The entirety of decisions that SEGA makes (or doesn't make) baffles me, honestly. I swear, sometimes it looks like they don't want to earn money. ...I'm still sour because no Persona5 on Switch.
The thing people don't seem to remember is that you're supposed to use the Dreamcast's VMU to stat grind via Chao Adventure and Chao Adventure 2 while you're doing other things. I took mine into work for a couple of days before the pandemic hit while I was doing an All Emblems run and my Chao pretty much flew over the course. Doesn't help most people's exposure are the later ports which use the Tiny Chao Garden or just remove companion app altogether without rebalancing the darn thing. Both of these. First thing I would do if I were to ever take the helm of SEGA: a Chao Garden mobile game where you play minigames with your little friends. Have updates where it can talk with the new games and interact with features therein, like alternative outfits for the Chao based on something in game. Team Sonic Racing? Don Dodon Pa moustache for the Chao and little cars based on the ones in-game. Sonic Forces? Imagine a Chao running around wearing Infinite's mask. Why yes, I'll be perfectly happy to have your support in my eventual take over of SEGA.
Yeah, the technological aspect was what really appealed to me. Being able to transfer Chao to a VMU and take it to school, battle them by connecting VMUs together, or upload them onto the internet... But in SA2, the internet functionality was gone, and Chao Adventure 2 wasn't nearly as fun or charming as the original. Then with the ports, even more functionality was lost, and the Tiny Chao Garden just seemed kinda lame after Chao Adventure. I think that's why SA1 was the only time I actually got into the idea. If they brought back the Chao now, I wouldn't care. But if they brought it back WITH A REMADE VMU with the exact same specs but rechargeable batteries, I'd care A LOT.
More ideas (with older games): Sonic Lost World: Chao running around wearing horns. Sonic and the Black Knight: Swords (fake ones at that). Sonic Riders: Sunglasses. Sonic Colors: Chao can have stat boosts by giving them Wisps. These are just a few.
You can supply Chao with Wisps in the Garden and they boost a stat, akin to Chaos Drives. You earn them in minigames, microtransactions (I know, I know, but I've got ideas to balance MTs out) and from the actual game, had this been a thing before it.
Bumping because I wasn't around when this conversation happened. I probably won't add much to what I've said about chao in older topics, but well, let's go. I liked the chao, but I didn't like a lot on how they were implemented. That break in the anniversary concert quite covered the best part of the chao experience to me; look at their cuteness and say "Aaaaawwww!", and see a wide variety of forms of these shapeshifters, but I never payed attention to them beyond the strictly necessary time to win the emblems because that alone was already long as hell, and, in games where a lot of playable characters with different controls were present, you were a mere spectator of their races. Grinding for them wasn't interesting to me either, I had the level challenges for replayability (but I unlocked GHZ in my DC, nothing worse than the kart races of that game). I think chao could be the new mario kart of the franchise, with the garden caretaker (Sonic or whoever you can choose) playing minigames or something like that instead of whole actual levels to give it a story mode and provide resources for training and evolving, doing something like a racing sim as if the garden was the garage and the racing team. Not necessarily a whole open world game like frontiers, but places you can explore for gathering fruits and animals and properly raise your chao would indeed be appropiate, and you could add skill training so the chao can learn new "Pokémon moves". But chao have to be playable and usable in online multiplayer, and of course time may be that long for evolution if this their own game existed, but with the game fleshed enough so you don't get bored and old in the meantime, because I don't think I've ever seen a chao enter a cocoon for a second time, just the first one to become a specialized chao instead of a generic baby one (Chaos chao is a myth for me). I've just noticed I could have posted that last paragraph in the dream game topic if chao were my dream, maybe someone will quote me there. XD
Wisps/Chao powers are actually a neat idea. Wisps could give Chao specific moves in Karate or Racing. Speaking of which an actual mini fighting game with Chao, and racing where you fully control the creatures would be really fun.
I don't know if I need something that specific, but what I'd really like to see if they ever revisit the Chao idea (and they should - it's a huge selling point for a number of people and probably wouldn't cost that much to implement) would be a companion phone app that takes much more after Chao Adventure than Tiny Chao Garden (which was booooring). Could be an AR thing or just a self-contained game, either way. This would probably be beyond the scope of such a project but I'd love it even more if it were a fully realized throwback-style RPG with a proper storyline for your Chao to go on.
