UH OH!

what is frog drop?

Frog Drop is a blue magic skill from Final Fantasy IX. It can be learned exclusively by Quina, who is also the only character able to play the frog catching minigame. Frog Drop costs 10 MP to cast, and summons a giant frog, which is then dropped on the spell's target. The frog always deals damage equal to Quina's level * the number of frogs they have caught, regardless of the enemy's stats. This makes it one of the easiest and most MP-efficient ways to reliably deal maximum damage...if you don't mind catching A LOT of frogs.

how many frogs?

Depends! If you plan on leveling Quina to 99, you only need to catch 101 frogs to max out Frog Drop's damage. This is only a couple more than the 99 frogs needed to "complete" the frog catching quest and get Quina's ultimate weapon. If you don't plan on leveling all the way to 99 (because why would you even want to do that), you'll need to keep catching frogs until you have enough to hit the damage cap.

On my first playthrough of FFIX, I actually completely missed getting the Frog Drop skill until late in the game. Since I hadn't even known Frog Drop was a thing, I had not been particularly dedicated to the frog catching minigame. However, I was so enamoured with the concept of Frog Drop that I proceeded to catch every frog in the world, multiple times over, until I finally had 99 of them. Since I didn't have a super high level, this was still only enough for mediocre Frog Drop damage, but even I had to draw the line somewhere. The frog grind was brutal.

On my second playthrough, armed with the knowledge of Frog Drop beforehand, I did much better, and managed to hit the damage cap with a final count of 164 frogs! It was still kind of annoying to complete, though...

frog catching tips

There are a surprising number of mechanics that go into frog catching, and the game doesn't really explain any of them. If you want all the specifics it's best to look up a guide or wiki, but here's a quick rundown:

• There are four Qu Marshes in the world where frogs can be caught. Each of them has their own frog population, as well as their own rate of frog growth and regeneration.
• There are four types of frogs: Male, Female, Baby, and Golden. Baby frogs eventually grow into either male or female adult frogs. Tadpoles can also spawn, but cannot be caught until they grow into baby frogs.
• Visiting a marsh too frequently will slow down the frogs' growth rate.
• If a marsh is left with only frogs of the same gender, frogs will disappear. If a marsh is completely emptied of frogs, one male and one female will eventually be spawned to refill it.
• The frogs of Final Fantasy IX are monogamous(?!), so leaving one male and multiple females (or vice versa) will not increase the reproduction rate. Only pairs of frogs can mate and reproduce.
• Given all of the above, it is best to always leave one male and one female frog in a marsh after frog catching, in order to repopulate the marsh faster.
• Only one golden frog can exist in the world at a time, and it increases the frog spawn rate of its home marsh. Therefore, it is usually best not to catch the golden frog, unless you want to move it to a different marsh.
• The golden frog is also either male or female, but determining its gender is basically impossible without save-scumming.

Good luck and happy frog dropping!