Frog catching Frog catching is a minigame in " Final Fantasy IX " . The player must have Quina Quen in the party to play . Frog catching can be played at any Qu ' s Marsh . Catching frogs powers up Quina ' s Blue Magic spell Frog Drop , and can yield many rewards . When the player catches 100 frogs , Quale will appear to praise Quina , saying that s / he has nothing else to teach and that Quina is now on her / his own . Quale challenges the party for a boss battle as a final test and the reward for winning the battle is Quina ' s ultimate weapon , the Gastro Fork . After defeating Quale , the player can still catch frogs to power up Frog Drop even further , but will no longer receive any rewards from Quale . Gameplay . How to play . Quina can run around the marsh and pressing near a frog captures it , showing its type . The player can then either keep the frog or release it . Quina cannot enter water and must catch the frogs when they are on dry or approach the dry . The frogs will always jump away from Quina towards the water , if s / he gets too close . The player can keep attention to their jumping patterns and run to them while they ' re jumping outside the water . Frog types . Leaving a male and female frog at each marsh ensures that the population will regenerate quickly , and leaving a golden frog will further boost the rate the frogs will spawn . There can be only one golden frog in - game at time , counting all four marshes . Frogs display sexual dimorphism in a number of ways . Female frogs have a black stripe running the length of their bodies , which males lack . Females also have red feet while males have yellow . In addition , females are a slightly lighter shade of green ( although this can be hard to distinguish ) . Baby frogs are genderless , but will count as 1 frog when caught . Tadpoles cannot be caught . Mating is chance - based and can only occur between a male and female pairs of frogs ; there is no polygamy . The golden frog is not sexually ambiguous . Frog growth mechanics . Frog growth is time - based . Each marsh handles the passage of time differently , and has its own rate of growth and regeneration , and there are limits to how little or how much time is necessary to affect the pond ' s inhabitants . The game decides what will happen in the pond the moment the player enters a marsh , and frequent visits can be detrimental . Frogs will disappear from the pond if single - gender groups are left behind on a marsh . Only time spent outside the marshes matters . The ponds have a preset mix of frogs before the player ' s first visit that is almost guaranteed to change when the player arrives due to the passage of time , since all ponds begin with 00 : 00 : 00 as their " time of last exit " . Frog maturity is determined by a level system . Each adult frog , baby frog and tadpole gain a level for every Marsh Time period that has passed since the last visit . Current level dictates the current stage of maturity . The level cap is 15 , but a frog can begin mating when it has reached level 10 . If a marsh is cleared empty , a LV1 female and LV1 male will spawn on the next visit . Whether a pair of frogs will reproduce is chance - based . Each pond has eight flog slots and at level up , an adult male and female will mate as many times as there are available slots until either a tadpole is born to fill a slot , or mating fails at every slot . If there are many levels to gain at one time , the mating process will occur before each level up is given . There is a 50 % chance a tadpole will be born per available slot . Only couples of frogs will mate ; there is no polygamy . The random number generator allows the player to play the odds via resets . Saving the game outside a marsh , one can reset and try again to spawn more frogs . If single - gender groups of adults , babies , or tadpoles are left behind on a pond they will simply disappear . There is a bug wherein any frog occupying the eighth slot will not count when the game determines the number of males and females left , meaning one is at risk of returning to an empty pond after leaving a male and female behind . It is impossible to determine which frog is in which slot , so the player cannot anticipate the glitch . The golden frog . The golden frog accelerates frog growth by lowering the maturity level requirements . There are three variations on the effect the golden frog can have : Babies are born at LV1 and become adults at LV2 , tadpoles become babies at LV2 and adults at LV4 , or tadpoles become babies at LV3 and adults at LV6 . The golden frog also changes the successful mating chance to anywhere from 50 % to 100 % per available slot . The bonuses apply to the golden frog ' s home pond . The particular bonuses are determined by chance . If the player catches the Golden Frog , the next one may give a different bonus . Only one golden frog can exist at any time . The odds of a newborn tadpole being the Golden Frog are 50 % if one does not already exist . A newborn golden frog has the same maturity level requirements as a normal frog , and its presence will not have an effect until it is an adult . When the Golden Frog reaches adulthood , any frogs already present are " updated " to reflect the new maturity level requirements . The golden frog participates in the mating process , and thus is at risk of disappearing or falling victim to the eighth - slot bug . If a Golden Frog is eliminated via one of these ways , the next tadpole born to its slot will be the new golden frog and give the same bonuses . There is a way to determine the golden frog ' s gender . The player should first catch all but one male , one female , and the golden frog , exit the marsh , and save on the world map . Upon return the player should catch the male or the female , and exit and re - enter without saving . If the player caught the female and the pond is empty upon return , the golden frog is male . If the player caught the male and the pond is empty upon return , the golden frog is female . Now , the player can reset the game and catch the right frog . This protects against frogs of same gender disappearing , but not against the eighth slot bug . A golden frog born on the first visit to the Mist Continent marsh will not take the appearance of a golden frog until after the party meets Quale , but its effect is immediate . Whichever frog Zidane catches for Quina upon their first meeting will not be removed from the pond data . Musical themes . " Quina ' s Theme " plays whenever the player plays frog catching .