Chocobo Racing

In Chocobo Racing, the player controls Final Fantasy characters, most of whom race in go-karts. Other characters fly, drive scooters, ride magic carpets, or run. Players have five different racing modes to choose from: Story Mode, Versus Mode, Grand Prix, Relay Race, and Time Attack. In the Story Mode, players are guided through the story of Chocobo Racing, which is narrated by Cid, in the form of a pop-up book.

Completing the Story Mode unlocks secret character racers and allows players to create a custom racer of their own. In the Versus Mode, two players can race each other on a horizontally split screen. In Grand Prix (GP) Mode, the player races computer-controlled opponents in four selected tracks of their choice. In Relay Race Mode, the player chooses three racers to compete in a relay race.

Chocobo Racing borrows themes and elements from Final Fantasy I to VIII. The Story Mode is narrated by Cid and includes nine chapters in a pop-up book fashion with FMVs. To progress, the player needs to defeat the chapter's respective challenger. Before each chapter begins, the player is given the option of viewing the story or skipping to the race except when playing the Story Mode for the first time.

The cast of Chocobo Racing is drawn from recurring creatures and characters from the Chocobo's Dungeon and Final Fantasy series. Eight characters -- Chocobo, Mog, Golem, Goblin, Black Magician, White Mage, Chubby Chocobo, and Behemoth—are immediately available, and additional, secret characters such as Cactuar, Bahamut, Cloud, Aya, and Squall may be unlocked after completing Story Mode.

The first demonstration of Chocobo Racing was at the Fall Tokyo Game Show '98; it was then unclear if there would be a North American release. IGN staff noted its striking similarities to Mario Kart. In the release of Chocobo's Dungeon 2, a bonus CD included a video clip of the game. Originally slated to be released in late September/October, the release date was moved to August 1999 because "it was done early, and is now ready to go". Square worked with toy company Choro Qi to produce toy cars for the release of the game.

Chocobo Racing Original Soundtrack is a soundtrack album produced by Square. It was released in Japan on March 25, 1999 by DigiCube, and sold roughly 35,000 units. Almost all of the tracks are arrangements of music Nobuo Uematsu composed for Final Fantasy games, arranged by Kenji Ito. The only exception is the song played during the final song, "Treasure Chest In The Heart", which is a vocal track orchestrated by Shirō Hamaguchi and performed by Hiromi Ohta in Japanese and Vicki Bell in English.

The game received mixed reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings.

Douglass C. Perry of IGN said the game was an attempt by Square to "cash in" on the popular kart racer genre created by Nintendo's successful Mario Kart. Other reviewers agreed, calling it "a tired rehash" due to its colorful but unpolished graphics, crude track designs, and poor controls. Daniel Erickson of NextGen called it "kart-racing fare" that is standard but lacks the deathmatch-type courses that made Mario Kart popular. In Japan, however, Famitsu gave it a score of 30 out of 40.