Summary
- Pick the Bovine Meat for the best condor photo and warding Materia in FF7 Rebirth’s side quest. Colin will be pleased with your choice.
- Choosing Monster Flesh also completes the quest, but results in a poorer photo.
- Picking Peculiar Greens gives the worst photo of the condor. Colin is unsure about this choice, but the quest still concludes successfully.
During a Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth side quest, players can choose what to feed a missing condor. The quest, entitled “Dreaming of Blue Skies,” is unlocked during Chapter Four, as players explore the Junon region of FF7 Rebirth. Given by seasoned birdwatcher Colin, the quest begins as a sort of escort mission, as Cloud and the party track down a cow for the condor’s dinner. After defeating a couple of enemy mobs and a Mystic Dragon miniboss, they’ll be faced with a choice of what to use as bait: Bovine Flesh (the cow), Monster Flesh (the dragon), or Peculiar Greens.
While all three options will result in successful side quest completion, results do vary depending on what the player picks. To ensure the best outcome, it’s important to serve the right dish. Here’s what all three condor food options in “Dreaming of Blue Skies” change in the end.
FF7 Rebirth: What Happens If Players Choose Monster Flesh
Picking The Dragon In “Dreaming Of Blue Skies”
If players choose the Monster Flesh, they’ll haul the Mystic Dragon back to Colin’s cliffside vantage point. Colin will be slightly disappointed: he specifically asked the party to bring him a cow, and the dragon’s Mako-tainted flesh might not be the healthiest thing for the condor. However, he sets out the bait anyway, and the condor does appear. Colin’s companions manage to snap a photo, and it comes out okay, capturing a small part of the condor’s wing and tail.
The Mystic Dragon is weak to wind, so playing as Aerith or another character with wind Materia can make this fight go much more smoothly.
Picking the Monster Flesh will still complete the quest, and players will receive a “nice condor photograph” and a piece of warding Materia. Warding Materia can be linked to any kind of status effect-inducing Materia, like poison, time, binding, or subversion, to grant the wearer resistance to that kind of debuff. Players will also receive a slight affinity increase with Tifa, which can help in achieving her Gold Saucer date scene in FF7 Rebirth.
The Monster Flesh is the middle of the road option in FF7 Rebirth – it provides a decent reward, but not the best one possible. Colin is a little uncertain about the choice of meat, but is still overjoyed at the opportunity to see the great condor up close.
FF7 Rebirth: What Happens If Players Choose Bovine Meat
Picking The Cow In “Dreaming Of Blue Skies”
If players instead choose the Bovine Meat, Colin will compliment them on the quality of the meat, and express hope for the condor’s impending appearance. Sure enough, it’ll swoop in before long, grab the meat, and hang around for a moment before flying off. The dialogue in the ensuing scene is the same either way: Cloud and Tifa will talk about how much nicer the blue sky of Junon is than the steel sky of Midgar, but will also agree that Aerith was right about its ominous quality at the end of FF7 Remake.
After completing “Dreaming of Blue Skies” with the Bovine Meat, players will receive a piece of warding Materia, a slight affinity increase with Tifa, and a well-composed condor photograph. This one features a solid snapshot of the condor’s face and near-entire wingspan, looming ominously behind a smiling Cloud, Tifa, and Colin. The Bovine Meat is the ideal option in FF7 Rebirth, as it provides the best possible photograph, and follows Colin the condor expert’s instructions to the letter.
A hidden FF7 Rebirth feature allows players to check their affinity with Tifa (or any other party member) by holding L1 in the open world.
FF7 Rebirth: What Happens If Players Choose Peculiar Greens
Picking The Vegan Option In “Dreaming Of Blue Skies”
There’s a secret third option for condor food in “Dreaming of Blue Skies” – the Peculiar Greens. If they bring them back, Colin will comment that this sort of thing isn’t really in the condor’s diet. But it’s okay – the condor shows up anyway, and the same sequence of events ensues.
Players receive a similar set of rewards for the Peculiar Greens: a piece of warding Materia, and a slight affinity increase with Tifa. However, the Peculiar Greens also provide the worst possible variant: the blurry condor photograph. Only a few feathers can be seen in this photo, and they’re out of focus. Like many supposed photos of cryptids, if the player hadn’t seen the condor with their own eyes, it wouldn’t be totally clear what the photo was supposed to represent.
Does It Matter What Players Pick In “Dreaming Of Blue Skies”?
Bovine Meat, Monster Flesh, Or Peculiar Greens?
Even though there’s a clear best option – the Bovine Meat – the choice in “Dreaming of Blue Skies” doesn’t really matter. The material (or Materia) rewards are more or less identical, and Tifa’s affinity increases by the same amount regardless. Truthfully, the only real difference is Colin’s initial dialogue when they bring the condor food back, and the quality of the photograph they receive at the end of the quest.
The photograph is functionally useless. It just sits in the player’s inventory, and can be viewed at any time. It doesn’t impact any of the photo-related side quests in FF7 Rebirth – it’s just a nice little memento from this one Junon side quest. Getting a lesser result from this side quest won’t have any effect on Johnny’s Treasure Trove in FF7 Rebirth, either. Although this in-game completion list requires all side quests to be finished, players don’t have to get a perfect result in any of them to claim Johnny’s Cache.
Still, for story reasons, it’s best to pick the Bovine Meat. It hurts to let Colin down, and, in concert with the main themes of FF7, it’s nice to walk away knowing Cloud’s done something positive for the environment.
It may not be the most consequential story decision in FF7 Rebirth, but the choice of condor food in “Dreaming of Blue Skies” does have an impact. Players are free to choose whatever they wish between the Bovine Meat, Monster Flesh, and Peculiar Greens, but in the end, the Bovine Meat provides the best story outcome and a nice piece of condor memorabilia. The final choice is up to the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth player, but there’s no good reason to choose anything else.
- Released
-
February 29, 2024
- ESRB
-
Teen / Violence, Blood, Mild Suggestive Themes, Language, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco
- Developer(s)
-
Square Enix
- Publisher(s)
-
Square Enix
- Engine
-
Unreal Engine 4
