Chocobos Reborn

Chocobos Reborn

Final Fantasy VII chocobos for Minecraft 1.21.1, NeoForge 21.1.249, Java 21. Catch a wild Yellow with Gysahl Greens, train it on the eight greens, mate it with the eight nuts, walk the farm line to Green, Blue, Black and Gold, then take it to Whiskerwind and race.

Original work. Original birds, original calls, original art, original music. A fan work, not affiliated with Square Enix.

The birds

Adults stand about twice a player's height, crest to claw. Chicobos hatch small and grow through three stages. Eight plumages: Yellow, Green, Blue, White, Black, Gold, the End bird in purple with end-stone feathers, and the Nether bird in red with lava feathers. Females wear a shorter crest.

A freshly tamed bird stands up and follows you. Tame birds take three orders from the tabs on their equipment screen (sneak and right-click with an empty hand): Follow you, Stay put, or Wander within 24 blocks of where you left them. A bird on Follow comes with you into the Nether, the End, Whiskerwind and back, and lands a couple of blocks behind you. A plain right-click still sits a bird down or stands it back up.

Your adult birds shed a feather every few minutes, and a brush loosens one on the spot, with hearts.

Wild Yellows roam the Overworld. Wonderful Yellows only turn up on snow and ice. Nether birds are born in the Nether, End birds on the End's outer islands. Hold a Chocobo Lure and wild birds come to you and glow.

Greens (training)

Gysahl, Krakka, Tantal, Pahsana, Curiel, Mimett, Reagan, Sylkis. Gysahl tames a wild bird (about one try in three) and heals a hurt one. Every green trains speed, stamina, intelligence or cooperation; a bird takes one training green every five minutes, and gets sated on each kind, so move up the ladder. A sated bird still eats a green to heal when it is hurt. Speed training makes a real difference: a fully trained bird runs a third faster. Gysahl grows from seeds found in grass and is the only green found in the wild; Krakka and Tantal can be crafted from it, and every other green comes from Sage Wynn in Whiskerwind or race prizes.

Nuts (mating)

Pepio, Luchile, Saraha, Lasan, Pram, Porov, Carob, Zeio. Feed a nut to each of two owned adults of opposite sex and they mate. Plain nuts hatch a chicobo of the parents' colour. Carob and Zeio change the line:

1. Two Good-or-better Yellows + Carob → Green (mountain) or Blue (river).
2. Great Green + Great Blue + Carob → Black. A missed roll hatches White.
3. Wonderful Black + Wonderful Yellow + Zeio → Gold. Gold never hatches without Zeio.

Bloodlines. Every bird is born with stats of its own, and about a tenth of the training its parents were fed carries into the chicobo. A perfect bird is a long line: breed the blood down the middle and feed each chicobo full, and the line climbs clutch after clutch. The Almanac shows what a bird was born with and what you fed it. One chicobo in eight sparks a stat toward its stronger parent, and only a line that is already strong can reach the legendary top of a stat. Each nut adds a small gift to the chicobo, the rarer the nut the bigger.

As in FF7, colour breeding needs racers: both parents must have ranked first-place finishes in Whiskerwind, won in the step's own class, before a Carob or Zeio can change the line: 5 Class C wins each for Green or Blue, 8 Class B wins each for Black, 10 Class A wins each for Gold. More wins in that class make the roll surer until it is certain (16, 24 and 32 between the pair). The End and Nether birds breed true; no nut turns them into a farm-line colour. No nut is found in the wild: Bilo the Nutkeeper in Whiskerwind sells all eight, and races from Class B up pay out Carob, with a rare Zeio at Class S.

Riding and fighting

Craft a Chocobo Saddle, put it on an owned adult and right-click to ride. Hold sprint to dash on stamina; let go to recover. A dash that runs the bar dry stays off until stamina climbs back to 50, so pace it. A smart bird spends stamina more slowly and gets more out of boost pads. You can fight from the saddle: your swings and arrows never touch your own bird. Terrain follows FF7:

• Green climbs mountains
• Blue walks on shallow rivers; the rider breathes underwater
• White climbs and crosses shallow water
• Black climbs, crosses shallow water and sees at night
• Gold does everything, crosses lava and the ocean, and flies (hold jump to flap, look up while moving to climb, hold sprint to dive). Only Gold flies.
• End bird climbs, crosses any water, rider water breathing and slow falling
• Nether bird shrugs off fire and walks on lava, sharing fire resistance with the rider

Sneak-click your bird with an empty hand for its equipment: a saddle slot, an armor slot and Saddlebags (fifteen slots, named on an anvil). Chocobo Armor comes in leather, iron, diamond and netherite; iron and diamond birds wear it visibly. Armored birds cannot race.

The Chocobo Almanac

An illustrated guide to everything here, with a live "My Chocobos" section: every bird you own, its genes, training, racing record and family line, with rename, release and remove.

Whiskerwind

A race town on a sky island in the void, with its own day and night sky and its own music. Reach it with a Chocobo Pocketwatch or through the Farmhand at any Chocobo Farm, on foot or in the saddle; your birds nearby come along. Nothing spawns there, nothing there can be dug up, and nobody sleeps there: its beds are furniture.

The town: a plaza round the arrival medallion, the chocobo fountain, awninged market stalls, eight timber cottages, an inn with a copper-capped bell tower, the Race Hall, a stable yard, a windmill, a ranch where the town flock grazes, a nest barn with a chicobo nursery, a jockey lounge, a pond, an orchard, the gatehouse and its overlook, a winners' board, and a shrine islet. Ten townsfolk keep their own day, and when a heat is called the inn bell rings and they line the overlook to cheer.

Heats go off every five minutes. Esther on the overlook enters you in the next heat of your bird's class or any class below: the first rider picks the course, riders of that class or higher who see her join, taking an AI racer's stall. You may race any course of your class or below (lower classes pay half and don't count toward promotion). She calls the heat at two minutes and one minute, counts the last ten seconds, and you are carried to the stalls for a big five-second countdown.

Forty-eight courses, twelve per class (six sprints, six grands prix), every one a different circuit: sprints of one long lap and grands prix of three, four or five laps of a shorter circuit (the most laps on the shortest), with straights, sweepers, hairpins, chicanes and hills, striped kerbs, grandstands full of fans inside and outside the loop (three on a Class C course, ten on Class S), themed from meadow, shore and farmland through canyon, savanna, snow, cavern, jungle, giant mushrooms and the Nether to a rainbow skyway, an obsidian keep, the End and the deep dark. Boost strips cover one lane of the road, five on a sprint's long lap and three on a grand prix's short one, each on a corner exit; water, ridges, lava and bogs cross the direct line with a slower road round, laid on a bend so the way round really costs you and the bird that suits the terrain takes the short way. Every course has its own landmark, from a windmill and a beached shipwreck to a bone arch, a ring hung over the road and a caged crystal. Nothing in Whiskerwind can hurt a rider or a bird: a bad line costs a place, not a life. Birds are solid: rub wheels side by side, and a bird that runs into another's tail loses pace while the one in front keeps its line, so a clean pass beats a shove. Six racers, every AI bird with a kin jockey up; from Class B on, Jolo and Teiyo are in the field, pacing themselves off your own bird, and every racer runs its own form each heat.

Race with friends on equal terms. The host gets no edge: each rider's ping is credited at the finish, photo finishes are timed inside the tick, boost pads fire on the pad for every rider, and the countdown holds every bird still, so racing a friend across the internet is fair and smooth. Distant birds draw lighter, so a full field runs well on slower machines.

• Rook the Bookie takes one bet per heat and never pays more than the purse.
• Sable the Duel Master runs one-on-one races outside the ladder: just the two of you on the track, for the pot you both put up.
• Pell the Broker swaps birds between players or hands over a gift.
• Stalls, all priced in GP: Sage Wynn (greens), Bilo the Nutkeeper (nuts), Tack (saddles, lures), the Fair (the Almanac, pocketwatches, fireworks, leads) and Marl's GP Exchange.

Classes run C → B → A → S. A ranked win scores by distance: a sprint is 4 points, a grand prix more the longer its heat, and the purse grows the same way. 36 points promote (nine sprint wins, or fewer grands prix). A bird never drops a class.

Chocobo Farm

Farms dot the plains, meadows, savannas and cherry groves: a barn, a paddock with a couple of wild Yellows, a gysahl patch, a Stablehand who sells Gysahl and seeds, and a Farmhand at the gate who sends you to Whiskerwind.

Start your journey

1. Find Gysahl Seeds in grass and grow a patch.
2. Tame a wild Yellow with Gysahl Greens.
3. Craft a Chocobo Saddle and ride.
4. Craft a Chocobo Lure to draw the next wild bird.
5. Craft a Chocobo Pocketwatch, or see a Farmhand, and race. Colour breeding needs those firsts.
6. Spend GP on better greens and nuts. Walk the farm line toward Gold.

Advancements track the whole line: first tame, first ride, first hatch, Green or Blue, Black, Gold, finding a farm, reaching Whiskerwind, a first-place finish and Class S.

Requirements

No other mods required. Works standalone.

Standalone and Ninjacat Skies

Chocobos Reborn works standalone. In Ninjacat Skies it sits beside Tribal Power: the Whiskerwind keepers, crowd and jockeys wear Tribal Kin looks and the sky is the March's. The pack is optional.

Fan work

Chocobo is Square Enix intellectual property. This is a fan work and does not claim that IP. Nothing from Square Enix is shipped: birds, calls, item art and music are original. Code is MIT. Art and music are CC-BY-SA 4.0.

Version 1.1.2. Created by Ahmi Darrow.