What would a Final Fantasy game be without the Chocobos? Again, understanding the life and habits of these big yellow birds are crucial to a side quest in FFVIII. You can complete the game without even venturing once into one of the Chocobo Forests, but you will miss out on several opportunities to fully appreciate the depth and flavor of the adventure. So don't be in too big of a hurry to finish the game.
You can go Chocobo catching any time after gaining Garden as a vehicle on Disc Two. All of the Chocobo forests are accessible from a beach area - if you take the time to explore.
There are four things you will need to do to complete the Chocobo quest:
First, locate the six Chocobo forests and visit them.
Second, catch a mother chocobo in each of the forests.
Third, use that chocobo to find the items hidden in the forests.
Fourth and last, find the Chocobo's Holy Forest and visit there after you have completed all the other forests.
The Chocobo Forests are the small, globular wooded areas. You will know if it's Chocobo Forest when you walk into the woods. If it's a Chocobo Forest, the screen will change from the World Map to a Forest screen. Having trouble finding them? The locations are listed below:
1) Trabia - Winter Island, just to the south and east of Shumi Village
2) Trabia - Sorbald Snowfield, just to the south and west of Winter Island
3) Trabia - Bika Snowfield, over the moutains east of Trabia Garden
4) Centra - Cape of Good Hope, south and east of Edea's House
5) Esthar - Talle Mountains, south and west of Kashkabald Desert
6) Centra - Nectar Peninsula, on the northeast tip of Centra Crater island
(The forests can be done in any order, I just listed them roughly by degree of difficulty.)
Having found the Forests, you should enter and try to catch a chocobo. When you enter for the first time, the boy standing there will give you instructions on how to catch chocobos. This is Chocoboy and he can be very useful, if a bit irritating. He will give you the ChocoSonar and the ChocoZiner and if you pay him 1,000 Gil, he'll teach you how to use them.
Access the ChocoWhis menu in the Forest by pressing the Square button. There you can choose which whistle to use, or ask for help. If you need more help, talk to Chocoboy. He will sell you hints for 10 Gil, Gysahl Greens for 500 Gil each, or you can ask him questions about himsef for 100 Gil each.
The hints are very useful, so be sure to ask him for those.
To catch the mother Chocobo, you will need to get the babies, the Chicobos, out of the trees. To do this you need to find them with the ChocoSonar. Activate the ChocoSonar by pressing the Tringle button while walking around.
There is a bar at the lower right part of the screen which shows you the Sonar's reading. The music is muted but it's still hard to hear the pinging over it at times so use the bar to read the Sonar. When the Sonar is not activated, the bar bounces close to the left end. When the Sonar is activated, and no Chicobos are near, the bar bounces to about the halfway mark. When a Chicobo is near, the bar bounces almost to the rightmost end and the pinging is louder.
So, walk around using the Sonar until you find a Chicobo. Then switch to the ChocoZiner using the Square button. Use the ChocoZiner at the spot the Sonar indicates by pressing the Triangle button. If you're in the right spot, you will hear a Chicobo peep, and one or more Chicobos will fall out of the trees. If you use the Ziner in the wrong spot, you won't hear anything and a Chicobo drops out of the trees right above you and steals your ChocoWhis.
You can buy a new ChocoWhis from Chocoboy for 700 Gil, but be careful. If the puzzle is too hard for you, you can also ask for help off the ChocoWhis menu. Chocoboy will call a Chocobo for you at the cost of 1200 Gil each time. I don't know if you can still complete the quest by calling the Chocobos this way.
The ChocoZiner also has two other uses. If a Chicobo is on the ground already and you use the Ziner near it, it will fly back up to the trees. Also, you can use it initiate other actions by the Chocobos (more on this later).
You can only call the mother Chocobo by talking to the last Chicobo left on the screen. The difficulty arises from the fact that most spots the Ziner can be used calls more than one Chicobo from the trees, so you will have to discover the correct pattern of Ziner calls to lave only one Chicobo on the ground. It sounds complicated but try it, and you'll see what I'm talking about. Be sure to use the hints to guide your explorations.
Now you've successfully called the mother Chocobo. You will now need to find the items hidden in the forest. To do this you will need the Chocobo's help to dig them up. How do you know where to look? Well, do you have anything in your inventory which detects things -- perhaps useful only in the Chocobo Forest? Yes, that's right, the ChocoSonar. Use the Sonar to locate the item, and use the Ziner to call the Chocobo to dig it up.
N.B.: You can't look for items until there's Chocobo on the screen!!
After gaining the item, talk to Chocoboy. He will explain that by giving you a prize, the Chocobo is accepting you as one of the tribe, and you will not have to summon a Chocobo in that forest again. If you leave and return, a Chocobo will be standing there for you to ride if you wish. Chocoboy is gone -- he has moved on to the next forest.
When you have solved all six puzzles and found the hidden items in very forest. You will need to ride a Chocobo to the Chocobo's Holy Forest. Its located in the Grandidi Forest, near where you fought the UFO. You cannot reach it by Garden or Ragnarok, nor can you walk there. The Chocobo will cross shallow water without dificulty, so you can reach this place from all of the Forests. (Some are a really long ways away though). I suggest going to the Roaming Forest to catch a Chocobo and then crossing to Grandidi Forest from the Heath Peninsula.
When you reach the Holy Forest, you will see Chocoboy there. Talk to him and them walk towards the Chocobos in the clearing. You will know immediately, if you have finished the Forests, when you see seven Chocobos there. (If there's only one, you skipped a forest. You can ride the lone Chocobo out of there).
Approach the Chocobos and they will dance for you. Then all of the them rise to the trees and a Chicobo approaches you. Talk to him and gain the Chicobo card. Talk to him again and get the Gysahl Greens, but it will take 600 Gil for it.
Before leaving, be sure to Chocoboy again. He will call you a Chocobo so you can ride back to your vessel.
Quest complete! You now have the Chicobo card and the ability to ride any Chocobo in any Forest.
Are you still having trouble? Here's the answers:
1) Beginner's Forest (NW corner of Trabia)
Hint: Try to find a spot where only 1 falls down.
Solution: This is the easiest of the forests. If you use the Ziner in the indicated spots, two or more Chicobos will come down. If this happens, no worries -- just send 'em back up and keep looking. The right spot is located above Chocoboy and a bit to the right. Use the Ziner and only one drops down. Talk to it and you've caught your first Chocobo.
Item: Aura Stone. I believe this one the right side of the screen.
2) Basic's Forest (near Shumi Village)
Hint: You have to blow the whistle twice.
Solution: It's just like that - blow the Ziner twice. There are five Chicobos, two near the top, two to the left of Chocoboy and one in between. But you don't need to call them all down. If you use the Ziner near the middle, three Chicobos will fall down, two at the bottom and the middle one. Find a spot near one of the lower ones and use the Ziner. The lower two should rise. You should now have just the middle Chicobo on the ground - you're done!
Item: Flare Stone. It's located on the left side of the screen.
3) The Enclosed Forest (near Kashkabald Desert)
Hint: Collect on the outer side, then go in.
Solution: The outer four located in roughly in a diamond shape. The first Chicobo you should call is just below and to the right of Chocoboy. The second is just above and to the right of him. The third is just below and left of the big rock on the right. The fourth is just below the rock at the top. Doing them in this order, you will have four Chicobos on the ground. Then find a spot in a line between the third and fourth Chicobos. Use the Ziner and the outer four will rise and the last one will drop.
Item: Meteor Stone, Holy Stone Ultima Stone. These are located behind the big rock on the right side of the screen.
4) The Roaming Forest (East of Trabia Garden)
Hint: Be careful where the Sonar reacts.
Solution: Four Chicobos are here. Two Chicobos are already down. The third is roughly between them, but calling it will send the first two up. The third will come down and then rise back up immediately. The fourth is near the entrance of the Forest. Don't even worry about the third one, just call the fourth and then use the Ziner near one or the other of the first two Chicobos. This will send them up, leaving the fourth one by itself.
Item: Shell Stone, Holy Stone. At the very top of the screen.
5) The Forest of Fun (near Edea's House)
Hint: Chocobowling with 4 bottles and 1 ball.
Solution: As the hint suggests, there are five Chicobos. There are four Chicobos in the large area to the right of Chocoboy, and one in the narrow space to the left. First, find a spot along the left side of the large space. Use the Ziner to drop two Chicobos. Then find a spot just above the pointed projection of undergrowth on the right side, which drops one more Chicobo to the ground. Next find the spot just above the tip of the projection and use the Ziner. This drops one Chicobo there and another near Chocoboy's feet, on the left side of the screen. The last thing you have to do is use the Ziner by the lone Chicobo on the left. This causes it to run down to the bottom of the screen and then through the other four, knocking them back into the trees. It will remain at the top of the screen for you to speak to.
Item: Flare Stone, Meteor Stone, Ultima Stone. This is located in the upper right corner of the screen.
6) The Forest of Solitude (Nectar Peninsula, NE of Centra Ruins)
Hint: Search carefully where the Sonar reacts.
Solution: There's only one Chicobo here, but the difficulty lies in finding the precise spot the Sonar will detect it. Even if you're one step off there will be no reaction. The correct spot is just below the root, above and to the left of Chocoboy. Be really careful here.
Item: Protect Stone, Meteor Stone. Under Chocoboy. Challenge him to a card game. He will probably ask if you want to combine rules, and then when you are asked if you agree or disagree, there is a third option. "Forget it - just move." Choose that and Chocoboy will move to the other side of the forest. Now use the Sonar where he was standing to find the correct spot. Keep in mind that you will still have to look carefully for the correct spot.
Hope that's helpful. Try referring to the actual screen when reading this -- I don't believe in the little text maps -- they depend too much on your browser size to read correctly.
