Part 43: Episode XXXVII: Eat My Chicken

Enemy Attack



Well, the Al Bhed might have shitty ideas about painting schemes but I have to admit they do a fine job of designing sturdy architecture if that dopey looking thing can dance about on the building’s roof with no issues.





Anyhow, meet the Chocobo Eater. A creature of Spira which evolved giant chocobo sized arms for grasping its meal of choice.



Except a slight bit of wiggling on the chocobo’s part easily allows it to escape from the fiend’s grasp and sprint away to safety. The Chocobo Eater’s stubby baby legs prevent it from giving chase. Leading one to wonder how the hell it manages to ever catch any chocobos in the first place for said chocobo eating.



Regardless, like any ordinary feral creature of unusual size one finds roaming around the wastes of RPG Land, the beast immediately gives up on the whole feeding thing in lieu of attacking the group of heavily armed adventurers in the area. Ever notice there are almost never zoos in JRPGs? Well there you go! You try keeping animals contained in a universe where anyone with so much as a pointy stick or clenched fists walking by will spark an unstoppable berserker blood rage in the beasties.

The Chocobo Eater is nothing remarkable. It’s pretty much just a speed bump to make sure the player is up to date with the whole Sphere Grid thing. The thing has a rather healthy 10,000 HP to grind down on top of an innate Armored status. But, Chocobo Eater also has some dire weaknesses and a gimmick to contend with as well.





First of all, Chocobo Eater’s primary method of attack comes in the form of just punching fools with its ridiculous Popeye ape arms. This can be countered with the fact it can be afflicted with Darkness. So having Wakka blind the thing right off the bat will give a bit of breathing room. But that only cuts off one of the boss’s three physical attacks.





Its second and far more punishing variety of attack is a two-step technique. First it will politely spend a turn pointing out a member of the party whose shit it plans to ruin. The next turn it will actually ruin their shit with Fist of Fury. Fist of Fury does around 800-900 HP of damage and will one-shot or severely injure several members of our party. But, the whole “You’re Next” thing only counts for whoever is occupying that space the next turn for the boss. So what we can do is swap out Kimahri, let him tank a haymaker from a fist bigger than he is, then swap him out for someone that can actually do some decent damage.

Who said Kimahri wasn’t good for anything?



Auron can be called in to trim down the damage from Fists of Fury by using Power Break (physical attack that halves physical damage output.)





The Chocobo Eater’s third physical attack ties in with the gimmick of this boss. Namely, it can ram the entire party back towards a cliff. And if they are not careful, they can be rammed right off the cliff. This doesn’t result in a Game Over. Instead, you just lose the fight, the chocobos all get eaten because you suck, and you need to take a big boring detour. So we won’t be doing that.





You see, if the Chocobo Eater takes a sufficient amount of damage, its ill-conceived body will topple over onto its back leaving it vulnerable for two turns. At this time, all physical attacks do extra damage (the thing’s ass doesn’t have armor so Piercing doesn’t matter) and magic attacks still rock it proper like.


It is not entirely helpless in this state. When its HP dips below 50% or so it will start casting Blizzard on its first turn before getting back up on its second. So the key is not to let it get back up in the first place.



The Chocobo Eater has quite a weakness against Fire attacks, so Lulu is once more the party’s heavy hitter on magic offensive.



In addition, Lulu picked up Focus a while back. Focus is basically the magic version of Cheer. It grants the entire active party a buff to Magic offense and defense and stacks up to five times. Buffing that all the way can have Lulu easily toppling over the monster in a round or two and doing a good 800-900 HP of damage per turn.





If the party does a decent amount of damage (read: Lulu on Fire, Auron on stabbing duty, and whoever else chipping in with additional physicals) while Chocobo Eater is on its back, the monster will slide back a space on the battlefield. There is another cliff on the opposite side of the field. The gimmicky way to defeat the boss is to basically beat it in a shoving game against opposite cliffs.



This is the layout of the battlefield. The party is on the southern side and Chocobo Eater on the north. The party starts in the second “space” from the bottom. Each time the Chocobo Eater uses its shove attack, everyone is knocked a space south and each time the boss is toppled over and wailed on a few rounds, it slides a space north. Sliding Chocobo Eater three spaces north of the start (before it loses all 10,000 HP of course) results in…











…a literal Wile E. Coyote style death of the boss. Had it not grossly oversized sausage fists, I’m sure it would have held up a sign of protest before plummeting to the rocks below.



It’s still pretty easy to just ignore the gimmick and beat the shit out of the monster until it is dead. A team of Auron, Tidus, an Lulu can absolutely dominate the Chocobo Eater after spending the first few rounds casting Cheer/Focus buffs (with a side of Haste on everyone from Tidus) and just going to town on it with Fire and physical attacks.

In a pinch (read: if Lulu didn’t know Focus) tagging in Yuna with McGruff is a fairly good tactic if just to have the aeon use Fire spells. Aeons stats are tied to Yuna and Yuna has higher base Magic Attack than Lulu. That said, Chocobo Eater hates Aeons and will spam Fists of Fury if one is summoned so no coasting on that.


Victory Fanfare



Beating the Chocobo Eater the good old fashion way will likely net an Overdrive kill and an extra 45 AP with it versus the gimmick kill’s 90. Chocobo Eater only has an 800 HP Overdrive threshold and Lulu can easily score that buffed up on Focus and moxie.



There is actually a different drop for the two methods of killing the filler boss. The cliffhanger method nets us a pair of Level 1. Keyspheres for progressing on the Sphere Grid as well as another default sword for Auron…



Standard issue monster slaying nets a new weapon for Lulu with a 5% Magic increase. So there’s that.


Mi’ihen Highway



In any case, the mascot character devouring beast is slain and the day is saved.



"Have you any interest in renting some chocobos? As a token of our gratitude, the first time is free of charge. Please ask the attendant, if you wish to rent."



”…”



”…”
“…”
“…Okay.”


New Music: Brass de Chocobo





“YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”



“WWWWWOOOOOOOOOHHHHH!!!!”



“BEST. DAY. EVVVVVVEEEEEERRRR!!!!”






Episode 37 Highlight Reel





Chocobo Eater Official Art