Cloud and the members of AVALANCHE had access to an airship and a submarine in Final Fantasy VII, but the best Materia in the world required the aid of an oversized bird to acquire, in the form of a gold chocobo that the player needed to breed. Final Fantasy VII was released during the era when strategy guides were still making money, so the developers hid secrets that no sane player would find without outside help.

One of the trickiest minigames in Final Fantasy VII involves breeding a gold chocobo in order to find the best items in the game, most notably the elusive Knights of the Round summon Materia. Chocobo breeding can be one of the most time-consuming tasks in Final Fantasy VII and the people who don’t know what they’re doing can find themselves running around in circles. Screen Rant has created a helpful guide for breeding the different colored chocobo in Final Fantasy VII, so that they can run across the ocean on the back of a golden bird.

Preparing The Greens, Materia, Money, & Nuts For Breeding

Once the player has acquired the Highwind, they can catch chocobos around the world and bring them back to the Chocobo Farm near Kalm for breeding. In order to use the facilities of the Chocobo Farm, the player should rent out six stables for sixty thousand gil. There are a number of ways to acquire cash in Final Fantasy VII and selling a lot of unused gear should be enough to cover the stables, but the player can earn over a million gil by mastering an All Materia and selling it, which should cover all future costs.

In order to catch a chocobo, the player will need a Chocobo Lure Materia and greens. Chocobo Lure can be leveled up to increase the chances of meeting a chocobo and the player can benefit from two mastered Materia to increase their chances further. The best greens for capturing a chocobo are Reagen Greens and these can be purchased from the Chocobo Sage near the Icicle Inn. Reagen Greens will keep the chocobo occupied for eight turns.

The player will also need to acquire some nuts in order to breed chocobo. The nuts that the player needs are Carob Nuts and Zeio Nuts. Carob Nuts can be stolen from enemies called Vlakorados, which can be found in the grasslands in the Icicle Area, or by purchasing them from the Wonder Square. Zeio Nuts can be only be won by defeating Goblin enemies. Goblins can only be found on Goblin Island, which is one of the small islands in the northeast corner of the world map. The player has a 14% chance of stealing a Zeio Nut from a Goblin, with the same chance of one dropping upon its defeat.

If the player desires a specific gender of chocobo for breeding, they should save the game before speaking to Choco Billy, as the gender isn’t determined until this point. It’s possible to keep reloading in order to get the required gender.

Breeding A Blue, Green, Black Chocobo

The stats of the parent chocobo will drastically increase the player’s chances of breeding a chocobo of a different color. The process requires the player to breed black chocobo and in order to do that, the player needs a blue and a green chocobo of the opposite gender.

In order to breed a blue & green chocobo, the player will need to boost the stats of the chocobo through feeding them greens and will need to repeatedly race them at the Gold Saucer. The greens part is easy, so long as the player has plenty of cash, as the player needs to feed the chocobo Sylkis Greens in order to boost their states. Sylkis Greens can be purchased from the Chocobo Sage.

All wild chocobo will start as C-class racers. The player needs to enter the chocobo in races by visiting Ester in the Gold Saucer and entering it. It’s advised to boost the chocobo’s stats by feeding it five-ten Sylkis Greens before entering the race. The player needs to win three races (not necessarily in a row) in order to move up a class, with the classes running in order from C>B>A>S.

The quality of the regular yellow chocobo is also a major factor in breeding. It’s possible to know the quality of the chocobo by the location in which it’s found and the enemies that surround it. The only quality types that the player needs to concern themselves with are Good, Great, and Wonderful. Good chocobos can be found by the tracks near the Gold Saucer and it will be surrounded by two enemies called Spencers, which look like floating fish. Great chocobos can be found by the tracks near the Mideel area and it will be surrounded by two enemies called Spirals, which look like a blue & red king prawn that can roll up into a ball. Wonderful chocobos can be found by the tracks near the Icicle Inn and it will be accompanied by either one or two enemies called Jumping, which looks like a rabbit wielding a carrot like a blade. The player will know if they have found the right type by asking Choco Billy to rate them, and he will use the word “good”, “great” or “wonderful” in the description.

In order to breed a blue chocobo, the player needs to mate two Good B-Class male with a Great B-Class female or a Great B-Class male with a Good B-Class female. The player needs to use a Carob Nut in either case.

In order to breed a green chocobo, the player will need to breed a Great B-Class female with a Good B-Class male using a Carob nut. This mixture can also lead to a blue chococbo, so the player needs to save the game as much as possible throughout this process! This is especially important for the next step, as the player needs a male and female blue & green chocobo.

In order to breed a black chocobo, the player needs to breed an A-Class blue chocobo with an A-Class green chocobo using a Carob Nut. The quality of the chocobo doesn’t matter at this stage, just the color and racing class.

Breeding A Gold Chocobo & The Rewards Of Breeding

The final stage of the process is upon the player. In order to breed the mythical gold chocobo, the player needs an A-class black chocobo with an A-Class Wonderful regular chocobo by using a Zeio Nut. According to Mike’s Chocobo Breeding Guide, the player needs to select the black chocobo first in order to breed a gold chocobo, otherwise, a bug will stop it from appearing. If the player has followed this guide and wasted a chunk of their life racing chocobos, then they will eventually give birth to a gold chocobo.

The different colored chocobos can give players access to different items through each step of the process, so the player can go exploring with their new bird buddies whenever they spring from their eggs.

  • The blue chocobo can be used to cross rivers. The player can use one to find the Quadra Magic Materia in a cave north of Mideel. The green chocobo can be used to cross mountains. The player can use one to find the Mime Materia in a cave near Wutai. The black chocobo can cross both mountains and rivers. The player can use one to find the HP↔MP Materia in a cave north of Coral. The gold chocobo can cross the ocean. If the player runs into the northeast corner of the world map to an unmarked island, they can dismount and enter Round Island to acquire the Knights of the Round Materia.

The player can also use a green, black, or gold chocobo to reach Lucrecia’s Cave before they get the submarine to acquire Vincent’s ultimate weapon and final Limit Break early. These same chocobo can also be used to reach the Ancient Forest without needing to defeat Ultimate Weapon.

The Ruby Method

There is another way to acquire a gold chocobo and that’s by defeating Ruby Weapon. If the player can defeat Ruby Weapon, then they will acquire the Desert Rose item, which can be traded to the old man in Kalm for a gold chocobo.

The problem with this method is that Ruby Weapon is the hardest boss in the game and people breed a gold chocobo specifically to find the rare Materia that can be used for the battle against it. If a player is strong enough to take down Ruby Weapon without the aid of Knights of the Round or Mime, then they won’t need to start their chocobo dating agency, as they won’t need a gold chocobo to begin with.

Next: Final Fantasy 7 Remake Was Informed By Games Like Spider-Man

Final Fantasy VII is available on PC, Xbox One, Playstation 4, and Nintendo Switch

Source: Mike’s Chocobo Breeding