Final Fantasy IX Mountain Cracks, Dive Spots & Healing beaches | locations & treasures
The many uses for a Chocobo in Final Fantasy IX culminate in an extended treasure hunt where you'll be smashing open mountain cracks and diving into foaming, bubble water in order to unearth long-lost treasures, including Ultimate Weapons for some of the cast.
In many ways these three quests follow on from your Chocograph hunts, and you'll require the various Chocobo upgrades that came from Chocographs to tackle them. The path is therefore Chocobo Hot and Cold, to Chocographs, to these -- but depending on how far you want to go, the rewards are significant.
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Final Fantasy IX Ocean Foam - all ocean bubbles and dive spots
Just like the mountain cracks, through the combination of a Dead Pepper and your trusty Chocobo pal Choco, you can dive into the bubbling spots of ocean foam to find treasures. These dive spots require the Ocean (dark blue) Chocobo to reach. That's unlocked by finding Chocograph 14.
Here's every one of those nice bubbling spots of sea where you can dive and grab those treasures, which even includes some characters' Ultimate Weapons!
Dive Spot 1: Ocean Bubbles Beneath Quan's Dwelling
The first dive spot is arguably the most complicated, in that you can most easily access it in a specific way. Go to Quan's Dwelling on the Mist Continent. Inside there, you can examine the edge of the area, as pictured below, to get a prompt to use a Dead Pepper.
This takes you out onto a unique ledge on the world map, where you can then jump doiwn to the ocean bubbles at the mountain's base below. Do so and you'll get the reward. Alternatively, you can manually skirt around the eastern side of the Mist Contintent to reach this manually, but it's far quicker and easier to locate it this way.
Rewards: 9x Ore, 15x Topaz, 1x Tiger Racket (Eiko Ultimate Weapon), 1x Red Rose Card
Dive Spot 2: Where Continents Meet
The second Dive Spot is almost pointed to by the shape of Gaia's Continents. Look at the two northern continents - the Lost Continent on the left and the Northern Continent on the right. See how both have curved penninsula islands that point towards the very top of the world map, right in the middle? Find these bubbles here. It's also hard-north, more or less, from the Iifa Tre.
Rewards: 50x Potion, 25x Hi-Potion, 9x Ether, 7x Elixir
Dive Spot 3: Bubbles between Mist & Outer
The third item on our Dive Spot hit list can be found between the north-western tip of the Mist Continent and its opposite borders of the Outer Continent, where once again a penninsula sort of points south from that continent in the rough direction of the bubbles. The bubbles are easy enough to find, and if you use a Dead Pepper to go diving into the Ocean Foam, you'll net rewards including the cute but entirely useless Alola T-Shirt, which is a reference to how much of FF9 was made in Hawaii.
Rewards: 8x Straw Hat, 8x Pearl Armlet, 7x Alola T-Shirt, 8x Sandals
Dive Spot 4: At the Tip of the Forgotten Continent
You can find this dive spot nestled at the southern tip of the Forgotten Continent's western side. Hidden away in one of the natural inlets of the contour of the land, you'll find that lovely ocean foam. Dive into the bubbles with a Dead Pepper to get some treasure.
Rewards: 10x Remedy, 1x Black Robe, 1x Genji Gloves, 1x Blue Narciss Card
Dive Spot 5: Hidden among the Shimmering Isle
This last Dive Spot isn't even marked by bubbles, so it's quite different. It's also only available at a certain point in the story - after the Shimmering Island has been used and is no longer available on the map. At that point, you must return to the exact spot where the isle was. This'll trigger some dialogue from Zidane... and then you can use a Dead Pepper, Dive, and find his ultimate weapon!
Rewards: 10x Aquamarine, 1x Ultima Weapon, 1x Maximilian, 1x Invincible Card
Final Fantasy IX Mountain Cracks - locations & treasures
There are four cracks in the mountains across the world of FF9 - and if you take a chocobo to those locations and feed them a Dead Pepper item, which can be obtained freely in the Chocobo Hot and Cold mini game, they'll go crazy, hacking away at the mountain until the crack shatters to reveal treasure. Here's where to find all four:
Mountain Crack 1: Lost Conintent
This first Mountain Crack is found on the eastern part of the Lost Continent. You can reach this whenever you have the Blue Narciss ship - or later on you can reach it via Airship or upgraded Chocobo. The crack is found nestled in the snowy mountains on the north-east of the continent.
Rewards: 41x Lapis Lazuli, 1x Rosetta Ring, 1x Protect Ring, 1x Airship Card
Mountain Crack 2: Forgotten Continent
The next Mountain Crack is found on the Forgotten Continent - this time towards the north-east, but close to the center of the continent overall. This is a small, generally enclosed area, and there's a forest near the crack. Feed Choco a Dead Pepper to smash the crack open.
Rewards: 19x Eye Drops, 1x Madain's Ring, 1x Genji Helmet, 1x Hilda Garde I Card
Mountain Crack 3: Forgotten Continent II - near Oeilvert
The third Mountain Crack is the last one that actually leads to loot directly - and it nets you Freya's Ultimate Weapon. This is south of the third crack. It's in the western part of the continent, and is just north-west of Oeilvert. It's nestled one tier up in a mountainous area that has two different above-ground levels.
Rewards: 1x Maiden Prayer, 1x Dragon's Hair, 1x Gauntlets, 1x Odin Card
Mountain Crack 4: The Moogle's Way
This final crack isn't actually related to the core treasure hunting that this guide is all about, but it is the fourth and final mountain crack you can bust open - in this instance, to give you access to a new area - Mognet Central. This location is key to the various Moogle side quests. You'll want to head to an island to the north of the Outer Continent that'll come up as the Cazedil Plains in your menus. The crack is one of the more obvious ones.
Fat Chocobo's Healing Beaches
In addition to all of the above, once you complete the Chocograph Side quest and all the dive spots and mountain cracks, you'll be able to return to Chocobo's Paradise for one last challenge.
If you haven't visited the Paradise before, it too is accessed through a mountain crack - which is obvious to see, though the island upon which it appears doesn't appear on the map. Luckily, it appears on our map, which you can see above. It's the single larger star in the top left of the world map. Fat Chocobo awaits within.
As a reward for finding all of the Chocographs, cracks & bubbles (including the one under the Shimmering Islands), the last part of the Chocobo's Side Quest is the most rewarding yet. It is slightly time-consuming, but the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.
Once you have all of the treasures, take Choco to the Air Garden and talk with the Fat Chocobo. Fat Chocobo will tell you to visit all of the beaches in the world. What you must do, therefore, is go around the world and press [Circle] while standing on every beach. There's a little confirmation tone that you'll hear each time you 'confirm' a beach with the button press.
Once you have visited all 21 beaches and confirmed them with a button [Circle], a message will pop up and you will be healed. From that point forward, every time you walk remotely close to a beach and press [Circle], you'll be completely healed. Enjoy!
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