Chocobo de Battle (lost build of cancelled "Final Fantasy" spin-off fighting game; 1997)

Magazine ad for the game.

Status: Lost

Chocobo de Battle would have been a Final Fantasy fighting game spin-off where the playable characters were Chocobos. It was first announced in 1997 in an issue of the Japanese magazine Famitsu and had a tech demo featured at Siggraph 1997. It was planned for release in arcades (with a possible PlayStation port) and had it been released, it would have been Square's first arcade game, but it was cancelled for unknown reasons.

Gameplay

From what little footage is available of the game, players would control a Chocobo that had the ability to fire missiles. To control the Chocobo, rather than using conventional arcade controls, the player would hover their hand over a blue motion-sensing pad with which they'd have to perform various hand gestures to attack, move, and perform combos.

Existence

While the game was cancelled, the tech demo at Siggraph proves that there was, at some point at least, some kind of prototype for the game. The prototype hasn't surfaced online or been shown off anywhere since, but either Square or someone who worked on the game may have a copy of it.

Gallery

Footage of the game from Siggraph '97.

Yuriofwind's video on Chocobo de Battle.