They are actually physical manifestations of all the Chao that went through the "Good-bye" option... Maybe
I guess I'm conflating the two. You're right that Chaos was a guardian of the Chaos Emeralds and that he is a mutated Chao, but that's where the similarities end. I could still possibly see Sonic Team revisit this concept for this game but I wouldn't count on it.
This really strikes me as Sonic Team knowing that Chao are popular, but also knowing that showing them in the game would bring a shitload of expectations, so they just made a new being with a slightly similar design because....uh.... They don't really have any of the appealing mutable cuteness of Chao (I will die on the hill of Chao being extremely well designed, some of the best designed creatures in all of Sonic and even gaming in general), but I expect them to just be NPC's so eh, whatever I guess.
Sonic Team just wanted to make Koroks and gave them Chao-ish faces to avoid completely ripping them off. Anyone who thinks there’s going to be Chao in this game is setting themselves up for disappointment.
I honestly like the idea of having more little dudes to the series. I mean, they look very cute, so...
As long as they don't start showing up in every single game after they make a big deal and returning home to their own planet, I'm happy to see these adorable Korok clones.
Lol, nah. If Chao Gardens were in this, I think it would have been mentioned already because Chao Gardens in any meaningful capacity would be a pretty big deal. Mind you, the very way in which this game is being promoted has been nothing if not nonsensical and unfocused. But that like of dialogue feels like just a cute reference and absolutely nothing more. Anyone reading further into it only has themselves to blame. Games make self references all the time.
Tell you what, I promise to be as disappointed if Chao Gardens ARE in as you guys will be if they're not. It all evens out. If they DO come back, and they're mandatory (and I'd wager they will be because open world games love to have lots and lots of padding), that almost guarantees I'll never complete the game without cheating. I didn't have the patience to play an A-LIFE simulator game in 2001, let alone now. And who knows if Tyro's even still around! But hey, worst case scenario, at least I know I won't have to mess with Chao to unlock Green Hill Zone this time!
All those Chao we sent off to the forest over the years, we now know what happens. They went here, died, and their ghosts inhabited rocks
Sonic Team has no interest in sales, otherwise we would've had Chao and Sonic Mania 2 a long time ago Oh, and better care to new games. (Sonic Origins, Sonic Colors Ultimate, Sonic Forces, the list goes on). While I hope Chao are in this game, the odds are looking slim thus far. No evidence in the world of items to bring to Chao, and an appearance of something Chao-like that may negate the chance of actual Chao Gardens existing.
If this game were being written by Pontac and Graff, sure. But I keep going back to the fact that this is Flynn's dialogue, a guy who definitely knows exactly the reaction he'd provoke by putting a line like that in the game's opening minutes which he would surely knows are going to be shown off in previews. Say it proves nothing if you want, but it would definitely prove he's capable of completely fucking boneheaded decisions.
You don't think there's anything at all objectionable about directly name-dropping a thing you know people want in a game where you also know they're absolutely not going to get it? What if there were a cutscene where Sonic talks about how cool it is to gather speed naturally from the terrain and not by boost pads? You can say you'd laugh if you want, but I'm sure not going to believe you.
I mean... I wouldn't really be that surprised if there was some big part of the game we haven't even seen yet, like a Chao Garden or one of the other mini games that those hands-on impressions talked about. It took us this long to even see Cyberspace stages, and most footage of the game has only shown off very select parts of the first island. We haven't seen the fishing mini-game, or anything related to the story, we haven't even seen Eggman. For all we know, literally anything could be buried away within this game. But also, with the amount of stuff in the game, maybe it's a bit unlikely they found the time to fully flesh out and polish a new Chao Garden. I might even be nervous if a Chao Garden got confirmed, unless they showed substantial context, because I wonder how much dev time they would even have to make it good. And if it was half-assed... that's probably not better than nothing.
Also there's nothing to suggest Ian knows everything about Frontiers. He's a script writer, it could very easily be the case that a Chao Garden requires no unique dialogue, so no reason for him to be told about it.
Sonic's talking about an activity that he has taken part in before. It's a very natural bit of world building, not dissimilar to Espio talking about Seaside Hill in Forces or Knuckles mentioning his repeated encounters with ghosts in Heroes. Plus its a nice little nod to the series history. Should other characters never show up unless they're fully playable? Because people have been wanting that for a while but they still keep appearing in non playable states. Its just an example of the series having a canonical world and different games doing different things. Your counter argument here is about an ostensive gameplay mechanic and nothing else, so it wouldn't make sense as a piece of dialogue. Even side stepping the issue of what a strange example that is and making it more reasonable, I'd have no issues whatsoever with Sonic saying that he enjoys downhill because he can go faster or whatever. It would make sense because that's how running works and what Sonic's personality is, even if it's not exactly how it works in the game. Again your example just isn't really comparable when it seems to mock the player by acknowledging something regarded as unlikeable in this example and then basing the whole game around said thing. The point of Sonic's line about Chao Gardens is to make players say "oh hey I remember that thing and I like that thing. That was neat". So no, I don't think that there's anything even remotely objectionable about them including some mentions of Chao Gardens. It's a nice little reference and that's it.
