Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon

is a roguelike dungeon crawler video game developed and published by Square. A spin-off of the Final Fantasy series of role-playing video games, it was also the first entry in what would become the Chocobo series. It saw a Japan-only release on December 23, 1997, for PlayStation, and a version was released on March 4, 1999, for WonderSwan. The game was re-released in 2010 on PlayStation Network in Japan as a PSOne Classic.

The game's protagonist is a yellow chocobo, a fictional species of bird in the Final Fantasy universe, named . The player must fight through procedurally generated dungeons, picking up items and battling enemies.

Gameplay

Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon combines real-time combat with an Active Time Battle (ATB) system reminiscent of a Final Fantasy game. Attacks have reduced power and accuracy if made before the ATB gauge fills up. The game consists of three dungeons: a 30-level dungeon, a 60-level dungeon, and an infinite dungeon which recycles enemy types every 100 levels.

Development

The game was produced by Koichi Nakamura, the founder of Chunsoft. It also marks the solo composing debut of Masashi Hamauzu, who prepared both the soundtrack and an arrangement album named Coi Vanni Gialli.

The game appeared in a booth at Tokyo Game Show 1997, but did not appear in playable form, only having a complete video presentation of the game on the company's video wall along with Front Mission 2 and Front Mission Alternative. Upon its release, it was bundled with the "Mysterious Data Disc", a bonus containing a number of movies from unreleased games and a playable demo of Xenogears. while Stephen Frost of PSM also stated that the game felt "rushed and [not] very fun", appending an image of a dead chocobo with the caption "Ugh. What was Square thinking?"

In early 1998, it was still the 10th best-selling game in Japan according to Famitsu.

Legacy

Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon was the first in the Mystery Dungeon series to surpass one million units sold due to its connection to Final Fantasy and chocobo protagonist.