Chao

Overview

Chao are artificial AI creatures in the Sonic games, similar to the Nightopians in the NiGHTS games. The Chao were first seen in the Sonic Adventure games. Chao are blue creatures with dots floating on their heads that has tons of emotion. They need a lot of care.

In Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2, you're able to go to the Chao Garden. Here you find eggs of Chao. You can either smash them open (the Chao won't like you for doing that) or you wait for them to hatch on their own. When the chao are babies, it's up to you to help raise it and love it. You have to feed it and give it some animals and jewels to help it get stats and grow. When the Chao eat animals, they gain the traits that those animals have like wings, horns, fur, etc.  When your Chao grow, they're able to sing, dance, swim, walk, etc. In Sonic Adventure 2, you can take your Chao to school in order to learn these things.

In the Sonic Adventure games, you can make your Chao good or evil, starting with Sonic Adventure 2. When you feed a Chao some light fruit and give it some love from Hero characters, that Chao will turn into a Hero Chao. These Chaos are white with Blue halos on their heads. If you give a Chao dark fruit and give it some love from the Dark characters, they'll turn into Dark Chao. These chao are black with a red spike on their head. When you have both of them, in Sonic Adventure 2, you're able to unlock the Hero Garden and the Dark Garden. This doesn't happen until your Chao grow up.

When your Chao reach adulthood, they live for 6 hours, gaining age after every hour. During that time they are able to walk and do many other things. After those 6 hours, the Chao will go into a cocoon. If the Chao were treated well, they will go into a pink cocoon and reincarnate back into a baby Chao, but if they were treated poorly in their life, they will go into a gray cocoon and die.

Chao come in many colors where you can buy them in the Chao store. You can also buy food, seeds, and many other trinkets for your Chao.

In the Dreamcast versions of the Sonic Adventure games, you're able to take your Chao on the go with the Dreamcast VMU. Withthe VMU, you're able to take care of your Chao anywhere you go. You can also play special minigames with your Chao. The Feature is similar to a Tamagatchi. This feature was added in the Gamecube versions of the game (Sonic Adventure DX and Sonic Adventure 2: Battle), but now you can transfer your Chao to your Gameboy Advance using the Gamecube-GBA link cable. You can transfer your Chao into the Mini Chao Garden in the Sonic Advance games and Sonic Pinball Party. They also appear in both Mario & Sonic games as the audience members of the crowd, cheering on their favorite player. Now they also appear in Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing as audience members in various Sonic the Hedgehog racetracks.