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Final Fantasy 8 (PC) Chocobo Guide v1.14
by rhombus (John Palecek)
send questions / suggestions / harassment to rhombus@iastate.edu

Final Fantasy 8 and all names taken from it are copyright Squaresoft.
This guide is copyright 2000 John Palecek. You can store a copy on
your computer for personal use, and I suppose you can print it out,
also only for personal use. Don't copy it, upload it to anywhere, or
claim you wrote it or part of it. Don't use this guide to make your
own guide. If you have any questions about using it, email me.

Contents
I. Introduction
II. How do I get a chocobo?
III. What is Chocobo World?
a. Options
b. Events
i. Battles
ii. Cactuar (items)
iii. Moomba (weapons)
iv. Mini-Mog (friend)
v. Upgrades and other events
IV. How much damage does a chocobo do in Final Fantasy 8?
V. What items can I get from Chocobo World? (!)
VI. Cheats

Version update
1.00 First version.
1.01 Added Cheats section. Fixed a place where Word managed to auto-
format in spite of my best efforts to keep everything fixed-width.
1.02 Miscellaneous stuff added. All 7 forest locations listed,
including Chocobo Sanctuary.
1.03 Some help added for catching a chocobo.
1.10 Upgrading chicobo's attack. (Cool stuff)
1.11 More info on the female chocobo story.
1.12 Miscellaneous stuff added. Added to the attack value table. More
cheats.
1.13 Miscellaneous stuff added. More information for the chicobo card
added.
1.14 Added correction regarding final boss. Added information
regarding the attack value table. This is possibly the final update,
unless people send me information.

Stuff left to do:
Get the last 2 upgrades and finish the attack value table.
Compile a list of all the chocobo ID numbers that start you with more
than 6 HP.

------------------------------------------------------------
I. Introduction
------------------------------------------------------------

My big reason for playing Chocobo World is to easily get items for
Final Fantasy 8 that are otherwise rare or hard-to-get, or both.
Chocobo World is a low-resource Windows app that can run in the
background and play itself, collecting items as it runs. This is also
mentioned later, but since this is the whole point of bothering, I
thought I'd put it first.

All information contained in this guide is either original material by
me, based on information provided in the game or in the manual, or
information sent to me by individuals. Every time I used information
provided by other people I gave them credit using their chosen
nickname. No direct quotes from the manual have been used in this or
any version of the guide.

This guide will cover the mini-game Chocobo World, and its relation to
Final Fantasy 8.

Most of the guides that exist for FF8 are for the Playstation version,
and Chocobo World isn't accessible in the PSX version except with a
Pocket Station, which needs to be specially imported from Japan, even
for the North American version of the game. Probably most of the
information relevant to the computer version also applies to the
Playstation version, but since I don't own a Playstation, I can't
provide much information about it.

Pocket Station is a special kind of memory card with an LCD screen and
buttons, or something. I've heard that it has problems with battery
life - when turned off it has about a week of life, when on it has a
couple hours' worth.

In the PC version of FF8, Chocobo World runs as a Windows application.
It sits in the task bar and generally behaves the same as any other
application. It has no menus, and automatically saves its state when
you close its window. It must auto-save itself as well, since in my
experience game data isn't lost when Windows itself crashes.

Chocobo World for PC has only one real drawback; it uses up 100% of
free CPU time. The sound can get annoying when you're running it in
the background, but Nimrod^^ from Malaysia found that it can be turned
off with the [S] key. I haven't gotten that to work, though. :( Run
System Monitor (under System Tools, in the Programs area of the Windows
Start menu) and then start up Chocobo World to see what I mean about
the CPU usage. It's a low priority task though, so it's not that big
of a deal.

------------------------------------------------------------
II. How do I get a chocobo?
------------------------------------------------------------

Scattered throughout the Final Fantasy 8 world are small dome-shaped
forests. There are 7 chocobo forest locations, including the Chocobo
Sanctuary.

Chocobo Forest locations:

- N of Trabia Garden, just on other side of mountains
- far E of Trabia Garden
- S of Kashkabald Desert
- NE of Centra Ruins (the wireframe octahedron where you fought Odin &
the Tonberries)
- NE of Edea's Cottage
- NW of Shumi Village

The Chocobo Sanctuary is hidden in Grandidi Forest, North of Esthar.
You have to ride a chocobo across shallow water from the Trabia region
to get to it. Thanks to deathscythe17 from Malaysia for filling in the
information on the missing Chocobo Forests. He also tells me that if
you catch every chocobo yourself (instead of buying them, like I do),
you get a chicobo card. If you're into the FF8 [Triple Triad] card
game, then go ahead and try for this.

Once you find a Chocobo Forest, go in. Leave your friends behind and
go talk to the kid. You need to catch a chocobo in here. You can try
to do it yourself. I haven't been able to figure out all the rules for
how it works. The Choco Boy gives as good a general explanation for
doing it yourself as I can. Some specifics provided to me are found
below. It involves playing whistles at the baby chocobos (chicobos)
until they go away and the big chocobo appears. I always pay the Choco
Boy to catch one for me. If you've taken SeeD tests to get your rank
high, money isn't a big deal in FF8.

Before catching a chocobo, buy some gysahl greens from the Choco Boy.
He won't sell them to you after the big chocobo appears. Greens are
used in battle to summon your chocobo. They cost 600 gil.

After you've bought as many greens as you want, you can press [A] and
select [help me]. The Choco Boy requires 1200 gil to catch you a
chocobo.

Ride the chocobo out of the forest. Notice the chicobo following you
around. Isn't it cute? Wow, riding the chocobo is just like riding
the blue chocobo from FF7. It can go across shallow water. Enemies
can't get you. Isn't this fun? When you're done riding it, press [X]
to let the chocobo run away.

Have you figured out the whole catching chocobos thing? Email me and
I'll put the info in a new version and give you credit. Either that,
or write up your own guide on catching chocobos. I've heard it's
annoying and complicated, so it's probably worth its own guide.

Kumaresa from Malaysia sent me information on how to catch some of the
chocobos. He says he's working on figuring out the rest, but don't let
that stop you from trying too. Here's what he's got so far:

He claims the forest near the Shumi village is easy to figure out. I
didn't find it so, but maybe I gave up to soon.

- Forest near orphanage (Edea's Cottage)

1. Get all the chicobos down.
2. Catch the leftmost one.

- Forest near Kashkabald Desert

1. Get all the chicobos down.
2. Go to a point in the center of the 4 chicobos and do the catch
chicobo command.

I hope this is helpful for those of you who want to catch chocobos
without paying the choco boy. Once you've caught a grown-up chocobo at
a forest without his help, you can use the sonar to find an item.
There is a stone buried in the ground, and if you bring all 6 to the
Chocobo Sanctuary, you get the chicobo card. If you want to get all
the cards you'll need to go through all this.

Kian Chong tells me there is no great reward for collecting all the
cards other than a star next to the [card] option on the FF8 menu.
(Whoop tee doo.) However most of the rare cards are worth obtaining
because they can be modded into nifty items.

However, Kian says there is one big benefit from getting the chicobo
card (doing all of the chocobo sub-quest) because in disc 4 you can
ride a chocobo out from the Chocobo Sanctuary to the Ragnarok. Why is
this a benefit? You can play the Queen of Cards and the CC members to
gain the rare cards. This is especially useful if you find the Queen
of Cards sub-quest a big feat.

------------------------------------------------------------
III. What is Chocobo World?
------------------------------------------------------------

According to the manual that comes with FF8, once you have gotten a
chocobo in Final Fantasy, you can access Chocobo World. You control a
baby chocobo (chicobo) and help it to level. The initial set-up is
done within Final Fantasy, from the [Save] menu. The explanation in
the manual and tutorial isn't very good for initial set-up, but it's
really simple once you've done it.

From the [Save] menu, a new game slot (labeled Chocobo World) will
appear to the right of the game slot in use. Select this with [X] to
enter the Chocobo World menu. There are 4 options listed here.
- World
- Home
- Do Over
- How to Play

- World
If your chicobo is in Final Fantasy World, this moves it to Chocobo
World.

- Home
If your chicobo is in Chocobo World, this moves it to Final Fantasy
World.

- Do Over
This deletes your chicobo and starts a new game with a level 1 chicobo.

- How to Play
This contains a brief story about chicobo (he's trying to find his
friend, Mog) with cute pictures, as well as a moderately helpful
tutorial.

Actual play of Chocobo World is not done within Final Fantasy 8, but
directly from Windows. To start Chocobo World, go to the Start menu,
to [programs,] and select [Chocobo World] from the [Final Fantasy VIII]
menu.

------------------------------------------------------------
III. a. Chocobo World Options
------------------------------------------------------------

In Chocobo World, the buttons that do things are:

[ctrl] This is the button that does everything.
[S] This button is rumored to toggle the sound on and off. I
personally haven't ever gotten it gotten it to work.
[alt] This button pauses the game. I have no idea why you would want
to do that. I discovered this by accident.
[up, down, left, right] These are fairly obvious.
[esc] This closes the window and quits the game.

When chicobo is walking around, press [ctrl] to access the menu.
Pressing left and right will bring you to the various option menus.
From left to right, starting with the first one, they are:

- Map. Events are marked as dots. You can change your walk direction
with up and down.