The Chao

[Concorde]

I personally Liked the whole Chao Breeding in the 2 Sonic Adventure games and the advance games. The Only part I wasnt keen on the fact that it shoouldnt have been necessary to raise them to win Races and karate tournaments to earn Emblems required for 100% completion of the games, the chao part of the games shouldve just been seperate and just something to do with your spare time on the games.

I think the chao breeding should return.

I wanna know something from those who have good knowledge bout this and its about creating a chaos chao, I read FAQ's that says a chao needs to be on its 3rd life having died and reincarnated twice then given 1 of each animals. I wanna know during its first and 2nd life is it ok to give it animals/chaos drives without ruining the process? or does it have to stay clean from any animal or drive throught its 2 lives?

[Ebby]

I personally Liked the whole Chao Breeding in the 2 Sonic Adventure games and the advance games. The Only part I wasnt keen on the fact that it shoouldnt have been necessary to raise them to win Races and karate tournaments to earn Emblems required for 100% completion of the games, the chao part of the games shouldve just been seperate and just something to do with your spare time on the games.

I think the chao breeding should return.

I agree. Chao breeding was extremely fun in Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. When they added the store and the stats system it made my life a whole lot easier. But I didn't mind doing races and such for emblems. It's not every hard to raise a chao to win races and beat opponents, just takes time. In fact, I think placing those emblems there makes the experience more rewarding.

Chao raising in Sonic Adventure DX was lame... just lame...

[Diogenes]

You can give it anything you want the first two lives. It's only what you do the third (or whatever future life you decide to make it a chaos chao) that matters.

Anyway, this series is having enough trouble trying to get its main gameplay right without diverting resources towards an unrelated virtual pet side game. They need to focus on the actual game before they start tacking on extras.

[Arrow]

Whilst I agree with Diogenes point, I quite liked chao in SA2. It's fun to be able to customise them so much.

[Concorde]

I agree that segas priority is to get the gameplay correct for the newer sonic games, even tho I didnt mind the recent sonic games, they werent perfect at all compared to Sonic adventure 1 and 2. Hopefully if they get the gameplays right on new sonic games they could bring back chao breeding again and maybe using things like Wi-fi for wii sonic games or Xbox live and Playstation online you could trade or even battle or race against other players online.

[lounge]

They had a seperate mini team working solely on chao in SA2, which is why it was so good.

They did a similar thing with NiGHTS Journey of Dreams. Except it wasn't a seperate team.

[Phos]

The chao were originally based off of the Nightopians from NiGHTS into Dreams... In fact, they're both described as A-Lifes in the credits. I'm guessing it stands for "Artificial Life". I can't help but wonder if the Chao's gradual transformation is based off of the ability to change your Dragon's focus in Pazer Dragoon Saga. You had four stats that you could alter the balance of, and it would change your dragon's appearence smoothly along with it.

Edited August 22, 2009 by Phos

[Rally the Cheetah]

Ahh nice to others didn't think chao where a waste of time. Though as fun they were, and still are as far as I'm concerned, I agree they should stay extras and shouldn't be needed in order to complete the game. Still that might make people complain that they are even there at all when they have no direct connection to the story. I think what should be done then is something like Bioware did in SCDB and make them like items. Then people might actually want to have them around as they improve their stats. Also chao breeders could maybe trade them online to other players and try to create the ultimate chao. Or for player who don't want to go through the trouble of raising them they can maybe buy them for some rings or something (as they would any item). It would be a tricky thing to implicate but it could be done.

[Chan Kaylore]

I adored the hell out of the Chao in SA2, and was totally chuffed when they made an appearance in Unleashed (even if they were just optional level fodder).

It'd be nice to see them make an appearance again, as part of an actual Sonic game, but Diogenes makes a good point about the series; brush up their main goods first before working on those little guys (though at least the brief cameos mean that Sega haven't forgotten them).

[Badnik Zero]

I never really liked the Chao when they came around in SA. Maybe because my initial impressions of SA were bad ones, but I've never been one for mini-game additions, and it just seemed like a way of cramming the very popular Tamagotchi trend into the Sonic franchise. The gardens were to me what the party mode in SatSR was, just an added feature that I didn't bother with much. Actually, I prefer the party mode because you don't need it for full completion of the game. They're kind of cute, but like Phos said, I just saw Nightopians in them the first time I saw them. Anyways, they're second to main gameplay. I'd be all for featuring more Chao in games through someone like Cream though, even if I don't like Cream much. It could be made into something fun, I guess. Also, Rally's idea is great - if a virtual pet belongs anywhere it's in an RPG, and Chronicles already uses Chao. Revive it there, maybe.

[Crystal Kingfisher]

I love the Chao. I have lots of fun trying to breed them in SA2. But unfortunately, one day my Chao data got erased from my GC memory card, so then last November I started breeding new ones, and I named them after classic Sega characters (one of them is named Vyse).

[Chaos Walker]

Chao added replay value. Even if there was no real reason to go back to X level, it could have one of the rare animals in it, causing you to go back.

[Miko]

While I'd rather them optional, I don't think they should remove that option altogether. Chao are perhaps the BEST form of replay value they've ever come up with.

..BTW I think chao are cuter than nightopians.

[-Mark-]

I didn't care too much for Chao in SA1, maybe because the system was rather crude and simple back then, but what they refined it to in SA2 (and further in SA2B), I loved. It did then annoy me how, compared to SA2B, SADX was a huge step backwards in terms of Chao content.

I'll admit I've all but lost interest in Chao now, but they were a fun little distraction.

[Indigo Rush]

I loved the Chao, but I didn't like how they were mandatory to unlock certain bonuses in the main game. In addition, the developers need to focus more on perfecting the main game rather than divide it amongst an extra feature. Either that, or they get a special team to develop the Chao system alongside it.

Unlockables in the Chao Garden should be within the Chao Garden, meaning that meeting certain criteria within the A-Life system will give you Chao-specific rewards, not game specific ones. This way, players don't have to raise a Chao to get to the main content. Likewise, it wouldn't be fair to put Chao-specific unlockables within the main game. If someone doesn't like the Chao Garden, why would they collect emblems and whatnot to earn toys for their Chao which they'll never use? The only exception I can think of is finding the Chao Key, lost animals or Chaos Drives in the main levels.

In short, it's a great extra, but it's unnecessary.

Edited August 24, 2009 by Capt. Cool

[iStep]

The chao was pretty good at the time when I played sonic as a kid. If I ever got bored playing the action stages I would just train my chao.

[Phos]

Hmmm, under the assumption that it wouldn't be so much of a burden to make, I have a few ideas...

Most "virtual pet" games tend to base raising the pet primarily on interacting with the pet, rather than the sort of "milk run" style of building that you see in SA 1/2. How I imaging doing with Chao would be taking them places in order to teach them various things or maybe just to do it. One thing I've seen mentioned numerous times about some of the classic Sonic games, especially Sonic 3, is that people are still discovering new places in them. I think that the Chao could be used to lead the player to these locations. This also gave me the rather hilarious image of a Chao riding on top of Sonic's head giving him directions to find some place in particular. I think the workflow would work like this: You find travel magazines or something and take them to the Chao. The Chao reads them and this adds places you can go to train them to some kind of list. You can then have them lead you there. If a player doesn't want to bother, they could try and find the place on their own, but it's easier if you have a Chao directing you.

The idea is for the Chao to have some sort of direct benefit to the central game, rather than leeching off of it.

[Vertekins]

I adore Chao raising. It's so complex. I have a ton of Chao that have very unusual colouration via breeeding including one I believe I pioneered; The shiny gold Chao with points. It's a shiny golden (Not yellow or orange or brown anything like that) Chao with darker gold points but also shows the Chao's base colouration beneath. I have a neutral swim Chao of this type and it shows it's green markings beneath the overall gold colouration. The breeding was purely accident/unintentional, I didn't know I was going to get a Chao like it. I forget what it's parents colouration was.

Curiously though, whenever I go into Chao race/Chao karate with this Chao on either memory card, the game crashes. It sometimes happens in the 'Move' option in the Chao transporter. It never happened until I bred that Chao and it leads me to believe that there's something wrong with the graphics engine that is used for Chao selection in races/karate/Chao Transporter 'Move' option if indeed SA2B uses a distinct way of rendering graphics in those areas and it doesn't like rendering my shiny gold Chao.

[Concorde]

are Your memory cards Official cause sonic games mess up on unofficial Memory Cards for the Gamecube. If your playing Sonic games its best to save them on official Nintendo Gamecube Cards.

[eXtaticus]

The Chao need and deserve to be mercilessly sawn to a bloody, fleshy jelly-mess by a Gears Of War-esque chainsaw gun, and then for every disgustingly mutilated piece to be thrown into a raging inferno. That would please me.

Why? Because I am tired of every psuedo-Sonic fan this side of the planet telling me in their idiocy that they "LiK3Z teh CHOW on 50N1C adVenTur3 b3ttr th@n teh actual g@m3 BCUZ teh C@mRAh SUX", even after they freely admit to only playing the disgraceful SADX; seriously, you can't make damning claims regarding the Action Stages on Sonic Adventure having only played that horrible rehash.

I also tire of the misconception that the Chao are in some way cute; they are sickening, mutated and disgusting abominations of the Sonic universe, and the only fun that can be had in a Chao garden is slashing those motherfuckers half to hell with a well-placed (and undeniabely satisfying) Spin Dash. And then throwing them off the nearest cliff. Hurrah!

The Chao races are another point of complaint; relying on blind & dumb luck rather than raw skill, these so-called "competitions" are nothing more than boring and tiresome space-fillers that refuse to become exciting, even after you pump hours into trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. Train Chao. Mindlessly press buttons. Ruin controller. Switch off at the mains.

All in all, Chao are the nasty result of Sega scraping the barrel to try and fill the extra capacity of the GD-ROM discs, and should be either left well alone, or ripped to vile polygonal shreds with a Homing Attack (Sonic Adventure 2 users are obliged to use a bounce attack for maximum carnage) - either way is better than trying to nurture the bastards, especially seeing as they occupy NO LESS THAN A QUARTER of a Dreamcast memory card!