It would be nice to see them integrated better into the main gameplay. Maybe have the Chao you raise go with you when it learns to fly and go through the level by your side? Still, I found it to be fun when I was younger, but it's true, it's pretty out of place and boring in SA2. Maybe if polished up a bit it could still be saved from being entirely boring.
If they took chao raising further, maybe add in a bit more interactivity than minigame, pet, feed, wash, rinse, repeat, I'd probably enjoy raising them a lot more. I want a reason to raise them, and I'm not talking about emblems. I suppose that isn't the question of the thread though, is it? I think they should have added some kind of rare fruit to speed up certain life stages, but it's fine otherwise.
Just split the horrid things off into their own subseries of games. They'll generate more money than being a pointless feature in a game that has no need for a virtual pet sim.
If you really like virtual pets you buy Nintendogs, not Sonic games. =P SEGA should release their own "Segachao" or something.
This. A thousand times, this. The Chao Garden concept is and always has been my single, most-hated gameplay element in both Adventure titles. I hated it so much, that I'd gladly take Big's fishing stages over that any day of the week. It's one of the biggest wastes of time ever, and has absolutely no place whatsoever in the Sonic series, period. In response to the topic title, yes, they do take too long; too long for my tastes, at least. Honestly, if it weren't for the fact that they came up with the oh-so-brilliant idea to make the Chao Garden crap a requirement for getting all the emblems, I probably wouldn't hate it as much, and would just be indifferent about it.
To keep the naggers quiet they can make it optional for all I care (not like getting all Emblems was ever that important to me, anyway), but I would like to see Chao Gardens returning at long last, again. That said, it felt perfectly finely paced to me, the Chao evolution stuff, that is; not that I cared much for THAT, either. I'd often just stand there and watch the little guys play or pet 'em or some such. : D
While I would love the Chao to come back, I would not like it for them to be required for 100% completion. I'm pretty sure the only reason I haven't gotten all of the emblems in SADX is because of those fishing levels and the Chao ones. I want to spend time doing random crap with the Chao, I don't want to be forced to make a God-Chao just to get all of the emblems. Honestly, the reason why a Chao subgame wouldn't work because of the fact that in Sonic Adventure 1 & 2, you're getting stuff from the stages, giving the rings you collect a meaning (I mean, apart from possibly buying food from vendors in cities, as seen in Sonic Unleashed, what else can Sonic do with them?). If we had a Chao subgame, then people would have to play something like the minigames from the Tiny Chao Garden. It's like doing an infinite grind, you get few rings for each time you play one, if you do well. At least in the Adventures, you could do it quicker, and you had more fun than playing Rock-Paper-Scissors-with-Cards.
I am torn here. Part of me is saying that it is a lovable little virtual pet that was all the rage when the games were created. The other part of me is saying what has already been said like split them off into their own game. I would like to see them return either as their own nintendogs style game, 'Segachao', (I like that name, ICEknight). Or have them as an entirely optional chao raising side game, where they grow and integrate themselves into the main game similar to how chaos were handled in Sonic Chronicles, but rather than giving you more defence, maybe providing either additional abilities (like abilities in Generations) or even as a kind of wisp-esque power-up.
I don't care about virtual pets in general. I just have something of a soft spot for the Chao. I don't NEEEED them to be there, and it's perfectly fine if they aren't, but I don't understand this totally unwarranted, undeserved HATRED some people seem to have for them.
Some of us aren't fans of pointless shoe-horned extra gimmicks designed to be obvious time sinks to extend playing time on a game. Even less so when they become an integral part of 100% completion. SADX and SA2 are heavily guilty of this. Example: the A-LIFE system in NiGHTS. Both of them. It's there for those that want to mess around with it and reap whatever benefits they may bring (more substantial in the Saturn version), but you don't need to do anything with them to just massacre the game. Splitting Chao off into their own thing will work, especially if given a social RPG structure. Chao Adventure and Chao Adventure 2 are already excellent foundations to base off a game on using today's popular trend of cheap and simple-to-comprehend games taking root on mobile devices and social media platforms. Add in additional optional cash incentives ala Sega has done with Spiral Knights and just let that baby fly. Chao fans get their games, and those of us that want to continue enjoying competent Sonic titles get to keep our happiness.
I hate the Chao Garden concept, because it wasn't fun to play, plain and simple. Like I said in my other post, it would be another thing entirely if players weren't practically forced to do it. "Unwarranted" and "undeserved", my ass. It deserves every bit of hate that it gets, and I hope it never comes back.
When you guys say that it's a mandatory part of the game, you make it sound like you have to do it to beat the game. No, it's there for 100% completion only. And if you guys want to complain about doing something that is a part of the game to get 100%, I think I made my point. I'm much more opposed to having to A-Rank every single mission to get 100% than having a Chao Garden. Solely because of that A-Rank requirement, I'm never going to 100% the game.
The rank system is much more conducive to the game's core design of having an arcade style scoring system. That there encourages you to play the game to improve your score (which in and of itself is another time sink, but one less jarring to the game.) In that instance, it makes sense for it to be there, especially now with leaderboards becoming a norm. Naturally, that doesn't excuse having some painfully bullshit missions to deal with to get an A Rank, but that's a whole different discussion.
The thing is, you can smash all the SA Chao Races in less than 3 hours and the SA2 ones in not much longer. You're making it sound like you have to plug 100 hours into the things. In a game featuring utterly offensive anti-entertainment such as Metal Harbour, Death Chamber, Eternal Engine anf the terrible Kart system, at least the Chao are well-designed, fun and give you a reason to keep playing. If you don't like it, fine, you won't get 100%. No biggie.
Yes, it does take a chao TOO long to grow, but only if you're aiming for a Chaos Chao. With Game cheat's like the Cheat Engine, Game Shark, Fusion's Chao Editor, I can make it alot simpler to raise them. Basically, I cheated to get what I want. However, There's some features in SA2 that I prefer over SA despite the drop of quality in gameplay; especially in the chao garden. Toys, lessions, and new chao types made more entertaining than them going around acting like the animals that they absorbed. I even liked the the New Chao races as well. What I don't like is how they over complicated the stat system when they ported them over to the Gamecube. The grade system, although made each chao unique, really made it unfair that you have to breed and grow those pets to get the rank you want. Back on the Dreamcast, you can raise them to have 99 in all stats and they'll be OP as FUCK; but on the Gamecube and later ports, it won't worth crap when it got an E rank on one of its stats. So in general, yes, it does give replay-ability to the game and it doesn't take too long to raise it; If it wasn't for the FUCKING RANK SYSTEM that the Gamecube port introduced.
