Am I alone in thinking that Chao take way too long to evolve in Sonic Adventure 2? I mean you need to be in the garden for several HOURS real-life time, and time spent doing stuff like collecting animals, rings, or Chaos Drives in other levels doesn't count. I don't want to spend ages in the Chao garden just waiting for Chao to evolve, and there's only so much you can do in the game until then. What do you think? Also, on a partially-unrelated note, what's the point of getting the Chao key as a character who's already unlocked Chao World?
Chao isn't the type of thing I'd call it cheating to hack forward with unless you were having a competition with your buds and house rules stated otherwise. That said they are supposed to be a project. They are supposed to be fun to check back in on and see how they've progressed as a diversion from the main game. I think the devs did alright with time it takes them to grow. The main problem with Chao is they made way more sense in SA1 with the adventure fields than they do in SA2.
Just give me a chao editor so I can make one god tier chao to rip through everything then never have to touch the stupid sub-game again. Waste of space.
Going from child to adult is fine, but the adult lifetime is 4 times longer, so good luck getting a Chaos Chao. Anyways after the races I never touch them since I can't comprehend how petting long enough will make a Chao that you just abused for hours on end love you. That's just sad.
I don't mind how long it takes them to grow up, I'm just angry that I'm still waiting for them to have sex. COME ON, I WANT GRANDKIDS, DAMN IT! JUST FUCK ALREADY!
That's what Chao Viagra Heart Fruit are for. Not saying that they can always "Get it up," even with the help, but it does quicken things up. The main "fun" feature is breeding an SSAAAS Chao with an ASAASB Chao and getting a DCASSB Chao half of the time. I mean c'mon.
I liked the Chao when I first played the Adventure games on the Dreamcast, and later on the Gamecube, for me they formed a symbiotic relationship with the levels that gave me a reason to keep playing. These days, however, the core gameplay just doesn't hold up, so since the levels don't interest me the same way that they did 10 or so years ago, I have little interest in investing any amount of time into the games beyond a quick 15 minute nostalgia fest through some of Sonic's levels. I wouldn't say no to the unlikely event of a Chao revival though, so I'd that happens I'll happily answer this question.
Those Chao took way the hell too long, waste of my god damn time. I spent way too long collecting animals and Chaos drives and it wasn't even any fun.
The Chao were probably the best and most well-done feature in the entire 3D Sonic era. I put about 15-20 hours into my 2 Chao on SA2HD in October, fun as hell even after a decade. For all the abuse SA and SA2 get, they're still probably the best modern Sonic games to date for the Chao alone.
I'm not going to bring up arguments against that, I'm just going to let you think about what you've said... Chao have no place in Sonic games because they take away from the fact that you're supposed to go fast (or if not that they take away from platforming and any of the core aspects of a Sonic game). Instead you're raising a fucking Nintendog. Chao would make a great free-to-play spin off, and Sega should do that 100%, but they got rid of them after SA2 for good reason.
Sonic games aren't about having to 'go fast,' that's just one element of a rich tapestry. Having a standalone Chao game would be stupid as half the fun and drive comes from collecting rings and items during stages to give to your Chao. The Chao Garden was created to stretch-out and expand the games and they ended up becoming the biggest draw for most people. They cut them out to shake off the Dreamcast-era but all it ended up doing was hurting the franchise. No Sonic game since Sa2 has had that level of replayability.
They were only the biggest draw because the surrounding game was crap, and the fun of collecting shit starts to die when you've completed the game and then you're just farming for chaos drives and animals because the only 9 emblems left are all from Chao related things. Sonic games may not be all about going fast but I don't think raising pets is what Sonic is all about. To top it all off the thing that hurt the franchise most was the string of horrible games. Oh sure, at first maybe people were missing the chao gardens in like Sonic Heroes, but by the time Sonic 06 came around it wasn't that the chao were missing, it was that the game was a cesspool. It doesn't matter though, Chao raising in Sonic games is done anyways. If Sonic Generations did anything it was bring a coherent picture to what Sonic's foundation is after 20 years of having identity crises. Chao were not included in that picture.
I just used oodles and oodles of rings I already had to buy Chao fruit (which look like Chaos heads and make the little guys OP'd) and focused on raising one Chao. I found it rewarding enough. The problem is that it's mandatory if you want to get all the emblems. It should be completely optional and inconsequential, just there for people who are into that sort of thing. I'm not, but I still enjoyed tending to my Chao... Probably because the gameplay in general of SA2 suffered since they split one consistent gamplay style that blended speed, platforming and exploring into three incomplete gameplay styles that focused almost entirely on one element each. I wouldn't say the gameplay suffered because they neglected it to throw the Chao gardens in there and focus on that instead, though. I think Chao could be handled in different ways. For example, maybe Sonic could have a bigger inventory (with, say, fifty or 100 spaces instead of a measly ten) to pick things up along the level with in fewer trips, and maybe once a Chao reaches a certain age, they can even leave the garden and accompany you, and gain the power to enable certain powerups on the fly to assist you depending on how you raised them, such as a speed shoes Chao or a lightning shield Chao. Not saying I really endorse this idea. It's just fun to talk about such things.
I spent so much time raising chao when I was younger, it's not even funny. I bought multiple extra memory cards just for extra garden space. Pretty sure I ended up with one of every possible type of adult chao in the end. Their post-adolescent development did seem to take an awfully long time, though. I wish the "second evolution," or whatever you want to call it, would happen as quickly as the first.
While I thought it was mildly fun back in the day, I couldn't be bothered if I replayed SA2. Or even SA1. I wouldn't mind if it was absolutely optional though. Chances are we won't see Chao like we used to.
And that good reason is X-Box/360/PS2 didn't have anything that even remotely resembles a VMU along with a general decline in quality of games. Even now a cross-platform handheld chao game would be more than awkward, and way more complex than the GBA/VMU ones were. I agree that Chao are probably the coolest thing to come from Sonic Adventure. They just felt out of place in 2 to me because finding eggs in the adventure fields was part of the fun of raising them. They were a great diversion from the main game and were definitely a redeeming factor in SA for me. Problem is in SA2 they were more like a slow paced and sometimes boring special stage than a diversion you go out of the way to have fun with whenever you want. I'd definitely like to see Chao return, though.
I've always thought chao just expanded Sonic's world a little bit more and I always encourage that. I don't see the reason for complaint for making it mandatory for 180 emblems. If you want to 100% a game, you engage yourself in every part of the game... excluding multiplayer, DLC, events, and other activities that require other product purchases. Then I would be mad at things I can't get. Me, I only stuck to one neutral chao to kick ass at every contest. Had fun. Way too lazy to ever go back, but it'd be awesome if I could just port my chao over.
