Chocobo-riding is a big event in every Final Fantasy that has them. Final Fantasy VII Remake kind of didn’t. However, with a wider world to travel, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has addressed this. Piko is your first, and this is how you find them.
If you head Southeast from Kalm, you’ll eventually run into Chocobo Bill, who runs a ranch. The ranch is incredibly easy to find. You just continue Southeast, and you’ll find it inland. However, you get the runaround when it comes to acquiring a Chocobo. After talking to the folks at the ranch, they’ll eventually digress that the only available Chocobo is Piko, and they’ve run off.
You’re told you should just follow the Chocobo tracks to find Piko, which you can totally do. However, you could also just wander around a bit since they’re located in a really conspicuous spot, and their yellow feathers light them up like beacons. Someone could ignite an emergency flare, and they’d be less noticeable. But if you want to be pointed in the right direction (and I’m assuming you do), it’s directly south of the ranch.
You’re then forced to do a stealth section to get up to Piko. I thought this was really easy, but some of my colleagues seem to have had difficulty with it. The idea of it is that you need to creep through the undergrowth to avoid detection by the Chocobos scattered around the area. Exactly like so many other games, such as Assassin’s Creed.
Here’s the thing: it’s not game over if a Chocobo spots you. They go into alert mode and start filling a bar of… alertness or whatever. You just need to get back into cover before it fills, and the Chocobo will get bored. When you get close to Piko, you can distract them with a rock by holding L to aim and square to throw it just behind them so they’ll turn around. Then you just hurry up behind them and hit triangle to claim your giant bird.
Well, not quite, but after you return to Billy, you’ll get the rundown on how to ride.
