Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon is a Rogue Like RPG in the kwehzily popular Final Fantasy series released in Japan on December 13, 2007, in the US on July 8, 2008, and in Europe on November 7, 2008. A port to the Nintendo DS was also released in Japan. In September 2018, Square Enix announced an Updated Re-release called Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon Every Buddy!, which was released on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch March 20, 2019. As part of the Mystery Dungeon franchise, it retains gameplay similar to the other games in the Chocobo's Dungeon series.
The story follows a treasure hunting duo, a young man named Cid and his chocobo partner, Chocobo. While searching through desert ruins, they come across a magical artifact that brings them and their rivals, Irma and Volg, to a different world - a town named Lostime. In Lostime, they soon learn that whenever the Bell of Oblivion in the center of town rings, every non-animal that hears it will lose their memories. A young white mage named Shirma guides them out of town to the farm she lives in with her aunt on the outskirts, and explains that they both believe people are meant to keep their memories while the rest of the town lives in happy bliss.
Soon after Chocobo's arrival, however, a mysterious egg falls from the sky. A seemingly human baby hatches from this egg, and this baby, Raffaello, has the power of entering the memories of the townspeople to restore them. From there, it is Chocobo's job to follow Raffaello into their memories to unravel the mysteries hidden deep within the town.
Every Buddy is a remaster of the original with some quality of life improvements, most notably the Buddy system, which allows Chocobo to enter each dungeon with an AI-controlled Buddy, or a second player.
This game provides examples of:
- All the Worlds Are a Stage: The Wii game has this in the Bonus Dungeon. Justified as the theme is memories and the Bonus Dungeon is about Chocobo's memories — including the dungeons he explored during the game.
- Anti-Frustration Features: Every Buddy adds some touch-ups to the initial Wii game.
- Polishing Cream, a new item found in dungeons, allows you to hone talons and saddles without directly going to the Forge.
- The Knight job can be gotten in Mayor Gale's memory dungeon at the very beginning, compared to when it was in Freja's memories.
- The Buddy Registry shows which elements your monster partners (and by extension their enemy counterparts) are resistant or vulnerable to.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: The Phoenix summon fully understands the importance and virtue of your quest, but she ain't gonna risk her neck by fighting alongside a weakling. Cue boss battle.
- Badass Bookworm: The Scholar class. His low-end powers (among them are the ability to fill out the map for a dungeon floor, heal Chocobo a little and restore some Food, or identify every item in his pack) are indispensable for safe exploration in the random dungeons, and his high-end powers (one that doubles the power of potions, and one that doubles the power of spellbooks) can wreck bosses.
- Badass Normal: Compared to the other jobs, the Natural Chocobo can be considered this. Whilst other jobs depend on power from various lost memories, the Natural Chocobo can be used throughout the entire game, and does exactly what you expect a large, yellow bird to do- it runs fast, digs, and kicks things to death, which, again, includes the Destroyer. And it works if you've been leveling said job properly.
- Batman Gambit: The Destroyer needs Chocobo to try to save Memoria in order to free himself from Raffaello's body.
- Big Eater: The bankers are both rather hefty, but the one for item storage is even more so. In order to increase his storage capacity, Chocobo can bring him different fish.
- Boring Yet Practical: The default, "Freelancer" job isn't as fancy as the others, but the ability it grants- to attack everything around you- is useful in a game where getting surrounded is usually a death sentence.
- Break the Cutie:
- Pretty much anyone in Lostime that can be considered a 'cutie' qualifies, considering what the town witnessed: the Destroyer obliterating Lostime overnight.
- Shirma gets this big time. Croma is revealed to be her sister, then apparently gets killed by the Destroyer, just like what happened to their parents. However, Croma is kept safe by Raffaello inside the Destroyer.
- Brutal Bonus Level: The Interdimensional Rift in Every Buddy, which is level capped at 70 and forces you to start with an empty bag. It's only six-floors long, but that has the side effect of limiting potential items you could find. What's at the boss floor? Enigmatic Entity, Omega. Unlike the Omega waiting in the 50-floor Mystery Dungeon, this one is the one from Final Fantasy XIV. And your reward for clearing this dungeon? The 'Alpha' job. Just like the boss, it's a reference to Final Fantasy XIV; this case being a reference to the namesake chocobo.
- But Now I Must Go: Raffaello in the epilogue. Specifically to atone for his sins as the Destroyer.
- Character Level: Not only does Chocobo himself have an experience level for his base stats, but each of his job classes (including Natural, the "job-less" one) has to be leveled up separately, gaining a different set of abilities for each. A few special dungeons limit his base level, but don't affect the jobs.
- Checkpoint: Every 10 levels of a main dungeon.
- Church of Saint Genericus: Dedicated to "the gods". Presumably the gods like mirrors and stained glass windows, because there isn't anything else notable in there.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Played with. It is stated that the Destroyer was created when Pastor Roche was afraid that, as the oracle of darkness, darkness would consume him. So, he and Cid's grandfather separated the evil from the darkness. Unfortunately, he realized too late that darkness was not inherently evil, and his actions had in fact created a new dark being that was inherently evil and set the plot of the game in motion. Oops.
- Early Game Hell: The first few plot-required dungeons are the most challenging because you won't have had the chance to level up jobs or craft equipment. Once you make it past the first guardian's dungeon, the difficulty curve evens out.
- Elemental Tiers: In Fables, the elemental talons and saddles (weapons and armor, respectively) feature a gradual progression of values for base strength and upgrade limit. The sequence is Fire < Water < Thunder < Ice < Earth.
- The elements are expanded upon in Every Buddy, adding enemy resistances and weaknesses. This also applies to Talons and Saddles. The effectiveness order is Fire > Ice > Wind > Earth > Thunder > Water > Fire. Light and Dark are effective against each other akin to Granblue Fantasy.
- Embedded Precursor: Pop-up duels in Final Fantasy Fables, which previously appeared in Chocobo Tales on the Nintendo DS.
- Emissary from the Divine: The Oracles, despite their titles, do not do much oracle-ing. In practice their job is more like this trope; keeping the elemental spirits happy and telling them when a visitor is coming.
- Emotion Eater: The Destroyer's M.O. Specifically, he feeds off fear and suffering to gain power, which is why he attacked Lostime.
- Fishing Minigame: The fish you catch can be used to feed the Fat Chocobos at the bank to allow more storage space.
- Flashback Nightmare: Raffaello reveals he has these while sleeping in the cocoon. They're memories of his past life as the Destroyer.
- For Doom the Bell Tolls: The tolling of the Bell of Oblivion signifies that one person within earshot will lose very important memories. Its true purpose is to keep the townspeople from remembering the Destroyer so that the seal on him won't be undone. The "Raffaello" persona exists to break the seal and Chocobo unknowingly helps him accomplish this.
- Godzilla Threshold: In-universe for Lostime's residents. Croma mentions that it's useless to fight a beast that feeds on human fear as he keeps coming back, so the mayor decided to round up the oracles, call their guardians, and seal all their memories away, keeping the Destroyer powerless. Given what happened during the course of the game, it's safe to say that failed spectacularly. The Guardians themselves openly tell the people before sealing the town that all they're doing is giving themselves a momentary respite, a superficial peace, by running away from the problem, and that it inevitably will come back to haunt them.
- Good Wings, Evil Wings: Happens in the turning point of the game. Raffaello changes from white angel wings to black "fallen" angel wings.
- Have a Nice Death: When not giving you suggestions on how to avoid dying next time, has some of the most encouraging Game Over messages this side of Undertale, mainly reassuring Chocobo to keep going.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Croma takes the bullet for Shirma, something that the Destroyer counted on happening as he absorbed her essence. She gets better at the end thanks to Raffaello.
- Improbable Infant Survival: You follow an infant Raffaello into a monster-infested dungeon, and he's always fine when you reach the last level. This is justified because Raffaello may well be a demigod.
- Intellectual Animal: All chocobos are intelligent, even though they can't speak. There are a pair of chocobos in Lostime who run a bank, and no character finds it odd that the protagonist Chocobo is wandering around alone and buying stuff.
- It's Up to You: For some reason, all of the various warriors, Oracles, and clerics around instinctively rely on you, an animal, to get things done. (They will help, but you have to explicitly ask them to go into dungeons with you.) It's vaguely handwaved by non-humans being immune to the sound of the bell.
- Jack of All Stats: Chocobos are the all-rounders of the monster world, which is likely why so many humans domesticated them. They can't inflict any fancy status effects or elemental attacks...but they're tough, kick hard, can carry lots of loot, and can assume any Job class imaginable.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Well, bell-guided.
- Memory Gambit: The entire town of Lostime is subject to this and it turns out it was done to seal away the Destroyer, who feeds on negative emotions.
- Metal Slime: The Mini Cactuar drops a tremendous amount of Job Points, provided you kill it before it successfully casts Escape.
- Mind Rape: The bell only represses memories, but...some of those memories are pretty fucking important to their holders' psyches, resulting in this trope. Shirma forgot she had a sister. The priest forgot he overcame his clinical depression. Charlotte forgot she was married.
- No-Gear Level: All of the special dungeons prevent you from bringing in items including gear from outside; upon entering, your inventory is put into your storage (if there isn't enough room in storage, you can't enter). Upon leaving the dungeon you get to keep everything you found inside and can go to storage to retrieve your former gear as well.
- The above remains true in Every Buddy, except for the part about bringing items out. Only XP and Job Points carry over.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: Certain dungeons reduce you to 1 HP, forcing you to play more carefully than usual.
- Peninsula of Power Leveling: If you do Camilla's, Atla's, and the Scarecrow's respective dungeons, you get access to the dungeon "Insatiable Hunger". Even going a few floors in gives you access to post-game level equipment, making the rest of the game much easier. This can be done around the midway point of the game, though the recommended levels for the dungeons required to unlock it are likely higher than what you are at that point, not to mention the fact that Insatiable Hunger itself, as a post-game level dungeon, will KO you very easily if you are not careful.
- Reverse Cerebus Syndrome: The early game is quite bleak: every single NPC is broken in the head, the town is both creepy and unfamiliar, Chocobo's only companion has lost so much memories he's bedridden from the mental dissonance, and you can't go fishing. Mere hours of gameplay later, all those characters will be healed, they will happily sell and forge things to help you out, and Chocobo will have plenty of cute recreational things to do in between fighting for everybody's souls.
- Scenery Porn: The main story's dungeons go well beyond the generic vomit-colored ruins you started fighting in.
- The Fire Dungeon rests atop lava and inexplicably well-maintained floor tiles.
- The Water Dungeon, reached by going inside a massive dragon statue's jaws, is constructed out of hard underwater corals, around which various plant-covered ledges float.
- The Light Dungeon's first levels are built almost entirely of glass and cogs, with the gigantic workings of Lostime's clock tower around them. Its lowest floors are solid rainbow, surrounded by a moving projection of the countryside.
- Shout-Out: Cid is not quite in search of lost time, but Lostime is close.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Shirma, the Oracle of Light, is the first to help you. Her sister- Croma, the Oracle of Dark- is the last to switch sides.
- Slasher Smile: Raffaello begins sporting these all the time once his true nature is revealed.
- Trial-and-Error Gameplay: One of the side dungeons, Volg's Memories, is a series of boss fights with breaks to switch jobs and restore your HP/SP. However, you don't know what the bosses are the first time around, and you can't bring along any inventory items, so you just guess which job to use and retry when you get it wrong. The character dialog between the first few floors seems to lampshade the scenario.Everyone makes mistakes.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: If loot drops are any indication, most monsters can only carry one item at a time. A chocobo such as yourself can carry fifteen, giving you far more options in battle than 'rely on your natural abilities'.
- White Magic: Shirma specializes in it.
- Year Outside, Hour Inside: It's revealed that fifty years have passed since the Destroyer originally attacked Lostime and the town disappeared from the world. All the residents haven't aged a bit and are completely unaware of the outside. To drive the point home, the Destroyer mentions that he knew Cid's grandfather and didn't expect his grandson to take the bait fifty years later.
