Chao raising was the best aspect of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. In fact, if it weren’t for Chao, the game wouldn’t have been ported to Steam, Playstation Store and Xbox Live. The process was quite complicated for the time the game was released. After years of playing, I’ve been able to assemble all the information needed to properly raise Chao, information I’m going to share with all of you in this guide.

NOTE: I play the PAL version, partially translated into Spanish, so please ignore any in-game text it may appear on the screenshots, it's irrelevant to the guide.

1. Basics
2. The Chao Life Cycle
3. Getting to the Chao World
4. The First Eggs                                                                                                              
5. The Kindergarten                                                                                                                                    
6. The First Nap                                                                                                                                          
7. Road to Maturity                                                                                                              
     7.1. Animals                                                                                                                                          
     7.2. Chao Drives                                                                                                                                    
8. First Evolution                                                                                                                                              
9. Adulthood                                                                                                                                          
     9.1. New Gardens                                                                                                                                
     9.2. Chao Stadium                                                                                                                                
     9.3. Relationships                                                                                                                            
10. Mating Season                                                                                                                                
     10.1. Breeds                                                                                                                                          
     10.2. Genetics                                                                                                                                      
          10.2.1. Color                                                                                                                                          
          10.2.2. Tone                                                                                                                                          
          10.2.3. Shininess                                                                                                                                  
          10.2.4. Jewel Coat                                                                                                                                
          10.2.5. Stat Grades                                                                                                          
11. Gradual Evolution                                                                                                                                  
12. Death                                                                                                                                                
     12.1. Dreaming About Immortality?

Basics

As always, let’s start with the basics. In a similar manner to real living beings, all Chao share some traits and some others are unique to each Chao.

What all Chao share are their skills (Swim, Run, Fly, Power and Stamina) and, of course, their life cycle. But that’s pretty much all. Each Chao has its own biological clock, I mean, each one has a different lifespan and a different sleep time. Also, each Chao has its own unique grades, that is, how good it is at a certain skill, aside from its own facial characteristics. I would also list personality, but I’ve noticed that it makes little difference.

One more thing to note is the emotion ball, as I like to call it. This ball, which floats just above the Chao’s head, represents how the Chao feels at a certain time. Normally, it keeps its shape, but it can take more shapes: a heart, if the Chao is happy; an exclamation mark, if the Chao is surprised or excited; a question mark, if the Chao is thinking about what to do next; and lastly a swirl, if the Chao is upset, angry or tired.

To end the basics, just say that you should treat your Chao well. This means feeding them regularly, picking them up from time to time and not jumping on/hitting them. It’s essential to have this in mind.

The Chao Life Cycle

Chao always start as eggs, which eventually hatch. Sometime during their first year of life, they undergo a metamorphosis called First Evolution in which the Chao stops being a child and turns into an adult. From then on, it will sporadically enter its mating season, up until its death. A Chao year lasts for roughly 4 garden hours, and Chao usually live for around 5 years.

NOTE: Time only passes while both the character and the Chao are in the garden. This means that you must spend 4 hours inside the garden so your Chao becomes 1 year older. Playing the story mode or simply being outside the garden doesn’t make the Chao age.

Getting to the Chao World

For a character to be usable when in the Chao World, it must first obtain a special key. This key is inside the first Chao Box you open in each of the character’s stages. There are 3, so finding just one shouldn’t be difficult. Once the key is collected, finish the stage and you will immediately be transported to the Chao World. From that point on, you will be able to enter the Chao World with that character at any given time.

NOTE: I highly recommend not using Eggman. He is too tall, more than double than any other character, which makes him very clumsy to use around the garden. Any other character is just fine.

The First Eggs

After you collect your very first key, you will be transported to the Chao World. There, you will find before you the entrance to the garden.

Inside, two eggs await to be hatched. There are 2 recommended ways to hatch the eggs. One is shaking the egg, which can be done by holding B button when picking it up and moving the control stick. The other one is to simply wait for it to hatch on its own. I always use the last method, which is the slowest, and I’ve clocked between 2:30 and 6 minutes for the egg to hatch. Worth the wait, believe me.

Once the eggs hatch, your first Chao are now roaming the garden, or I should better say crawling like the babies they are. When they are born, Chao are given their unique facial features, with a distinctive set of eyes and mouth. The eyes can be normal, happy or evil, while the mouth can be a timid smile, an evil grin or nonexistent, just to say some of the examples I’ve seen.

The Kindergarten

If you exit the garden, you will see that a new doorway is available.

This is the Kindergarten, with a lot of goodies for you and your Chao. Worth of mention are the fortune-telling house, the health center, the classroom and the black market.

The fortune teller does nothing related to its name. The only thing it does is naming your Chao. It will bring up random names, most of which are crappy, and then it will ask you if you want to name it yourself, which is the correct choice.

The doctor is very useful, because it allows you to see your Chao’s medical chart. Here, you can see the grades your Chao has, as well as its personality, between many other things. The grades, as I mentioned earlier, mean how good your Chao is at a certain skill. Grades range from E to S. Getting higher than B in a newborn Chao, unless it’s a result from a mating, is a rarity. Personality really has nothing much to do. The only thing you will notice for sure is when your Chao is a big eater. Everything else does nothing, or at least I’ve been unable to see any change in the Chao’s behavior.

Since there’s the option to do a medical check up on your Chao, I understand that Chao can get sick for one reason or another. I still haven’t faced something like this, which leads me to think it’s a rarity.

The classroom can teach some funny things to Chao. It teaches a variety of instruments and dances, aside from exercise, drawing and song. These last two require 4 classes to master, while the others require just 1. I find it unfair, because Chao can sing a variety of tunes, while they can’t play any instrument at all, just random notes. Anyway, each lesson lasts for 10 minutes or so, and the subject changes every 20 minutes or so.

Here we can see a Chao playing the tambourine and another one playing the bell.

Here, Chao draws a kind of pizza. As they attend more drawing classes, they become able to even draw the game's characters.



The black market’s usefulness changes from player to player. You can perfectly play without buying a single thing. However, the expansion it brings forth is worth the try. The market sells eggs, fruits, seeds and hats.

-Fruits: There are 8 kinds of fruits: Round, Square, Triangle, Hero, Dark, Chao, Heart and Mushroom. The first three are completely normal fruits, just that your Chao may have a liking for one of them, as displayed in the medical chart. Hero and Dark fruits are dispensable, as they affect the alignment of Chao (explained below). Chao fruit increases all of the Chao’s skills instead of just the Stamina. The Mushroom, although not exactly a fruit, is a little more nutritious than the rest of fruits. Finally, the last bite of the Heart fruit makes the Chao immediately willing to mate (see Mating Season). All in all, the garden will provide the necessary fruit, as long as you have 2-3 Chao at most.

-Seeds: There are 7 kinds of seeds: Round, Square, Triangle, Hero, Dark, Strong and Tasty. The first five grow trees which provide fruits mentioned above. Strong seeds grow trees which are said to live longer, also its fruits are said to prolong a Chao’s lifespan by a little amount. Tasty seeds grow normal trees, but their fruits are less nutritious than the garden ones, so forget about this one. All trees grown from these seeds eventually die, and unless you have 3 or more Chao in a garden, they are completely useless.

-Hats: There are a wide variety of items that can hide your Chao’s face, from a pan to a well knitted beanie hat, or even your Chao’s own eggshell. See the Animals subsection for how you can make your Chao wear a hat. Keep in mind that it’s almost impossible to remove it, only throwing your Chao or hitting it can work, so think twice before handing a hat to a Chao.

-Eggs: The most (maybe only) useful item in the market. These eggs hatch brand new species of Chao, and they come in a wide variety of colors. See the Breeds subsection for more information.

The First Nap

So, our Chao are crawling through the garden freely. As I said before, during this first year of their life, they will be in their childhood. It is during this period where some traits of the Chao are defined for the remainder of the Chao’s life.

The first trait is the alignment. As you should know, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle revolves around the battle between good and evil. This battle transcends to Chao, meaning that a Chao can embrace the good side or the evil side. This results in a change of the Chao’s alignment. If you care for your Chao with only “good” characters (Sonic, Tails and Knuckles), it will embrace the good side and become a Hero Chao. If you care for your Chao with only “evil” characters (Shadow, Rouge and Eggman), it will embrace the evil side and become a Dark Chao. If you care for your Chao with a mixture of characters from both sides, it will become a Neutral Chao. All Chao are born with Neutral alignment, which can then be changed at will during its childhood. However, the alignment can’t be changed in adulthood by any means.

The changes the alignment brings forth are merely aesthetical. Neutral Chao, as you can see with your newborn Chao, have a variety of colors and an emotion ball. Hero Chao are mostly white, with an angel motif, reversed eye color (black sclerae and white irises, contrary to the Neutral Chao’s white sclerae and black irises) and with a halo that functions as an emotion ball. Dark Chao are of dark colors, with a devil motif, an angry expression on its face with dark blue sclerae and white irises and with a spiked emotion ball.

Normally, Chao should sleep once every half an hour, more or less. Chao sleep for between 4 and 5 minutes. In some occasions, Chao can snore heavily. My theory is that this happens because, somehow, the Chao sleeps in a bad position. The fact that a snoring Chao tries to accommodate itself when laying down face up can support this theory.

Chao can sleep face up, lying on one side or face down. They change positions every so often.

On even rarer occasions, Chao may sleep while sitting. In this position, they are completely silent, not even breathing, so you can only know it’s sleeping by its eyes. When waking up, they simply open their eyes, as if nothing happened.

Road to Maturity

After the Chao awakens from the first nap, the second trait will start to manifest itself. This second trait is the type. As you know by now, Chao have four skills: Swim, Fly, Run and Power. Depending on how you influence your Chao, it can evolve into the influenced type. The fifth skill, Stamina, doesn’t affect Chao in any way, and can only be increased by feeding your Chao.

You may have seen in the missions that there are some roaming animals around the stage, as well as hidden inside pipes, cages or whatever else. Also, if you destroy the enemy robots, they leave behind what seems to be the crystal that powered them. These crystals are called Chao Drives. Both animals and Chao Drives can be collected and given to Chao to increase their skills.

Animals

First, let’s talk about the animals. They can be found throughout the stage, or hidden in some places. Also, do you remember how I said there were 3 Chao Boxes? Well, the first you open contains the key. Once collected the key, the second box contains four random animals that can be found throughout the stage. The third one contains a very special animal. Animals are divided into 7 groups, each with 3 members. If you collect them, you’ll see the group they belong to on their background.

Yellow group: These animals are focused to the Swim skill. The animals belonging to this group are the penguin, the seal and the otter.

Purple group: These animals are focused to the Fly skill. The animals belonging to this group are the parrot, the condor and the peacock.

Green group: These animals are focused to the Run skill. The animals belonging to this group are the cheetah, the warthog and the rabbit.

Red group: These animals are focused to the Power skill. The animals belonging to this group are the gorilla, the bear and the tiger.

Blue group: These animals aren’t focused to a single skill. The animals belonging to this group are the sheep, the raccoon and the skunk.

Black group: These animals aren’t focused to a single skill. The animals belonging to this group are the half fish, the bat and the skeleton dog.

Orange group: These animals aren’t focused to a single skill. The animals belonging to this group are the unicorn, the dragon and the phoenix.

Animals affect the four skills, however sometimes they focus more on a single one, sometimes they don’t affect a single skill at all, and sometimes they can affect negatively to other skills. For example, the animals from the purple and red groups affect negatively the Run skill, but each animal has its own effects. Also, animals concede two more things to Chao aside from an increase in skills. The first thing are body parts. If a Chao assimilates an animal, it gets its traits, like the dragon’s wings or tail, the cheetah’s claws or the gorilla’s arms, between many others. The only exception to this are the animals from the black group. The parts obtained are completely random each time a Chao assimilates an animal.

The second thing requires a special mini-section for itself. When assimilating animals, Chao also gain the animal’s behavior. These behaviors will be performed by the Chao when it’s bored, or when certain conditions are met. Here’s a list with the behaviors learnt.

Penguin: Chao slides on its belly.

Seal: Chao poses.

Otter: Chao performs the backstroke while swimming in the garden.

Parrot: Chao sings.

Condor: Chao flaps its wings.

Peacock: Chao struts.

Cheetah: Chao licks its own face.

Warthog: Chao dashes.

Rabbit: Chao hops around.

Gorilla: Chao beats on its chest.

Bear: Chao roars.

Tiger: Chao sharpens its nails.

Sheep: Chao performs forward somersaults.

Raccoon: Chao spins around.

Skunk: Chao farts.

Unicorn: Chao bucks its feet.

Dragon: Chao breathes fire.

Phoenix: Chao wags its tail.

Yet again, animals from the black group are an exception. Instead of giving the Chao a special behavior, they alter the Chao’s appearance.

Half fish: The Chao’s emotion ball turns into a flame.

Bat: The Chao’s legs are removed.

Skeleton dog: Removes random animal parts from the Chao’s body. On a side note, if a Chao assimilates this animal, that Chao can now wear hats.

NOTE #1: I’ve noticed that Chao are more eager to display what they’ve learned in the classroom than the behaviors learnt from animals, but that can just be my opinion.

NOTE #2: Even though Chao can sing after assimilating a parrot, they sing a lot worse than if they have attended the classroom, and also sing a horrible tune.

Chao Drives

Time to talk about the Chao Drives. Chao Drives aren’t as complicated as animals. There are only four of them, each one focusing on a certain skill: yellow for Swim, purple for Fly, green for Run and red for Power. With Chao Drives, your Chao won’t change its appearance, and also there are no negative effects. In addition, all Chao Drives affect their skill the same percentage, contrary to the varying percentages of each animal and group. In my opinion, Chao Drives are better than animals, but I must admit that animals can give Chao a nice appearance if the parts match correctly.

First evolution

Right now, your Chao have taken a nap and are crawling around the garden once more. From this point on, your focus will be to prepare the Chao for their first evolution.

First evolution is a process that takes some time. Feeding fruit to your Chao can speed up this process. At first, you could think this is the use of Stamina: reaching a certain level, or skill points, the Chao evolves. FALSE! Chao will evolve on its own, even if it’s not fed at all, so Stamina has nothing to do here. However, each bite of a fruit seems to accelerate the process of evolution by a little bit, so to evolve your Chao faster be sure to keep its belly full.

How exactly does this first evolution work? Pretty easy. When the time comes, Chao will sit down, and a turquoise cocoon will soon start to envelop it. 


The cocoon will be transparent at first, but it will become darker until it is completely opaque and solid.

 A few seconds after, the process will be reversed, with the cocoon becoming more transparent over time, until finally fading away, revealing the adult Chao inside it.



When becoming an adult, the Chao will become 1 out of the 3 available alignments, and also 1 of the 5 available types. The types it can become are Swim, Fly, Run, Power and Normal. The first four mean the Chao has been focused towards that specific skill. The last one, Normal, means the Chao is balanced in all four skills, and thus becomes what I like to call an all-terrain Chao.

Knowing which alignment the Chao will become is easy. The type can be more complicated. Let me explain myself a little better.

There are four skills that can be influenced by animals and Chao Drives. These skills are divided into two sliders.

Swim<---->Fly                                  Run<---->Power

These sliders mean that, the more you influence a skill, its counterpart becomes negatively influenced. For example: giving yellow Chao Drives to your Chao makes the Swim/Fly slider to lean towards the left, which means that the Chao is being influenced to become a Swim type Chao.

The sliders are set at 0 when the Chao is born. If a Chao is influenced enough towards a certain type, it will evolve into that type. If the influence isn’t enough, or there’s a balance over the total value of both sliders, the Chao will evolve into the Normal type. It is said that Chao Drives influence stats by half as much as animals do, but I have no actual proof of that. What I have proof of is that if the two sliders are shifted enough towards one type, there’s a system that gives priority to one type over the other. The Fly type has the lowest, Run and Power seem to be equaled in overriding Fly, and Swim overrides all the other types. Under these circumstances, the Chao will never become a Normal Chao, since not all four types are balanced.

As you may have seen when picking up your Chao, all the skills have levels and skill points. Each level has 10 dots, each one representing a 10% of what’s required to achieve the next level. Chao Drives give 24% to the skill they affect, meaning that, if you collect 10 of the same color, the maximum amount you can have at a time (counting animals too), that skill will rise 2 levels and a 40%. Animals, as said before, have each their own effects on skills.

To end the first evolution part, it should be noted that, when reaching a certain amount of skill points, Chao can display some abilities while in the garden. The given abilities are as follow:

Swim: 100 points to learn to swim, 670 to do strokes.

Fly: 100 points and Chao will sometimes fly when falling off an edge.

Run: 50 points to walk, 670 to run moving its arms, 1300 to run stretching its arms wide (similar to Sonic at full speed).

Power: 500 points to do karate moves. Not displayed in the garden, or at least shouldn’t.

NOTE #1: The values for strokes and running are approximate, the exact amount could be either higher or lower. Also, I’m unsure whether Fly has a second ability at a higher amount of points, but having seen the effects of the ability granted at 100 points, I’m 90% sure there isn’t such second ability. Same for Power, but I’m not that sure with this one.

NOTE #2: When obtaining a Hero Chao, a special tune will play when the cocoon turns opaque and again when the cocoon starts fading away. The same tune, albeit played with a different instrument, will play when obtaining a Dark Chao. No tune is played when obtaining a Neutral Chao, one more thing that can let you confirm the alignment your Chao will have.

NOTE #3: When Chao learn to walk, they become prone to trip over. Even if you give your Chao a bat, which can remove its legs, it will still trip. Chao can walk tirelessly for minutes without tripping, or can trip twice in 5 seconds. As you can see, the amount of randomness is absurdly high.

NOTE #4: Even if it has the highest priority, Swim should be one of the first skills to be learned. The reason is as follows: Chao, when roaming around the garden, are always focused in reaching a certain point within the garden. This point can perfectly be in the middle of the pool, so your Chao will head up to it, even if it doesn’t know how to swim. Also, if you interrupt your Chao before reaching its point, it will resume its journey once the interruption is over (like picking it up from the water and putting it safe away from it). It can be very troublesome to see your Chao constantly splashing in the water, demanding to be taken out, and then just wanting to get in again immediately after! Take into account that Chao that don’t know how to swim will not drown, but simply splash around, and will eventually exit the pool by themselves. Same happens with a Chao that knows how to swim, after some time, it will exit by its own feet.

IMPORTANT NOTE: When evolving into any type except the Normal, the grade your Chao has for that skill is increased by one. This means that, as an adult, your Chao will gain more skill points every level. My suggestion is that you should only influence a Child Chao up until 100 skill points.

Adulthood

Now you have two adult Chao. Along with their change in appearance, and the fact that they have grown a little bit, there are more things yet to be discovered.

New Gardens

If one of your Chao became a Hero Chao, when exiting the garden, you will find a stairway leading up to a new garden: the Hero Garden.

The Hero Garden is substantially bigger than the Chao Garden you were in up to now. It’s also incredibly glitched, but that’s not our business now. The most important feature you will find the first time you enter this garden will be… Another egg! The third Chao for you. Another important feature is the “trampoline”, the best place to see Chao fly if they know how to.

If one of your Chao became a Dark Chao, when exiting the garden, you will find a stairway next to the Kindergarten descending to a new garden: the Dark Garden.

The Dark Garden is somewhat a little smaller than the Hero Garden, but still noticeably bigger than the Chao Garden. All in all, I find the Dark Garden excessively devilish, with the bloody pool, the rotting trees, the graves and all that Halloween stuff. Sure, Dark Chao look evil, but once you see them smiling and applauding when you pick them up makes you realize that they are still adorable little creatures. Also, the first time you unlock this garden, it comes with another egg, which makes a total of four Chao in your team.

Even if you unlock these gardens, it doesn’t mean that Chao of that alignment must be raised there. Hero Chao can perfectly be raised in the Dark Garden, and vice versa. They are useful to store Chao you don’t want to age, or even hatch, since time only passes in the garden your character is in.

Chao Stadium

Ever wondered what’s that cave in the Chao Garden? Here’s your answer: the entrance to the Chao Stadium. Here, Chao can compete for medals, and also 9 extra emblems are available for you to collect. The available competitions are Chao Race and Chao Karate. It is here, and only here, where Stamina plays a role, since it determines the physical constitution of the Chao, and thus gives your Chao more resistance. Also, maybe you already noticed, but the Chao’s results in the Stadium can be viewed on its medical chart.

In Chao Race, Chao can compete in different environments and against 7 other opponents, unless stated otherwise, to show off their skills. The Chao’s Stamina will be displayed as an energy bar, which will deplete over time as the Chao consumes it. You can also cheer for your Chao, giving it a momentarily boost of speed at the exchange of a bit of energy. During the first races, which last less than a minute, you don’t need much stamina to win, but when races take up to 4 minutes and beyond, you surely need a high amount to keep up the pace.

At first, only 4 races, each with 3 levels of difficulty, are available, under the category of Beginner Races. Each race focuses on a single skill: Swim, Fly, Run and Power. The Fly race, however, is also benefited from a good Run stat, and also Power. Swim isn’t strictly needed, but can help as a desperate measure. Winning all races in the highest difficulty awards you the first emblem the Stadium has to offer. Also, the Chao that wins the highest difficulty race gets a medal that it will wear on its chest for the remainder of its life (unless it wins another one, which will replace the old one). Aside from the medal, the Chao also earns a toy to play with when it is bored in the garden. The Swim race is specially useful, because the Chao wins the shovel, necessary to plant trees. The Fly race earns the watering can, which will make a planted seed to grow faster and make the planted tree live longer.

Once the Beginner Races are won, the next category, Jewel Race, is unlocked. Jewel Races are just extended versions of the Beginner Races, but with 2 more levels of difficulty added. Also, once the first level of all races is won, 2 more races will be unlocked. The first one focuses on 2 hidden skills, which are Luck and Intelligence. Luck seems to be related to how often Chao trip, and also with the Jack-in-the-box thing. Intelligence seems to be related to puzzles, and probably the Chao’s age can influence this a bit. Maybe personality also plays a part, but everything I can say is only a theory. Again, winning the last level of difficulty earns the Chao a medal (contrary to the Beginner Races, each Jewel Race has its own medal design) and a toy, and winning all races on the last level of difficulty earns you the second emblem of the Stadium.

Beating the Jewel Races unlocks the last categories of races. They are divided into Challenge Races, Hero Races and Dark Races. Theoretically, they are meant to focus in each of the three gardens, since the prizes earned in each category aren’t personal for a Chao, but stay in a garden forever. Prizes won from the Challenge Race will appear in the Chao Garden, while there’s no restriction into which Chao can enter. Prizes won from the Hero Race will appear in the Hero Garden, and Dark Chao can’t participate here. Prizes won from the Dark Race will appear in the Dark Garden, and Hero Chao can’t participate here. Completing each category of races earns you a new emblem, which means that you can earn a total of 5 emblems in Chao Race.

In Chao Karate, Chao competes against a single opponent in a timed fight. Chao have a health bar on top of the screen, and a Zeal bar at the bottom. The Zeal bar is the Chao’s energy or motivation, so this is the bar which Stamina affects. When it is depleted, or when your Chao loses its will to fight, you must replenish it in the least time possible. To win, you must deplete your enemy’s health bar, knock it outside the ring or have the most health when the time runs out.

It’s interesting to note that, contrary to what happened in Chao Race, here some stats aren’t used, so they’re given new roles. Run and Power stay the same, the first makes your Chao faster, and the second makes it deliver powerful blows. It is here where the karate moves will be displayed if the Chao has at least 500 skill points in Power. Swim and Fly aren’t used, but they are still important. Swim is changed into Defense, which makes your Chao receive less damage from enemy attacks. Fly is changed into Stealth, which increases the Chao’s evasiveness, making it easier to avoid the enemy attacks.

In Chao Karate, Chao will be put up in a tournament against 5 opponents. There are 3 available difficulties. Each completed difficulty will earn you an emblem, and after completing all 3, the fourth and last difficulty will be unlocked, with the ninth and last emblem the Chao Stadium offers.

Relationships

Even when being a child, Chao already demonstrate a degree of relationship towards fellow Chao and also your character. Between Chao, nothing much happens, really. If one Chao is doing something it learned in the classroom, other Chao close in proximity may sit down, watch and applause when the show is over, or join in by doing something else they also learned. Same happens with the toys earned in Chao Race, specially with the ones that stay in the garden.

Relationships between character and Chao are completely different. At first, you will only notice that your Chao starts smiling, cheering and even applauding when you pick it up. This is a clear signal of the affection it has towards that specific character. However, that’s as far as it will go while being a child. After evolving, the relationship with your character will improve, contrary to what happens between Chao. An adult Chao will sometimes give you a “thumbs up” sign if it sees your character is in close proximity, or in the case of Hero Chao only, it will bow before your character, saying some sort of “Hiiii!”. Other times, your Chao will come to you, bouncing playfully and with a happy expression on its face, and upon reaching your character, will start to rub against it, like if it was a cat. This means the Chao wants some attention, so be sure to pick it up, feed it or pet it. You can always avoid this by making sure your Chao doesn’t make eye contact with your character while being near to it. The last sign of affection will be shown when you whistle. Chao will stop for a second, turn towards your character, saying something like “Ah!”, and will run towards you with its emotion ball turned into an exclamation mark. Upon reaching your character, it will do the same as before.

NOTE #1: Your Chao will come bouncing playfully towards your character even WITHOUT knowing how to walk. Yep, a crawling adult Chao will suddenly start to chase you hopping happily. This is so far the only incongruity I’ve found in the game.

NOTE #2: Be careful with the eye contact thing in the Hero Garden, because Chao have X-Ray vision! Seriously, somehow Chao can see your character, or sense it in any way, even when behind a wall or not being visible at all. This is one of the reasons why I said the Hero Garden was heavily glitched.

Mating Season

The most important change upon reaching adulthood is that your Chao becomes fertile. However, it doesn’t mean it can mate at any time. It can only do so during its Mating Season.

The Mating Season occurs once every Chao year, approximately, meaning that your Chao should have like 4 natural Mating Seasons. When Chao enter their Mating Season, they will sit down, with its emotion ball turned into a heart, and they will be encircled by flowers.

Chao will remain like this a few minutes. If another of your Chao is in its Mating Season, or at least close to it, if it enters the flower circle, and the two Chao are willing to mate (no ill will between them), the mating will commence. It consists of a simple dance, with the Chao nuzzling each other while a special music plays. After a little while, an egg will appear (out of thin air!) and both Chao will celebrate the new arrival. Aside from the Chao’s natural Mating Season, which have to be timed properly in order to breed, there’s a little item to serve as an extra help. That item is the Heart Fruit, which, upon being consumed its last bite, automatically makes the Chao enter a Mating Season. This comes in handy when you want to mate specific Chao.

Breeds

Many different breeds of Chao exist. Actually, there are only 4 breeds of Chao, but what makes the difference are colors. A quick look at the Black Market can easily demonstrate this. Let’s see the different breeds in existence.

-Two-Tone Chao: As the name implies, these Chao have a main body color with markings all over its body of different colors. The Chao you start off with, for example, have a blue main color with yellow markings in their hands, feet, stomach and back.

-Mono-Tone Chao: This Chao have a single color all over their body, and unlike Two-Tone Chao, they don’t change colors when evolving.

-Shiny Chao: As the name implies, these Chao have a shiny body, They aren’t different from Mono-Tone or Two-Tone, both breeds can be either shiny or non-shiny. Shininess is more a trait than a breed by itself.

-Jewel Chao: These are very special Chao that are covered in a jewel coat which give them a single, distinctive color. They are completely different from the other breeds, as they don’t have any of the tone, color or shininess features, and have instead a solid, somewhat metallic appearance.

NOTE #1: There are like a dozen of different colors, seemingly each one with a higher rarity than the others. It seems that the amount of emblems you have affects the available colors. Also, shiny eggs are rarer to find than Mono-Tone eggs. I have over 50 emblems, and I’ve already seen around 10 different colors, plus 3 shiny variants, on sale. I wish I knew the exact amount of emblems needed for each egg to be available, but 50 emblems aren’t that hard to get (there are 180 in the game). Also, I haven’t come up with an exact pattern over how often the Black Market changes its stock.

NOTE #2: Jewel Chao are unobtainable. There’s only one way: to transfer it over from another game. The game in question is the Tiny Chao Garden, which happens to be… in the Game Boy Advance! The Tiny Chao Garden exists in Sonic Advance, Sonic Advance 2 and Sonic Pinball Party. In here, all Jewel eggs are available for sale, as well as normal eggs, the ones you start over with. A second case is applicable if you have Sonic Adventure DX and a Game Boy Advance without any game inserted, in which you can transfer the Gold egg and Silver egg found in the first to a temporary Tiny Chao Garden in the second, and then transfer it over to Sonic Adventure 2 Battle.

Genetics

This section will surely be the most difficult for me to explain, and the hardest to understand.

Let’s start by saying that Chao are diploid organisms. To put it easy, they don’t have a single piece of genetic information for each of their genes. These pieces are called alleles. Chao have two alleles for each of their genes. Each Chao passes down one of these alleles to its offspring. What are these alleles? The answer is easy: Color, Tone, Shininess, Jewel Coat and Stat Grades.

Color

As I explained above, there are like a dozen or more colors a Chao can have. First of all, forget any expectations about mixing colors. Chao can only manifest one of their alleles, while the other one is passive. This means that mating a Yellow Chao with a Blue Chao doesn’t give a Green Chao. Instead, you have 50% chances of it being Yellow and another 50% of being Blue.

Even though Chao manifest only one allele, there’s no actual dominance of a specific color over the others. The only exception is the Normal color, which is recessive. Normal colored Chao are the hardest to obtain, since those eggs can’t be purchased in the Black Market. They can be obtained for free in the Tiny Chao Garden, however. Just in case you were wondering, the Chao you start off with are Normal Two-Tone Chao, so the only way to obtain the Normal color allele is to mate these Chao. Another interesting concept to note would be purity. Chao have one active allele and one passive allele, so if these two alleles are the same, the Chao is pure for that trait. Your starting Chao, as well as eggs purchased in the Black Market, are pure in color.

We’ve seen that every color has a 50% chance of manifesting. It’s obvious to state that if both Chao pass down the same allele for color, then the Chao will surely be of that color. Since the Normal color is recessive, both parents must pass down their Normal color allele for the Chao to become a Normal Chao. As you keep breeding your Chao, be sure to remember which alleles can it have, active or passive, because the allele passed down in mating is random. This means that you can mate a Red Chao with a Blue Chao and obtain a Chao of none of those colors! Chances are that those Chao are impure in color, having a different passive allele than the active one, and if both Chao pass down this allele, the results can be awkward. Always try to keep track of the alleles a Chao is carrying so you can aim for a specific Chao.

Tone

We’ve seen that there are Mono-Tone and Two-Tone Chao. Mono-Tone Chao can be obtained in the Black Market, while Two-Tone Chao are the ones you start off with. We can now safely assume that, in both cases, Chao are pure for this trait. Both alleles, Mono-Tone and Two-Tone, have equal dominance. So, to obtain a Two-Tone colored Chao you can only rely on luck. All the colors available in the Black Market have their Two-Tone variants, while Normal Chao can also have a Mono-Tone variant. I’ll explain the details on the other Normal breeds later on.

Shininess

These trait is unique to Shiny Chao, available at the Black Market. Again, the Shiny allele has equal dominance over the non-Shiny, so obtaining a Shiny Chao requires a little bit more of luck. Of course, any kind of colored Chao, either Mono-Tone or Two-Tone, has a Shiny variant.

Jewel Coat

A trait unique to Jewel Chao. Obviously, this allele is nonexistent in non-Jewel Chao, so it could be omitted due to the difficulty in obtaining a Jewel egg. Anyway, all Jewel Coats have equal dominance over each other, as happens in colors, and also, the non-Jewel allele is recessive, meaning that breeding a Jewel Chao will always produce another Jewel Chao.

Stat Grades

Each Chao also carries two alleles for each of its stats. Again, the starter Chao and the Black Market Chao are pure in this trait. Note that the extra grade obtained through evolution isn’t part of the Chao’s genes. The grades for the offspring are randomly chosen from its parents, meaning that you will never obtain a higher grade. Also, be sure to remember your Chao’s family tree, since it can wield a passive allele of a higher grade than the active one!

NOTE #1: The Normal color is recessive. Obtaining a Mono-Tone Normal, Shiny Mono-Tone Normal and Shiny Two-Tone Normal can be hard as hell. The only way to do this is to mate a Normal Chao with another Chao that has the Normal allele on its genes. You have a 50% chance of obtaining a pure Normal Chao, if you’re feeling lucky. The Shiny variants are harder to obtain. Having the Shiny allele active also has a 50% chance, unless you do a complicated way into obtaining a pure Shiny Chao with a recessive Normal allele. I’ve never focused on mating, so I don’t have any further details on this matter.

NOTE #2: Jewel Coat and Color cannot be mixed. However, it seems that there’s a glitch that makes Shiny Jewel Chao partially transparent or completely invisible, leaving only the eyes, wings and the emotion ball. It could be worth the try to see if this is true, but I don’t have access to Jewel eggs and never will, so it’s a field I cannot explore.

NOTE #3: There’s a little bit of suspense when mating, because the eggs obtained through breeding don’t have the color or tone the Chao inside it will have. All eggs obtained through mating have the appearance of the eggs you started off with. This means that, until it hatches, you’ll never know what can come out!

Gradual Evolution

If you thought that the appearance of your Chao would be determined since the moment it exits its evolutionary cocoon, you were wrong. During adulthood, Chao also undergo a physical change very similar to that of their childhood, with the exception of the alignment and adding more choices to the mix.

Roughly some time after its first natural mating season, the Chao’s appearance will start to change slightly over time. This process has been labelled second evolution, but the Chao will not enter a cocoon, instead it’s a gradual change that happens throughout the remainder of your Chao’s life.

In this gradual change, the Chao further specializes in one of its skills, or it can improve its other skills, or both at the same time. The process, however, takes a lot more time and effort than it took during childhood. It takes at least double the amount of Chao Drives or animals in this stage than it was required during childhood. Also, since it isn’t a permanent state, the Chao’s appearance will be altered whenever it comes into contact with a Chao Drive or an animal, meaning you can change the appearance of your Chao to fit whatever you like the most.

As I said, the alignment is permanent, so it won’t be altered during this second gradual change. However, this time there are more choices open. The answer is pretty simple. For the first evolution, Chao can only be of one type, and if there was any tie between any of the sliders, there was a priority system to break the tie. Now, the tie isn’t broken, which means that a Chao can have a gradual evolution focused on two stats at the same time!

What we have is that the Chao you start off with would become 1 out of 15 different first evolutions. Now, that same Chao can enter a total of 9 more forms in its second evolution: Normal, Swim, Fly, Run, Power, Swim+Run, Swim+Power, Fly+Run and Fly+Power.

What exactly are those last four forms? Well, a child Chao being given equal number of run animals or green Chao Drives and swim animals or yellow Chao Drives would enter a cocoon to exit as a Swim Chao. Since this second evolution isn’t permanent and can be changed freely during the Chao’s lifetime, if both sliders are influenced by the same amount, then the Chao becomes a hybrid of those skills. These hybrid forms can be rather hard to notice, since you can (almost) never know when your Chao has reached its maximum influence in a single skill.

The second evolution brings forth incredibly ragtag results: picturesque mixtures of coloring, bulky and fat Chao, strange and odd head ornaments, and even the Chao forms of Sonic and Shadow!

Death

As (nearly) all things, Chao eventually die. After roughly five long Chao years, more or less a full day of garden time for us, Chao reach the end of the road. It seems like death is triggered, as sometimes my Chao died while still looking around for another place to walk to, or even just after yawning.

When this time comes, the Chao’s emotion ball turns into an spiral, its face adopts a very sad expression, and a cocoon starts enveloping the Chao. This cocoon, grey in appearance, denotes that the Chao’s life has expired, and when it fades, your Chao will be gone forever.

Wait a second. The cocoon pictured above isn’t grey, but pink instead. What does that mean?

Since the beginning of this guide, I’ve told you to be nice to your Chao, and always expressed what happens if your Chao is happy. It’s not important just because it means not being a rude individual, but also because a happy Chao… can be reborn!

Indeed, if your Chao expressed any signs of happiness as I noted on other points, then you’ll notice that the cocoon isn’t grey, but pink. Then, when it fades, it has something inside… an egg!

Yes, your Chao has decided to start a new life alongside you, a sign that it liked very much the time it spent with you. Your Chao will keep its name, facial expression, race badges, toys, learnt classes and grades. It will also be reborn as a child of the alignment it previously had:

-If it was a Neutral Chao, it will be born again as a light blue/yellow Chao

-If it was a Hero Chao, it will be born as a white/blue Chao

-If it was a Dark Chao, it will be born as a dark red Chao

These new child Chao are still of Neutral alignment, so a reborn Hero Chao can be turned into a Dark Chao and vice versa. It’s interesting to note that, since Dark Chao get the angry eyes expression, a reborn dark Chao will keep this expression.

The important note of rebirth are the stats. They revert back to level 1 (even if they were at level 0 at the time of the Chao’s “death”), and the skill points are reduced to a 10% of its value. This means that, this time, a newborn Chao could be gifted with the ability to walk, swim and/or fly if its stats were high enough before being reborn. To walk, a Chao would need at least 500 run points at the time of its rebirth, and 1000 points in the case of swim and fly. The swim skill is very useful, due to the aforementioned problem of the Chao “drowning” in the pool. The walking skill can also be useful, if for some reason you don’t want your Chao to crawl.

Dreaming About Immortality?

Technically, if you are always nice to your Chao, every time its “death” comes, it will be reborn, thus making the Chao essentially unable to truly die. But can a Chao become effectively immortal? The answer is yes.

Before going further, you need at least one Chao that has been reborn twice. Once it enters its third life, and in any subsequent life, it can undergo a special evolution that turns it into a Chaos Chao.

How can you obtain this Chaos Chao? Pretty easy. The Chao must come into contact with all animals, that is, you must give your Chao one each of the 21 animals available. Why one each? Because the Chao must be raised to evolve into the Normal type, and the best way to keep its stats balanced is with only one of each animals. Once done, just keep feeding your Chao as you would always do before it evolves.

Here starts the fun. This first evolution, in any other instance, would result in a Normal Chao. But this time, the result is much more awesome: a Chaos Chao. These Chao cannot die, but they cannot mate either, so be sure to double check which Chao you will turn into a Chaos Chao. Their appearance is also much more god-like, with pupil-less eyes and what appears to be crystallized parts of their body. Each alignment has its own variant of Chaos Chao, so there are a total of three Chaos Chao obtainable.

As happened during the rest of first evolutions explained above, when obtaining a Chaos Chao a special tune will play. First, the tune corresponding to its alignment (none in the case of Neutral) and then the unique tune for Chaos Chao. This can be useful, since technically your Chao should evolve into the Normal type, so hearing this unique tune will be the confirmation.

To end the Chaos Chao part, just a reminder: it will take you not less than 40 hours of garden time for a Chao to reincarnate twice and be able to be turned into a Chaos Chao. That means almost two full days without exiting the garden. No wonder why Chaos Chao are so special.

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Well, that’s pretty much everything I have to say. You now know everything to become a successful Chao raiser. Since this game was merely a two-player version of Sonic Adventure 2 for the Dreamcast, you can try that game here and use this guide to help you, but always keep in mind that there might be some differences between both games.

If you still have any questions, feel free to ask them here.