The word “chocobo” has seamlessly integrated into common household usage over the past three decades, and is synonymous with the Final Fantasy games as it has become one of the most recognizable iconic images from this popular role-playing series. With the introduction of the chocobo in the second installment – Final Fantasy II for NES – this lovable, yellow, steed-like bird has gradually become more integrated with each passing game. It has grown in popularity so much so over the years that it has even had its own spin-off games from the traditional Final Fantasy installments, those being: Chocobo Racing, Chocobo’s Dungeon 1 & 2, Chocobo Tales and several others. References to, and appearances of, chocobos in other games by Square have even become the norm in the Mana and Kingdom Hearts series.

With each new console revolution and concurrent jump in graphical capabilities the chocobo receives a face-lift. Beginning with its inception in FFII in 1988 it has been featured on the NES platform, the SNES, the PlayStation, and on the PlayStation 2 with the most recent FFXII. It is astounding to note the development over the years from its humble beginnings as a simple 8 bit sprite character, to the sheer level of amazing detail that has been displayed in the latest generations of chocobos in FFX, FFX-2, FFXI, and FFXII. The chocobo has become so life-like that one almost seems to forget that it exists merely in the realm of the Final Fantasy games.

Over the course of the chocobo’s lifetime they have taken many shapes and forms. In FFIV, for example, there was the introduction of the fat chocobo. And in FFV we were introduced to the chocobo named Boco who has appeared many times since. We also began to notice differentiation within the species as chocobos began to have colors other than the original yellow such as red, light blue, dark blue, black, white, green and golden (sometimes signyfiying river, mountain, ocean, and flying chocobos). FFX, for example, also donned armor on the chocobos in their battle against Sin. Furthermore, in the recent installments of FFXI for the computer and FFXII for the PlayStation 2, chocobos have been given reins harnesses which have thus added to their overall appearance.

The current generation of consoles will have a dual release of FFXIII and FFXIII Versus on the PlayStation 3, as well as a new Crystal Chronicles for the Wii titled, “The Crystal Bearers.” One wonders what the future brings for our beloved, feathered friends; or if Square will decide to oust this staple to the series altogether. Hopefully that will not be the case, as it will be very interesting to continue to watch the progression of the chocobo’s evolution.