Hey Duders,

Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes.

In this Deep Look I show off the deeply mediocre Chocobo Racing and share my love for this forgettable game. Learn about what makes this Mario Kart clone special and what makes it stand out among the rabble. Come see just how many Final Fantasy characters Square crammed into one "amazing" experience.

Just for the record this post is about the Mario Kart meets Square game Chocobo Racing, not the fun chocobo racing mini-game from FFVII or the less fun chocobo racing mini-game from FFX. Chocobo Racing was the game whose claim to fame was that it came with a demo for Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon 2. What am I doing with myself...

You had a PSX and chose Chocobo Racing over Crash Team Racing as your kart racing game?

Also Chocobo Racing is the best part of FF13-2, well that and putting cute hats on monsters. You can even put a cute hat on a Chocobo and then race it.

@corevi: I didn't choose shit. I got Chocobo Racing for Christmas with my PS1 and a racing wheel. A freaking racing wheel! Like that even helps in a kart racer!

How many hats are we talking about in FF13-2? Are there sombreros?

@thatpinguino: There are tons of hats but there is no sombrero. There is an anime-esque Lightning mask though that's hilarious.

@corevi: That is amazing! Are chocobos conquered monsters or do they just extend the hat system to chocobos?

They are pokemons, you can use them in battle and leveling up their stats like a pokemon makes them better at racing too.

Chocobo racing was a weird evolution in Square's phase it felt like to me. Can't say I'm surprised it was a mediocre game.

I feel like in a way Square was surprised by how successful FF Vii was, but even more so by how popular the characters were. I think at first they though that the story was why peopled gravitated to these games and that they had to protect those assets' reputation from tie in games etc.

Before Vii it didn't really feel like Square pounded the merch, character aspect, but after that they tried embrace it, but didn't know quite how to do so right away in the West. There were some definite stumbles.

I wonder if in retrospect of Chocobo racing would have done better if they had fully embraced their game characters like they would later in Theathhythm and Dissidia. Basically had a more Mario Kart esque lineup (with Cloud, Tifa, Aerith, Squall, Rinoa as leads and characters like Mog & Chocobo as 2nd tier racers)

I know I would have bought it at the time if I had thought mainline FF characters would be the drivers.

@slag: The weirder thing is that Squall, Cloud, Cid and even Bahamut are in the game, but they are all unlockable. Even worse, Cloud and Cid are hidden behind Squall on the menu so you could easily unlock them and not know it. It is kind of amazing that characters like Golem and Goblin were included but not Cait Sith or Tonberry. I think that Chocobo Racing was an attempt to further blow out the FF mascots into their own sub-brand and to an extent it worked.

@corevi: Well the kids do love the pokemons.

@thatpinguino:

Yeah and I never knew until your deep look. I don't think the GB wiki pages even mentions Cid either.

I suspect you are right about the mascot strategy but the exclusion of Tonberry and Cactuar ( I don't remember seeing it in there either?) is just bizarre.

In retrospect I think their strategy was a mistake. Waluigi, Koopa Troopa etc all got plenty of exposure from Mario Kart without being the headliners in marketing materials.

@slag: Cactuar and Mooba from FF8 are in the game as hidden characters as well as the S.S Invicible. It really is incredible that the game doesn't announce when you unlock new characters after Squall and Bahamut. You need to hover over Squall and then press a combination of L and R buttons to select the hidden character you want. Honestly Aya Brea's cop car is a pretty cool hidden character, but the rest of the hidden stuff should be available from the start.

Thanks for the Deep Look! I actually ended up getting Crash Team Racing over Chocobo Racing back in the day, and I'm still okay with that choice. I love me some fan service, but I think CTR is a better kart racer. I don't remember you touching on it in your vid, but how was the couch competitive modes? Are there battle arenas?

@thatpinguino:

Oh that's my bad. I missed you mentioning Cactuar, I definitely remember you mention Invincible and the Moomba.

yeah that kind of secret character rigmarole was a mentality that was held over from NES/SNES in game secrets. Don't really miss that kind of stuff personally.

Bought this game cause it said Chocobo and its my favorite mascot of the FF franchise. Fucking loved it cause i was a kid. I remember the game being really unbalanced. I always triple stacked the ultima that hits everyone and get a barrier every now and then. When i went back to the game for a second playthrough, my mind was blown on the really hidden characters and got to play as cactuar. I think i finished the game dozens of times and probably had a total playtime of more than 50 hours. If i play it again, im sure itll play terribly but i really had a great time with it.

@slag: The funny thing about the S.S. Invincible is that it is WILDLY FASTER than every other racer to the point that it is almost uncontrollable in Fantasia and it is about as fast as a normal racer's top speed when it gets hit with a mini-aga. That 8-bit ship just destroys everything. Unfortunately cactuar is dissapointingly slow.

@pabba: You probably made the right kart racing choice. The multiplayer modes in Chocobo Racing are 2 player grand prix mode (which is a series of 4 races that fills out with 4 extra AI racers), 2 player versus races, 2 player time trial, and 2 player relay races (which are 3 lap races where each lap is run by a different racer that you choose before the race). I liked couch competition, but I'm decent at Chocobo Racing so I never really had an issue with falling behind and then never recovering. Chocobo Racing is a lot less forgiving of big screwups that Mario Kart and games like that. Also playing against another human makes the interplay between abilities a lot more interesting than versus the AI. Against the AI the right thing to do is pop your abilities as soon as possible because they fill on a steady timer and any time when the bar is full is time when the bar is not filling. So saving your ability against the AI just prevents you from using your ability as many times as possible. Against another human there are good reasons to save a power until the opportune time, which makes for more compelling gameplay. There is no battle mode because there are no levels that allow for kart combat sort of situations, everything is a loop.

@forteexe21: I found that just regularly casting Ultima slows every other racer by enough that using Ultima 3 times is preferable to using Ultima-aga. I didn't time it, but it seems to be true. Keep that in mind for all of the high stakes Chocobo Racing that I'm sure you partake in. Also I find that Blizzaga is the best spell in the game because it causes all of the racers to spin out then blow up, which could leave them facing the wrong direction. Correcting your orientation takes so dang long in that game that recovering from a bad Blizzaga is practically impossible. Also Blizzaga can spin people off ledges as well.