Chocobos are the ultimate stress test for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirths open world
Getting around can feel a bit clunky
Meeting and riding a chocobo is a tried-and-true pleasure of a Final Fantasy game. The magical creatures pair the trot of a horse with the yellow plumage and stature of a dinosaur-like bird. Chocobos are my favorite fantasy chickens and it’s no wonder they have become one of the mainstay fixtures of the series. In Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, chocobos are back – and better than ever. You can ride different varieties and even dress them up. There’s just one issue: Riding these wonderful creatures pushes the limitations of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s open world.
Rebirth expands upon the world of Final Fantasy 7 Remake and introduces several regions that Cloud and his friends can explore. Each region is large – the developers stuffed these regions with hidden caves, sprawling fields, and jagged cliffs that overlook the ocean. From the get go, finding your way around the world can be a bit cumbersome on foot. Luckily for players, the game doesn’t waste its time in giving them access to their first chocobo.
A lot of aspects of riding the chocobo feel great. The bird has three different speeds: a slow walk, a trot, and a sprint. The sprint feels very fast and will have Cloud and his friends zooming along at a brisk 100 meters every 10 seconds or so, from my own estimation. In addition to speeding things up on land, chocobos can also allow Cloud and friends to traverse areas like swamps by swimming through them. And they’re still pretty dang cute. You can collect different gear sets to dress them up, and even customize the colors.
While I appreciate all the details the developers included as part of the game, the chocobos still struggle with perfectly navigating the wider world. At the fastest speed, it can sometimes feel like chocobos sprint too fast. You also can’t force the chocobos to jump, and it’s not always clear when a certain rock might be too tall to jump over it or on top of it. Because of this, I found myself bumping into stuff and ruining my riding rhythm as I explored the world. So even though you’re in an open world, you’ll pretty much need to keep your bird to the paved paths if you want to get somewhere fast.
When you do stick to the paved path, though, the world contains plenty of distractions — like items or points of interest that beckon you with hooting owls. Luckily, the developers added a feature where you can pick up multiple items off the ground when you’re riding the chocobo. This is great because if you time your button press, you can pick up several items at once while you dash along, although I’ve still found myself having to bring my mount to a screeching halt so I can double back and grab items I missed. Sprinkle in the fact that my chocobo can smell hidden and buried items, providing yet another possible distraction to throw me off a path. All of this has made chocobos feel a bit unwieldy as the main way to get around.
Of course, not all of this is the chocobo’s fault. It illustrates a larger incongruence with the game where the world design and chocobo just don’t fit together perfectly. Rebirth both is and isn’t an open world game. Sometimes certain parts of a region can be locked from you exploring them, but it’s not always obvious where you can go and when. Chocobos in one region might have a power that another region’s chocobos don’t have, so the game forces you to unlock each chocobo region by region, rather than just upgrading a single chocobo. It’s bizarre.
Even given all this, it’s not the worst part of the game – I’ve still enjoyed trotting around on my chocobo, and I will never tire of hearing the various adaptations of the chocobo theme – but it’s just felt like a bumpy ride. I guess if I want to feel that smooth sailing, I’m destined for a life of playing the chocobo race mini game in the Gold Saucer.