automatic mode. He'll have nearly 3 times as much stamina as your opponents, so it's not really even a contest. You shouldn't have to actually participate for some time yet. If you are going to try for cool items in the Battle Arena and/or buy the stuff in the wonder arcade, be sure to take the GP instead of the items when you finish the races.

Your chocobo should move up a rank every three races you win. I let my chocobo run on its own until I got to rank "A," then I had to manually take over. When both of your chocobos are Rank A or S (I like S, but I'm an over achiever), head back to the ranch and mate the green and blue ones with a carob nut. If your chocobos are too young, you may have to fight up to 10 battles before they're ready to mate.

When you have your black chocobo, it can do everything a blue or green one can do. So you can actually turn those guys loose at this point, if you want. However, offspring have random stats, and sometimes they are better than others. If you have a spare Carob Nut or twelve (I like morphing those enemies to get the Elixir , so I have dozens), consider going for 2 or 3 black chocobos. You just need to fight 10 battles between matings. After that, talk to Chole and select "Chole's Chocobo inspection" to find out which is the best one. You can let the others go, and use the best one as your breeder.

Again, if the golden saucer is open, you can always enroll your chocobos in a race in order to see their top speed and stamina values. If you're not sure which one is best based on Chole's observations, this can be a helpful way to make up your mind.

Gold Chocobos:
Go to the longish island on the northeast area of the map and steal/mug/win a Zeio Nut or several from the Goblins in the forest of one of the islands there.

OK. Now that you have a black chocobo and a Zeio Nut , head to the chocobo tracks up near the Chocobo Sage's house (actually, it's close to the town up there). Since you're by his house, buy back up to 99 Sylkis Greens again. When you get to the snowy tracks, equip all your chocobo lure materia and any/all enemy lure materia and make sure you DON'T equip the slash all materia.

Look for Chocobos which are ONLY with rabbits (any number of rabbits). When you've caught a few, head back to the ranch and save outside. Move all your wonderful chocobos into the stables and talk to Chole to find out which is the best one to breed with your black chocobo. If all your wonderful chocobos are the wrong gender for breeding with your black chocobo, just reload your save and go fight a few battles to reset the random seed value. Feed the black and wonderful chocobo 25 Sylkis Greens each, and then head to the Golden Saucer and race them to class S (Yes, it actually takes class S this time.) Which ever is faster, race in several class S races to try and get good loot. As long as Chocobo Joe isn't racing, you should be able to win a few races at this point.

I think you need to race about 5 times in rank S to get the gold choco. You don't have to win, though. Once you've got these chocos raced up, head back to the ranch, save outside, and mate them with a Zeio Nut . NOTE: It is really important to choose the BLACK CHOCOBO first, and THEN choose the wonderful chocobo. I think there's a bug or something with the game, because when I choose the Wonderful Chocobo first, I got a dud. Maybe it was a fluke, but it was pretty annoying.

If you choose black first and you still don't get a Golden Chocobo (it will look different from the regular yellow ones), you may have to race a bit more. If your chocobos are too young to mate, go fight 10 battles (again, I like to morph spirals down by mideel for Guard Source items during these battles) and then you should be able to mate them.

Once you have your golden chocobo, feed him 25 Sylkis Greens and he should be able to win just about any race at the Golden Saucer without Chocobo Joe, and should be able to win against him occasionally, too.

Using Chocobos to get cool Materia, etc:
There are quite a few things you can do with your Chocobos to get cool stuff. First off, by running your chocobos in the Chocobo Races, you can earn cool materia, items, and accessories. As your rank goes up (you start at C, then go to B, A, and eventually S), so does your chance to earn cool stuff like a surprise attack materia, Sprint Shoes , counter attack materia, etc. See the Golden Saucer section for more information on what you can get and where to get it.

mime materia:
If you have a green chocobo, talk to Choco Billy about Riding Chocobos and you can ride the green one out. Ride it to the Highwind and fly to Wutai. About halfway up the continent, on the easternmost tip is a cavern you can only get to by riding a chocobo. Go there for the mime materia. You'll have to dismount to get in.

Ancient Forest:
After that, take the Highwind to a grassy area by Cosmo Canyon, and head to the top of the mountains. There's a weird green mini-mountain sticking up. This is the ancient forest. Save your game outside and head in. You'll have to alternate between grabbing insects and frogs here. Use your enemy skill materia here. You're not going to be GETTING them necessarily but you can use magic breath and bad breath to get through here faster.

1. Grab the first insect you see, and read the instructions.
2. Take that insect under the bridge and release it NEAR the top of the ramp.
3. Go back and get another one and do the same.
4. Get the third insect and release it FROM the top of the ramp, and that should make the bug plant eat it.
5. Go get another insect and jump on to the plant and release it.
6. That will make the 2nd bug plant eat it.
7. Now go back and get the third insect, making sure to give it to the third plant.
8. You'll be able to hop all the way across now. When you get to the other side, head down toward the big red plant at the bottom.
9. Walk ALMOST to the item in its center, and grab it ( Supershot ST - Vincent weapon), then go back.
10. If you go too far, you'll get bit - dropping your HP dangerously low. I don't recommend that.
11. Go right (you'll use the bungee springy thing to get across the chasm.)
12. Go around the tree to the item at the top of the screen ( Spring Gun Clip - Red XIII weapon).
13. Head right to the next screen.

1. As soon as you come onto the screen, grab the insect and head right.
2. You should have the option of jumping or staying when you get to the pink springy plant. (If not, you may have to walk back in a circle to trigger it.)
3. Jump.
4. At the top of the ledge, move to the right, and let your insect go; the plant should eat it.
5. Jump across the two plants and springy-jump over the red carnivorous plant.
6. Grab the frog and go right to the green ramp.
7. Let the frog go while facing left to make the plant eat it.
8. Then jump on and wait.
9. The plant will spit him out, eventually, and catapult you to the orange ledge with a blue thing on it.
10. Grab the blue thing and jump down.
11. Walk over close to the carnivorous plant you springy-ed over ealier and throw the blue thing in.
12. When the plant folds up, go and get the slash all materia on the ground by it and go back to the right.
13. Equip slash all materia to Cloud so that he can attack all your enemies at once!
14. Pick up the frog again, head right, and put him in the other plant at the top of the screen.
15. Jump on that pland to be launched over the next carnivore plant then head right to the next screen.

1. Ignore the first insect and go right until you get to the next one.
2. Grab it and throw it into the insect eater at the top of the screen, then go get the other bug and throw it in the 2nd plant.
3. Jump - Jump - Springy up to the next level.
4. Remember that sack you couldn't get on the last screen? Go left and down from here to get it ( Minerva Band - girls only).
5. Go down a little to jump off, then frog-jump right again.
6. Do the same insect jump jump springy to go to the next level again.
7. This time go left and UP around the tree and back to the right to spring jump three times to the far right (if you end up going down to the next screen, you've gone too far; back track and try again.
8. Get the item at the bottom of the right side of the screen (Typhoon materia).
9. Go back across the three springy things, but when you land this time, head down and right. You should be able to walk to a different area.

1. Walk down the tightrope to the right.
2. Pick up the bug and throw it into the plant on the top right.
3. Jump up twice and grab the blue thing.
4. Jump down and throw it into the carnivorious red plant.
5. When that goes away, run around and get an insect then throw it into the insect eater at the top of the screen.
6. Jump left and grab the bug
7. Release the bug near the opening just under the LEFT edge of the rope to coax out the frog.
8. Move the frog closer to the plant you just hopped across
9. Go back and get the final insect on the far left and use him to plug the plant you came across on.
10. Grab your frog and head across.
11. Use Mr. Frog on the far right insect eater to jump the chasm to your right.
12. Put him in the plant, then jump on and wait - you'll be catapulted, er frogapulted across.
13. Head into the cave and go right to get the Apocalypse from the chest.
14. Head up for an Elixir toward the top of the screen (in another chest).
15. Finally, head out the opening at the top left to be warped back to the world screen.

quadra magic materia:
If you are using a green chocobo, ride him to the Highwind, then take the Highwind to the chocobo ranch and swap him out with the blue one (or black/gold if you have 'em). Go to a grassy area east of Mideel. This is confusing, but there IS a way to use the coast line and shallow water to get to the cave on the eastern tip. Head inside for the quadra magic materia.

HP<->MP materia:
Once you have finished the above few side quests, mate your Blue and Green chocobos and get a Black chocobo (you can't do this if Cid/Tifa is your party leader; see above). Now take him to the area just north and west of Costa Del Sol (across the bay to the west) and visit that cave for the HP<->MP materia.

This materia will swap the MAXIMUM MP and HP available for a character. This means, for example you could easily give Cloud 9999 MP and 999 HP. Of course, if someone isn't covering your mage, he'll likely get killed off fairly quickly - but it's an interesting idea.

Vincent Weapon and Level 4 Limit Break:
When you have Cloud as a party leader, take the mountain chocobo to North Corel, and take the mountain chocobo up the mountains to the west. Go around to the west side of the waterfall and dismount, then approach the waterfall with Vincent in your party and watch some cut scenes, then you'll be back outside.

Equip any/all enemy lure materia and fight some battles with Vincent so that he uses his limit break. I took the chocobo to the sub and did my fighting in the underwater crash site. Ater about 10 battles, Vincent had used his level 3 limit break a few times, and that was enough. After a few additional play throughs, I'm pretty sure this is about the 10 battles and not the use of the limit breaks. I slot a master cover materia to him so he takes all hits for everyone and gets limit breaks often. Come back here after that. When you go back to the cave, you'll receive Death Penalty (Vincent's ultimate weapon) and Chaos (Vincent's level 4 limit break).

Knights of the Round:
The Knights of the Round materia is the second coolest materia in the whole game. The coolest one is (by far) the Master summon materia. Anytime you can perform ALL the summons, there's nothing cooler. Knights of the Round (KOR) is the greatest of all summons. Once you have a Golden Chocobo (yup, it requires golden) you can go after this one. In the far northeastern corner of the map is a tiny little island that you can only get to via the Golden Chocobo. Head up there and enter the cave hidden there. This summon can easily wipe out ANY non-boss entity, and most of the bosses. The exceptions are the Weapons.