A chocobo (, chokobo?) is a fictional, large, and normally flightless galliforme/ratite bird capable of being ridden. This species is a staple of the Final Fantasy series. While most chocobos are yellow, certain rare breeds are of different colors and have special abilities, such as the ability to fly or cast magic.

A singular variant is the Fat Chocobo (or Chubby Chocobo), which resembles a morbidly obese yellow or white chocobo and can humorously stock the party's items in its stomach or appear randomly when summoning a chocobo in battle. Chocobos are also occasionally used as lightly armored war mounts. In such cases they can assist their riders with their beak and claws.

Overall, the species is a very versatile and useful bird, which comes in handy since horses are either untamed or non-existent in the Final Fantasy games. The onomatopoeia for a chocobo's call is "kweh" (, kue?) and is sometimes replaced with "wark" in English translations. Chocobos first appeared in Final Fantasy II and have been featured in almost all subsequent Final Fantasy games since, as well as making cameo appearances in numerous non-Final Fantasy games.

A spin-off series featuring chocobos has also been created. The chocobo was created by Koichi Ishii, a video game director who worked on various Final Fantasy titles.[citation needed] The influence for chocobos was from Kyorochan, a character in television advertisements for Morinaga & Company's chocolate candy, which is also a bird with the call of "kweh".[citation needed] Morinaga has also released a tie-in product: Chocobo no Chocoball (?, lit. "Chocobo's Chocoball").

The Chocobo design is said to be based on Hayao Miyazaki's Horseclaws, which appear in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.

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