Real talk: giant, flightless birds aren’t my jam. I don’t really have any problems with them per se, but I’m not one to expend extra effort to seek out their company. I harbor the same feelings for most fowl – they exist, I exist, we can exist together on the same planet but not necessarily within each other backyards. This general feeling of ambivalence, however, does not extend to the wild and wonderful chocobo of Final Fantasy fame. If these large creature were real, I’d more than likely try to make good friends with at least one of them. (After all, they do supposedly make for fine companions.)

So, what happens when you give the mighty chocobo its own theme song? Well, in Final Fantasy XIV, it goes something like this:

I may not have the most Final Fantasy experience under my belt, but that’s certainly the chocobo music, and it’s fantastic!

Final Fantasy, the series, as plenty going for it, but one of my most favorite things about it is the music. It’s always just…right. It’s right for the scene, right for the characters, right for the atmosphere, right for whatever moment is being witnessed on screen. Even when it seems like it might be wrong, it’s still right. And the chocobo theme, well…it just may be the most right of all.

Final Fantasy XIV’s is nothing if not orchestral. Even in quiet moments, it’s still grand, evocative, and sweeping. Plenty of the game’s music verges on peppy, but none so much as this take on the chocobo theme. To a degree, it’s almost silly (though not as silly as some of the music that accompanies the game’s more comedic moments)…almost. It doesn’t lean too far into the fact that one is riding a rotund, and if I’m being honest, rather ungainly bird. It keeps the mood lively, and there’s a bounce or springiness to the instrumentation. And it’s hard to argue that the time isn’t imbued with happiness. It certainly make me smile each time I take a ride.

What’s that they say about “it gets better with each loop”? Well, that’s true of “Eorzea de Chocobo,” without a doubt. I’ve yet to take a single ride across Eorzea’s fragmented lands, but going from one end of a region to the other and back again on my chocobo steed always makes for a fine and fun interlude between all the fighting, fetching, and free-roaming. The chocobo them in other Final Fantasy games works well within their individual ecospheres, and “Eorzea de Chocobo” is right at home among the other sights and sounds of Final Fantasy XIV.

Lede image captured by author during PS5 gameplay of Final Fantasy XIV [free trial] (© Square Enix).