Shining Force, Skies of Arcadia, Classic Phantasy Star, PSO, PSO2 fans : "Welcome, here's your member card and a key to your personal locker. You'll be here a lot."
I think it would need some work? The thing is that the two gameplay loops feed into each other in a very organic way, you do an action stage to get upgrades and rings, you get quiet wind down time from the Chao Garden and also incentive to go play another action stage. Removing one half of that feedback loop is going to have consequences, and I'm not saying it's impossible, and I'm not saying Sega shouldn't try, but I empathise with the idea of trying to make the Chao garden fun on its own without a full AAA Sonic game attached for when you inevitably get tired of goofing around in the garden.
They hate making money and hate making people happy they've made 5 good so nice games at best sense sa2 I wish Nintendo would just buy them out so real progress could happen. Before frontiers I was about to give up completely
"Sonic Team head, Takashi Iizuka, has reiterated in a recent interview that he really wants to make a new entry in the Sonic Adventure franchise, ideally Sonic Adventure 3. However, Mr. Iizuka said that creating a fresh new Sonic Adventure game in 2023 would require a massive budget from SEGA due to its scale." ~ Sep 12, 2022 idk about you guys but if SA3 happened i would want it to be open world for sure, with the same type of 2000s edge & anime artstyle the originals had. He's definitely not wrong about the budget, but i wonder if Sonic Movie 3 is going to open the way for a high-budget open world Sonic Adventure 3 with the full cast being playable...it could even have a multiplayer where you can create a human or a mobian character, ur own apartment/house & a custom chao garden that you can construct & upgrade, it could have revamped versions of multiple cities like Station Square, Central City, & Westopolis, it could last for years like GTA V online...jeez i gotta stop thinking about this, it's too much potential, & it's never gonna happen ( ._.)
Chao Garden would’ve made so much sense in Frontiers. If you’re going for 100% in that game, there are so many extra collectibles that you can’t use for anything, and it would be perfect to spend them in a Chao Garden!
The game's development was ROUGH so I don't blame them for not creating an entire subgame when they were struggling with the main game. The game went gold like 2-3 weeks before release, and that is not a good thing
fr tho why not have a small group at Sega work on "Adventure 3" or Chao in general and have the bulk of Sonic Team on whatever main project they have. It would take longer for them but thats why we have other games from the main devs in between but what do I know.
Harsh truth: Sonic 06 basically was “Sonic Adventure 3.” It’s overall structure was quite similar to Adventure 1 (mainly with the HUB areas) and 2 (swapping between characters during the story campaigns). Had the game been given more time to cook it probably could have turned out just as enjoyable, but unfortunately Sega rushed it out the door for the 15th anniversary and it resulted in a buggy mess.
@@VincentiusTheSecondsmall group? It's not like they've been crushing it with all the bangers they've been releasing and they can't spare the manpower. The games have been absolutely trash tier recently. Sonic Adventure 3 needs to be their only focus for the future
@@VincentiusTheSecond because you need a lot of people for doing an adventure style game, look at 06, it was supposed to be like a 3rd sonic adventure but they rushed as hell and it came out like this, they need to be ready and have people prepared to program and design that type of game that needs to be at least the same level of SA2. I say that they are trying to tease it, I mean in frontiers there are a lot of elements of an adventure game, especially in the dlc, or the asset for a remake even in shadow generation so who knows
It’s strange how Sonic Team keeps marketing the Chao and putting the spotlight on them in the new Sonic Generations remaster, but then the head of Sonic Team claims that they have no interest in actually adding the Chao Garden. It’s like they really were “hyping” up fans by saying “Look, Chao are back!” just for them to drop the news after everyone preordered the game that there won’t be an actual Chao Garden and that they never promised one.
I don't think they've done anything to justify assuming there's going to be a Chao Garden in Shadow Generations tbh, it's still cheap/pandering but they've in no way implied it was coming back as a gameplay thing
@@jordanromesburg6819 Honestly when I saw the banner for Sonic X Shadow Generations and saw that the Chao were upfront and center on there I assumed they were going to do SOMETHING with them. A new garden would be great, but anything would be nice too, otherwise why even have them on the store page banner like that advertising the game if they aren't there for any reason.
It is worth mentioning that Sonic Team is SMALL. Sonic Frontiers was made by a team of 70! It is an extremely low headcount for such a game! Just for comparision - good ol' GTA3 (The first one on PS2) had 150ppl working on it! That was 20+ years ago! Of course Sonic Team recently seems to FINALLY be getting extra manpower and funding but it feels like they are still far away from being able to make a seperate game while doing a Sonic game. If you want to blame anyone, don't blame Sonic Team - blame Sega who for years left them understaffed and underfunded (to the point of Sonic Frontiers originally being Izuka's last Hail Mary) WHOLE ALSO never considering to hire a seperate devteam to focus on developing Chao Garden game.
I don’t know why they haven’t made a chao garden mobile game. They’re doing everything but giving us a dedicated game. They’re a “”preorder bonus”” in Sonadow generations, they’re in the Sonic 3 trailer, they’re supposed to be a big part of Sonic’s identity but they haven’t been seen in decades. It’s such a dumb response from Izuka, If you’re going to say it’s supposed to be integrated in the gameplay, actually integrate it into the games.
They totally could have some cross promotion with the console releases for costumes in game or new chao breeds unlocked in the garden or cross progression with rings
I guess I really missed something (and I missed a lot from 1997-2005 because of long hours and poverty) because I have no idea what anyone is talking about. Even after watching this video, I still don't know what you do in a Chao garden.
The Chao Garden has to be a side part of a larger game? And it has to be an Adventure game? My jaw hit the floor, that is the most Nintendo thing I have ever heard from a non-Nintendo company.
I think there's a difference in perspective. The devs see the chao garden as a way to make the levels replayable past A ranks, a little bit of progress you can make each time you beat a level again. If you take out collecting items and animals inside of the big adventure levels it cheapens the experience, because that's where most of the interactivity happened. Sure, there's plenty of time where you can sit and pet your chao in the garden, but outside of feeding them you dont really do much. Putting them in a race or having them do karate also doesnt have much interaction, it's mostly just watching your chao do it's thing, and I think that's the fear they have with making a chao garden a stand-alone experience, you can't do anything other than cheap little repetitive mini-games, and the rest is just watching things play out. Now I 100% believe that if that's all a stand-alone chao garden was, there would still be an audience excited for it, but I dont think it would be nearly as widely praised as the classics. That being said, I don't think it's essentially integrated into the adventure games specifically, but I do think having it paired with a larger experience is part of why people find it fun, and there's no excuse why it couldn't have been done in any other sonic games. I also think if there were to be a solo chao focused game, it would need something a little more action-packed to get items, just having minigames wouldn't cut it for me. Back when Sonic Runners was still live, they definitely could have integrated a chao garden into that style of gameplay, adding chao fruit and animals and chaos drives as some of the items that fly by would have been a perfect way to get items, and the chao garden experience could largely stay exactly the same on mobile
I'm on the same page with you that I prefer the action gameplay with some chao garden on the side as opposed to just the garden by itself. (Frontiers would've been perfect for it, excluding the overall moodiness of the game haha) But I think it can stand by itself if they wanted to lean towards the cozy game vibe. It would just be very different from the original which, yeah, I can see the devs being fearful of that idea.
A $40 chao garden game would sell like crazy. A mobile version would equally sell tons of copies. There’s not a giant audience but adults that grew up on it would love it on mobile or switch.
Take this with a grain of salt because I can't for the life of me remember where I heard it from and I can't find anything about it online, but I remember hearing a while ago that the reason we haven't had a Chao Garden in a long time is because it was the work of a single dev, Sachiko Kawamura, who had some kind of conflict with the rest of Sega. I found a Wordpress interview with her from 2006 (you can find it if you google "Creators Interview 005: Kawamura Sachiko (August 1, 2006)") in which she was asking people to be more vocal in their support of chao, because they were falling out of favor with the rest of the Sonic team since, in her words, "'COOL' is the creed," and "Sonic characters are a business largely dependent on public favor, and without your approval, they will be forgotten." She also said they were hard to make into products since they had so many floating elements in their character design. That being said, it seems like she's still working with the Sonic team, so hopefully she'll be allowed to make more chao gardens in the future! From that interview it seems like she was very attached to the chao and wanted them to be a Sonic mainstay.
The issue is that they also got rid of side modes, so modern Sonic games are super short for no reason. I know GG and MD games were short too, but they were only short because of the limited cartridge space and even then they had replayability (especially S3K). Forces had no excuse being a 3 hour long game at the price of an AAA game with 100 times more content.
What a lot of people don’t realize is that Sonic advance 1 & 2 both had mini chao gardens that had you play mini games to earn rings to buy things for your chao. What people are asking for already exists so Sega has no excuse
@@extremepayne A youtuber named Chadtronic launched a kickstarter game in that genre called "Poglings" a while back. It got funded in less than an hour, so clearly there's an audience for this type of game that's being largely neglected.
The gameplay loop between going for high scores on stages, and using collectibles from those stages to power up your Chaos, was just perfect. Even if the Chao garden doesn't come back, some equivalent should exist to preserve this gameplay loop.
Less joke answer, the chao garden is definitely not cheap to add to a Sonic game. So I can see why they dodge it. The real answer is always money and time. Anything else is nonsense.
Imagine if Nintendo just tweeted out “sorry guys, but we need to take down Captain Toad. We’ve realised it can’t be done because it was tied too much into Super Mario 3D World”
@@uberculex That's very true. Video games have never had any other way to gather resources ever. You have only ever been able to get resources from killing robots. That is the only way.
@@uberculex They could change the game, then the game wouldn't be just Chao Garden from Sonic Adventure 2 anymore. It could still be good, but it will be different. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker on the other hand really is just more Captain Toad levels from Super Mario 3D World (I suppose they did add some mechanics to flesh it out more though).
Normally I think the “Company is allergic to money” comment is stupid and usually wrong but in this case I’m so baffled by Izuka’s response I have to agree.
@@orangeslash1667Going off their KS updates, it's currently in a state of development limbo since the original dev partner fell through and Chadtronic has just one developer remaining from the original team still chipping away at it while they look for a new appropriate partner team. Best to not expect it to release for a while.
@@Tsukomasi I loved pokemon channel so much as a kid. I loved the unique gameloop of playing with Pikachu that unlocks new channels overtime as your reward over n over again. That core gameloop was very fun and thoughtful it kept us coming back for more as kids.
@@CreativeSteve69 Same! I always wanted them to make a Nintendogs-like game but with Pokémon, and Pokémon Channel kinda delivered... something similar... ish!
I too have been begging for the return of the Chao Garden for two decades with you, Arlo. It should've been a mainstay of the mainline series! It was _that_ good!
There’s like 3 indie games in various levels of development already making their own “chao garden” games, so as far as I’m concerned Sega is just missing the market Edit: Poglings and Bobo Bay off the top of my head, I know there’s at least 1 more that I’m forgetting (ooblets I think?)
You know, I'm surprised they did not try to make a Chao game with Amiibo. I could totally see them making a Chao game where every chao you raise has to come from one of those figures, which kind of sucks, but on the other hand it makes it easy to take them to another game for competition, just grab the figure.
That... doesn't sound like a bad idea! Maybe if you had other types of Amiibos you could get some exclusive costumes/abilities for your chao. Like (Obviously) a mario amiibo would give you chao a mario hat. Cliche, but sells the point!
Honestly it would be a less bonkers excuse if Sega flat out said "the guy who coded that stuff quit and it's kinda niche stuff". That's somewhat what the director of Digimon games said about making another V-Pet RPG game. (Harder to get into genre for new players, takes a lot of work to get the AI working, most people just want another Cyber sleuth game, Niche genre in and of itself, etc.)
@@KichiMiangrait's really hard for some Japanese companies to do or say anything that direct. Their society especially professional society is still very entrenched in the concept of "saving face."
Man, the idea that the garden can only be an Adventure thing is just... so dumb. Because Frontiers would be PERFECT for it! I mean, what are you doing in Adventure to get Chao Garden stuff? You run around Station Square looking for hidden eggs, you replay levels to get animals and chaos drives, and then you take that to the garden. What do you do in Frontiers? You run around the open zones looking for collectables to progress, you replay levels to get vault keys, and then you take that to the emerald. Yeah, I'm over-simplifying stuff, but like I can't be the only one who thinks those two gameplay styles mesh so well. Not only would it be giving a beloved mini-game, but it would give you more stuff to do in the open zones, more replayability for cyber space aside from time trials, it would be perfect... and they aren't doing it. I mean... at least we have the PC versions of SA1 & 2 keeping the Chao community alive. Because seriously, if you want more Chao, look into the modding scene for the Adventure games, and you'll find a thriving community. But even still, the idea of Frontiers gameplay with a chao garden, and a new mobile game that could be used like the tiny chao garden from the GBA, is so enthralling to me, and it's just... never gonna happen. Because they don't want it to
It definitely could have happened, but I think it's worth remembering that it took a minor miracle to get Frontiers out in anything resembling a completed state. Making a chao garden mini game on par with the SA2 chao garden is not an insignificant undertaking, and I legitimately don't think they had the resources to add that into Frontiers. After the success of Frontiers though, I would not mind if they scaled back their ambitions slightly to add in chao garden. I really want to see the little guys again.
@@webbowser8834 Oh no, it definitely should NOT have been in Frontiers, that's not what I mean. Like you said, it's a miracle Frontiers came out as good as it did. I just mean that they should consider it for the next game, since they did confirm they're going to be sticking with the Frontiers-style of gameplay for whatever comes next, and it would still fit in amazingly well. And supposedly SEGA is giving them a bigger budget for this go-around, so it's possible they could fit it in, either by scaling back, or by hiring an additional team to focus purely on the Chao side of things (since it's pretty commonplace to outsource side content like this, though usually it's for like... multiplayer modes and stuff) They just have to, y'know, realize that the Garden doesn't have to be chained to Adventure first-
this is like when nintendo said "we can't have a game with zelda as the main character because what would link be doing?" basically arguing they are so inept at their jobs that they can't figure out a simple concept like a stand alone chao game
but they did a zelda game eventually. you really think there will NEVER be a chao garden game? ever? of course there will be. so many things that seem unlikely will definitely eventually happen.
It’s a perfectly valid point. Link is Hyrule’s protector. Why would Zelda need to step up if Link is fit to fight? And lo and behold, they had to go out of their way to remove him to give Zelda the spotlight.
I mean, the integration goes deeper than just the collectibles. It’s the characters you raise them with, it’s the daycare and school that you put them into and you have to wait real time, so you play the main game to pass that time. It’s collecting rings in the main game to spend in the shop for the chao garden
The characters are not unique to the Adventure games, so that's irrelevant. A non-Adventure chao game could easily just use those characters. A real-time clock system is not unique to the Adventure games, so that's irrelevant. A non-Adventure chao game could easily implement a real-time clock system. Rings are not unique to the Adventure games, so that's irrelevant. A non-Adventure chao game could easily collect rings in the usual Sonic way or implement some other way to obtain that collectible.
@@totokekedile no, the characters aren’t unique to adventure games. they are however, specifically there to service the main game and aren’t just there arbitrarily. The real time clock system is specifically there to encourage you to go back into the main game. A non adventure chao game could easily implement a real time clock, but for what purpose? Without a main game to go back to, it’d simply be there to waste your time. The rings collected in the main game are used in the bonus chao garden mode. None of that is irrelevant. If you’re asking for a Chao Garden game; as it exists as what you know, is because of its implementation in adventure.
The game could easily work as a mobile game or as a very casual game in itself with a variety of other activities. I feel like Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons or Animal Crossing are pretty good games to base this hypothetical game off of. It could pretty easily be a spin-off based around life in Sonic's world.
The tiny chao garden from sonic advance and sonic pinball is basically the stand alone game you’re describing. You have mini games you play to collect rings and then use those rings to buy the stuff you need. The only connection to the main game is that the rings you collect there also carry over to the tiny chao garden. BUT if you start a new save for the main game the rings no longer carry over to the tiny chao garden. So once you do that the tiny chao garden essentially is it’s own independent game lol
time and budget, more like. their teams aren’t given enough resources to make stuff that goes as deep into side mechanics within modern expectations of scale and fidelity. hell, they seem like they were barely given enough resources to make pretty much any entry since Unleashed
The idea that Sega refuses to conceptualize a Chao Garden standalone game is wild when there are already **two** upcoming indie games aiming to be standalone spiritual successors to Chao Garden gameplay (Poglings and Bobo Bay)
Honestly, I kinda get where he's coming from. The whole point of the Chao Garden as an experience, at least from a overarching structural game design sense, is to give you a reason to play the game after beating the campaigns that isn't just completion's sake. It was, in essence, an endgame grind for a sonic game and that is the core "point" of it in the way all of the game is put together, so I think having a standalone game wouldn't be as engaging for a large swathe of the playerbase. It's not impossible to do, but it would be a SUPER niche game that many people probably wouldn't put the money down on to play on its own. Even as a kind of diehard sonic fan, who put SO MANY hours into the garden I would hesitate before buying a standalone Chao game. It wouldn't be the same if it weren't something that gave me a reason to go in and hunt down stuff and hop back and forth between these two modes of play, in my eyes.
There are Sonic fans that adore lore and fan service though, a slower paced game with raising Chao as the core mechanic could let the writing team flesh out interactions between characters that wouldn’t otherwise get a lot of screen time. How often have characters like Amy and Espio spoken to each other? Would Knuckles trust his newer friends/allies to enter the Chao Garden on Angel Island? What if Eggman is the antagonist capturing wild Chao but it turns he just wanted to find the best Dark Chao to race with and the rest are relaxing safe and sound in a custom made Chao Garden?! Something fun and lighthearted! :P
I get what you are saying, but they could EASILY make a smaller game focused solely on the garden. Think about how many 'cozy' games there are and how many people enjoy them. They could even bring the avatar back and allow you to befriend the Sonic cast as another part of the game. An idealized chao garden would also be a part of a main series game, but they won't even do that! Just give the resources to a smaller team and have them develop the game on the side.
makes me think there should be more games that feature both modes (high-action gameplay and relaxed pet sim) and let them work off one another. of course, it's tricky to get just one right, never mind both....
A stand-alone Chao Garden game is not impossible. They basically already exist. Farming games exist. Monster-raising games exist. Pet simulators exist. They simply just don’t wanna make it, and as adults, we’re allowed to think they are stoopid for it! They will sit on Chaos and do NOTHING with them for 20 years. They’ll hate that fans keep asking for them… oh but they’re more than happy to keep selling Chao plushes. Plushes of a thing that appeared in a game twenty years ago. 😒 What really boils my soup is that they COULD have used Chaos in Sonic Frontiers. The opportunity was RIGHT THERE. But instead they created Kokos. Something very close but not quite there. Why?? Why not use this established thing that fans like and want to see again?
IT WAS a standalone thing long ago. There's some lost content called "Nakayoshi Chao" which was basically playing with a Chao visiting spaces. Some things worth noting: * The Chao community is *very* active with the advent of mods, as Chao World Extended and Enhanced Chao World have made quality of life improvements to the point where it's possible to be standalone. Chao World Extended has an API which allows for customization of the majority of the Chao system (The team is still working on the documentation of the API) and the quality of life features fix a lot of the pain points of the Chao system, to the point where it's possible to play the Chao portion of the game alone. * There are two games currently in development that have come across my radar: Bobo Bay and Poglings -- Bobo Bay has been in active development and has a demo on Steam if you'd like to give it a try. The things you don't want to hear: * The point of the Chao system was to be a companion system to Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2, as the VMU (on the Dreamcast) had two games called Chao Adventure and Chao Adventure 2 which directly interfaced with each Sonic Adventure game. On the Gamecube, Sonic Advance, Sonic Advance 2 and Sonic Pinball Party have the Tiny Chao Garden, which is their companion system which links to Sonic Adventure DX and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. Without these, you lose certain functionality like exclusive fruits, and taking your Chao on the go. Sega could make a mobile companion app to their Sonic games to make this a future thing. It's been done before with games to have a companion app. * The issue with providing a new Chao experience is that we're at the point where we don't know if it's possible for Sonic Team to separate it from the main games. We know it's *possible* (see games like Chao Resort Island) but whether they want to or not is an entirely different thing. They seem not to be motivated by the fact that there's no unique way to bind everything together. I don't know why Iizuka wants to keep it to the "Adventure series" but it's a point of contention in the community as there's been a lot of teasers about Chao as of late. People are screaming for Chao and it seems like Iizuka doesn't really know how to satisfy the itch (nor doesn't know how to pitch the idea to investors)
Pokémon already solved those issues with its boundless hunger for connectivity, culminating in making the smartphone the other device that your game console connects to with apps like Pokémon GO and Pokémon HOME, and anything that goes on a phone is another microtransaction-fueled live service waiting to happen.
Bringing up the DS reminded me of the game Sonic Chronicles. You can find Chao in that game and pair them with one of the characters, and you actually see the Chao flying behind them in battle. Even if they don't give us a full garden, I'm positive they can give us Chao back as a part of the world. Seeing them in shorts and promo art is nice, but they know they can do more.
"Chao Garden cannot exist without Adventure". Sonic Advance on the GBA had a mini Chao Garden. Like how you described at the beginning, Advance was pretty much the minigame to that Chao Garden even for me. "We can't/don't want to make a new one" basically translates to "we don't like money" at this point. It's very silly.
My Chao Garden data got corrupted last month because it was in a third-party memory card. It had a Chao from a retail copy of Sonic Advance, so I felt like I killed someone else's dog.
You know, Chao Garden would be a perfect mobile game, harkening to the mobile Tamagotchis of the 90s. And SEGA could cynically flood it with resource timers (for fruit, drives, and animals) and microtransactions (for fast resources, special Chao, costumes), and I think people would still just be happy to have it. Just leaving money on the table, guys...
I went so deep into the Chao garden rabbit hole as a kid. Had forum pages printed out on how to get a Chaos Chao and what it meant when my favorite Chao reincarnated or died. I’d spend hours trying to stop a death from happening. Loved the game too, but the Chao Garden was special. Also there’s a Chao garden minigame on the GBA that connects to S2B
@@logandevitt7017 it's still in the works, albeit a bit slower than before since the team helping him left earlier this year, there's monthly updates on the kickstarter
I remember the major Chao Garden website. It was very colorful, well thought out and insanely thorough for getting your favorite Chao, the driver and animal collecting too.
I don't entirely agree with what they said in the interview, but I do understand where they're coming. You said it yourself "The main game of SA2 was [there to get stuff] for the Chao garden" when talking about your experience with the game, and that's just it: The main stages and the Chao Garden are synergistic. You get Chaos drives, animals, rings, etc in the main stages and that gives you an incentive to visit the garden to use them, and then as you get invested in the garden, you have an incentive to go back to the main stages, and repeat. Both also serve as breaks for one another so neither get stale or repetitive. I'm sure a standalone Chao Garden game COULD work (and as much as I want an SA3 and don't like boost gameplay, I don't see why it couldn't be attached to a Boost game or a frontiers 2?), but there would absolutely need to be some sort of level(s) or gameplay thing tied to it you get items from and to prevent it from being too repetitive. Or, you know, they could just make it a total gross gachafest and get people addicted that way, but i'd rather that not be what we get.
The boost gameplay wouldn't fit cus it doesn't incentivize exploration as much as the adventure style. Ppl alr didn't like the sun/moon medals bein a mandatory part of Unleashed in the daytime stages Chao would make that SO much worse for them & most sonic games R boost in the mainline titles these days
@@nightlydata2181 I covered animals, rings/coins can just be placed on the main paths & run through. What else would you need to gather for chao in stages? The problem is that Sonic devs don't want to give us Chao Garden.
There is a childhood part of me that demands to learn game design like a mad scientist out of sheer angst about this "If they won't make another Chao Garden, I swear I will create one for myself if I have to!"
Yeah, I won't question it, their reason is just stupid. Of course a chao garden feature could be added to other Sonic games outside of the adventure series. Sega has already shown to be able to adapt it when Sonic Adventure went from having small hub areas to just level advancing in SA2, having the chao box with the key to take the player to the chao garden after clearing the stage. Sonic Heroes could have had it, by adding hidden collectables in the stages. With more characters in that game, that'd open the possibility of more variations of chao with characters like Big or Cream. Granted I never played Sonic Frontier, but I imagine a chao garden being hidden in the world and the player could access it anytime once they found it, and have more things to put into the world to use for the chao. I really wish Sega would just say they don't want to do it, or give a reason like needing innovation to bring it back. I'd accept that a lil more.
To be fair to SEGA, they listen to and have listened to fans a LOT over the years. People forget just how many decisions they made for Sonic games were done directly due to fan feedback and requests. It’s just that when they do follow fan requests, it isn’t always successful. Chao Garden really just seems to be the one area they’ve been unwilling to move on. It is admittedly baffling that with all the other fan requests SEGA has answers, that is the one where they draw the line.
For those interested in a Chao Garden game, Bobo Bay is an indie game in development that is heavily inspired by Chao Garden. It's still a long way from any sort of release, but I thought I'd put it out there.
@@orangeslash1667 from what I've seen of poglings it also doesn't hit the same notes that chao garden does. I mean it's chao garden, but it's missing the adventure half? Combat? Fast exploration?
@@orangeslash1667 sonic adventure 2 on steam is the best bet because atleast that can have stagemods, charactermods, and new chao content added. cant have all that new content on xbox1
I don't go about my day expecting to hear that masterpiece of a Rusty Ruin remix grace my ears in a random UA-cam video, but you or whoever chooses the music for these videos (especially the Sonic ones) has good taste.
Everything about this. I had it down pat in SA 1 and 2 on which animals and drives to get and how to quickly get a lot of rings to get the good fruit for my Chao, found all the secret eggs in SA 1, played the Chao Gardens in the Advance games...and have been waiting for one ever since. "If we do a Chao Garden we have to do SA3" combined with "people have been wanting this"? Sega, HELLO, give the people what they want!
I know how you feel Arlo. All I'm going to say is it's the same sort of thing that's happened with F-Zero. No one at the company has a passion for the project. Without passion there's no push to navigate the political waters at the company to secure the manpower and funding to make it happen. And without that there is no game. That's all there is to it.
The only thing worse about a developer not wanting to do something and lying about it is actually believing the "purity of vision" bullshit reason you've given not to make the product people want
That's for legal reasons. Technically they 'won' that lawsuit, but it was partly due to Penders missing the statute of limitations, so if something else showed up with the same characters, a new one could be brought. Now he'd probably lose that as the similarities weren't all that strong, but it would still cost money as he's shown he's perfectly willing to throw good money after bad on cheap lawyers to pursue poorly thought out legal cases.
SEGA, even Sonic Team, has a hand in the mobile market, and even Nintendo showed you can use it as a platform for something new. This isn't really an excuse.
"if you've never played the adventure games then don't because you'll play the chao garden and be sad that it's not in new games" you did not deserve the chao garden and im so fucking happy it's never coming back
I've always thought about how one of the greatest strengths of SA2B was the chao garden, not just by being a fun minigame, but that it gave you a tangible reason to replay the levels, and for the most part let you CHOSE which parts of the game to replay, resulting in people choosing the levels they were better at or had more fun with, which made them absolutely dwarf the time spent in levels they didn't like with time spent in levels they did like, which also made the player reach a point where they started to feel a real mastery over their favorite levels layouts. Like, having all the emblems just isn't that tangible of a reward, your number that is only really on screen when it's going up, is maxed out, whoopdy doo. But getting animals and chaos drives to feed your pet chao, getting rings to buy them the cool hats, that's a real area of the game you can sit in and enjoy the results of your effort.
@@pinktrutle1490 Manpower is an issue, so fair point there, but the budget is coming from SOMEWHERE, so if it went to Sonic Team instead they'd at least have the budget.
@@pinktrutle1490 eh? I'm saying it couldn't for that reason but that the budget is not a reason. This is assuming it is cheaper to outsource than to hire new personnel.
I absolutely ADORED the Tiny Chao Garden on my GBA as a kid. I would spend ages just playing the little minigames and raising my little Chao. I never had Adventure 2 Battle, so I could never bring the Chao over to it. Other than Rings for purchasing stuff, _there is basically just watching the little guy wandering around. _*_Most of my time with Sonic Advance has been spent in the Tiny Chao Garden._* There is _very_ clearly an audience for a Chao Garden and the fans are very much begging for it.
Yeah Izuka says all kinds of wack stuff, sometimes it seems like he just says whatever pops into his head at the moment. Remember the "only male hedgehogs have super forms" comment? 🤦♀
1. I thought you weren’t interested in Modern Sonic? 2. I’m surprised you used footage from the Game Grumps especially since they still haven’t finished this game.
Hey, i have some good news! I don't know if you are aware, but a fellow UA-camr who had similar woes about Sega and the chao garden had decided to do something about it. Chadtronic is making a chao garden clone, or a spiritual successor, called Poglings! It is fully funded and on the way to being finished. When it's done, it'll be releasing on a few different platforms, like the Switch! Not exactly a chao garden game, but at least it is more than SEGA is doing about it, that's for sure.
If y’all want more chao garden, highly recommend getting the pc version of sa2 and looking into mods. Specifically chao world extended and enhanced chao world, those mods add a ton of content and longevity to the chao garden. It fills the gap sega’s left pretty well I’d say, and still gets updated with new stuff. Along with other mods to just generally fix the not great port, like input controls, render fix, and cutscene revamp.
This, along with the fact that the modding community is active with customization mods (thanks to Chao World Extended's API), it's a good way to play Sonic Adventure 2 on PC. We're in the middle of something big to encourage the Chao Garden resurgence.
I reckon we're on the same wavelength or something cuz literally just two days ago I started rewatching a whole bunch of Chao let's play type content here on UA-cam. I miss it so much. Thanks for reminding me how old I am... 22 years since SA2B is wild..
I didn't know you were a chao garden fan! I feel the same way about it. Been waiting years and years... I've seen sega trying all of these different concepts and changes to the formula over the years. It feels like that they're still trying to find their identity with Sonic games, even after all these years. They want a financial home run, and they haven't had it. Since they don't have a reliable cash cow, they're not open to putting in some niche feature. They are unwilling to take the risk. I feel like there's a hole in the market for a game like chao garden. Maybe Poglings will be it. We need some indie studio to PROVE financially that there is a market for this stuff. Then sega will be like oh now it's a safe bet...which is lame but it is what it is.
Projects like Poglings and Bobo Bay showcase how the concept can and will exist standalone. Since resources for Chao were collected outside the actual garden, there are many ways to fill that gap and create a fun game loop. Farming, minigames, the Chao events themselves, exploration maps involving using your raised Chao to access new areas. The list goes on. You could slap a deep pet sim on as a companion to anything, let alone the experience on its own being fun and worth the investment. It's incredibly flexible. If Iizuka doesn't see it, it's Sega's loss. Indie devs will pick up the slack.
"SEGA Just CRUSHED My Dreams" My friend, that's part of being a SEGA fan. My heart goes out to the fans of the NiGHTS series begging SEGA to just acknowledge the franchise.
I had the exact same experience. except i perfected the game because i had very few games to play. Even my sisters got memory cards so they could have a chao garden and they didn't even like sonic and were years older than me lol Edit: I also agree with Arlo. I always thought Chaos could be a its own game. When i was studying game art & design i planned out a similar game for a class. wasn't hard to make it stand alone...
I'm not the biggest Sonic enjoyer but I'm a little inside the community. I have never heard of or had the idea of a stand-alone Chao garden game but WOOOOW, that sounds really great!
I don't know why they can't just do a companion app-type deal. link the Chao Garden app with Sonic/SEGA games somehow and when you complete a stage in a Sonic game (or some other task in another game) you get rewarded with rings, animals, and drives, and if you complete a special task (like getting an S-rank in a stage) you get rewarded with a special cosmetic item for your chao. they could probably also include special reward codes for similar stuff on physical media like the comics, any sound tracks, etc. it's brand integration, it's advertising, it's fun, and it's something people have been begging for literal decades.
I feel like the big appeal of the Chao Garden is the adventure gameplay attached. They both bounce off each-other and the progression of both the garden and the main game extend the life of the overall product. You have an incentive to replay levels because you want to raise your Chao. You also are more invested in those levels because you are interacting and looking for things for your Chao. I think a stand alone game would need another way to distribute items for your Chao. Anything mobile like would be too repetitive and tedious. They could just attach it to a different style of gameplay like Sonic and Blaze. I could see you collecting Chao items on a 2D plane with a 3D model and 3D garden system attached. Edit: Also would they have hero and dark Chao? They would have to rethink some systems. There was a very deep system where some characters touching Chao or helping them changed the Chaos physiology.
1:32 He just like me, fr fr. When I was young, Chao adventure 2 battle on the gamecube was all I cared about. I didn't have computer access so I ended up having to figure all this stuff out myself and I enjoyed it to no end. This animal gives this, these colored drive forms give this, angels, devils. Even though I played it so often I still never scrapped the surface of the chao stuff. It was just so soothing. Though with how sonic games have been recently, maybe this is a blessing in disguise? There was so much depth and nuance in SA2B that I feel like if they did it today it'd just have so many cut corners, missing features, etc. The only other thing that I think gets teased or referenced as much but isn't actually given to us is another Kirby Air ride game. It's getting to the point where the references are so plentiful that it's almost infuriating lol
"Sega just crushed my dreams"
"First time?"
The Shenmue Audience: Takes me back.
@@NoHiro-qc4dv Rhythm Thief audience: "Oh honey I'm so sorry"
Shining Force, Skies of Arcadia, Classic Phantasy Star, PSO, PSO2 fans : "Welcome, here's your member card and a key to your personal locker. You'll be here a lot."
me with the jet set radio revival announcement still happy: sega crushes dreams?
@@pinokio9951 congratulations on escaping purgatory!
I don't understand how someone can claim with a straight face that Chao Garden cannot exist outside of Sonic Adventure.
I think it would need some work? The thing is that the two gameplay loops feed into each other in a very organic way, you do an action stage to get upgrades and rings, you get quiet wind down time from the Chao Garden and also incentive to go play another action stage. Removing one half of that feedback loop is going to have consequences, and I'm not saying it's impossible, and I'm not saying Sega shouldn't try, but I empathise with the idea of trying to make the Chao garden fun on its own without a full AAA Sonic game attached for when you inevitably get tired of goofing around in the garden.
There was a leak for a chao mobile game so lol who knows. He probobly under nda.
It honestly would've fit perfectly in Sonic Frontiers
Even if that is the case… then *just make Sonic Adventure 3 already*
@@Level_Eleven They can't they're devs don't have enough good will yet.
Customer: We want this product, we'll give you money!
Sega: We hear you, but no.
At this rate there will be a Chao garden type minigame included in the next Like a Dragon game before it makes it back into Sonic lol.
@@unnoticedhero1that's the Sega way
“Why not?”
“Idk. Stop asking”
They hate making money and hate making people happy they've made 5 good so nice games at best sense sa2 I wish Nintendo would just buy them out so real progress could happen. Before frontiers I was about to give up completely
"Sonic Team head, Takashi Iizuka, has reiterated in a recent interview that he really wants to make a new entry in the Sonic Adventure franchise, ideally Sonic Adventure 3. However, Mr. Iizuka said that creating a fresh new Sonic Adventure game in 2023 would require a massive budget from SEGA due to its scale." ~ Sep 12, 2022
idk about you guys but if SA3 happened i would want it to be open world for sure, with the same type of 2000s edge & anime artstyle the originals had. He's definitely not wrong about the budget, but i wonder if Sonic Movie 3 is going to open the way for a high-budget open world Sonic Adventure 3 with the full cast being playable...it could even have a multiplayer where you can create a human or a mobian character, ur own apartment/house & a custom chao garden that you can construct & upgrade, it could have revamped versions of multiple cities like Station Square, Central City, & Westopolis, it could last for years like GTA V online...jeez i gotta stop thinking about this, it's too much potential, & it's never gonna happen ( ._.)
Chao Garden would’ve made so much sense in Frontiers. If you’re going for 100% in that game, there are so many extra collectibles that you can’t use for anything, and it would be perfect to spend them in a Chao Garden!
The game's development was ROUGH so I don't blame them for not creating an entire subgame when they were struggling with the main game. The game went gold like 2-3 weeks before release, and that is not a good thing
@@carb0xyde887Rough development and Sonic Team aren't strangers to each other lol
@@marcelosoares7148 They share bacon and eggs every tuesday lmao
Arguably frontiers is a better fit for such a mode than the adventure duology
I’d argue the Starfall Islands are technically a Chao Graveyard
Players: "We want chao! We want Adventure 3!"
Sonic Team: "Same bro."
Players: "So you're gonna make it???"
Sonic Team: "No? Why would we?"
fr tho why not have a small group at Sega work on "Adventure 3" or Chao in general and have the bulk of Sonic Team on whatever main project they have. It would take longer for them but thats why we have other games from the main devs in between but what do I know.
Harsh truth: Sonic 06 basically was “Sonic Adventure 3.” It’s overall structure was quite similar to Adventure 1 (mainly with the HUB areas) and 2 (swapping between characters during the story campaigns). Had the game been given more time to cook it probably could have turned out just as enjoyable, but unfortunately Sega rushed it out the door for the 15th anniversary and it resulted in a buggy mess.
They don't want the obvious money it'd make.
Honestly I don't think they even know what they're doing with the entire IP.
@@VincentiusTheSecondsmall group? It's not like they've been crushing it with all the bangers they've been releasing and they can't spare the manpower. The games have been absolutely trash tier recently. Sonic Adventure 3 needs to be their only focus for the future
@@VincentiusTheSecond because you need a lot of people for doing an adventure style game, look at 06, it was supposed to be like a 3rd sonic adventure but they rushed as hell and it came out like this, they need to be ready and have people prepared to program and design that type of game that needs to be at least the same level of SA2. I say that they are trying to tease it, I mean in frontiers there are a lot of elements of an adventure game, especially in the dlc, or the asset for a remake even in shadow generation so who knows
It’s strange how Sonic Team keeps marketing the Chao and putting the spotlight on them in the new Sonic Generations remaster, but then the head of Sonic Team claims that they have no interest in actually adding the Chao Garden. It’s like they really were “hyping” up fans by saying “Look, Chao are back!” just for them to drop the news after everyone preordered the game that there won’t be an actual Chao Garden and that they never promised one.
I don't think they've done anything to justify assuming there's going to be a Chao Garden in Shadow Generations tbh, it's still cheap/pandering but they've in no way implied it was coming back as a gameplay thing
@@jordanromesburg6819 Honestly when I saw the banner for Sonic X Shadow Generations and saw that the Chao were upfront and center on there I assumed they were going to do SOMETHING with them. A new garden would be great, but anything would be nice too, otherwise why even have them on the store page banner like that advertising the game if they aren't there for any reason.
They just suck at making games. Sonic Adventure 2 was the last good one.
At that point, everyone expecting Chao should cancel their preorders.
It is worth mentioning that Sonic Team is SMALL.
Sonic Frontiers was made by a team of 70! It is an extremely low headcount for such a game! Just for comparision - good ol' GTA3 (The first one on PS2) had 150ppl working on it! That was 20+ years ago!
Of course Sonic Team recently seems to FINALLY be getting extra manpower and funding but it feels like they are still far away from being able to make a seperate game while doing a Sonic game.
If you want to blame anyone, don't blame Sonic Team - blame Sega who for years left them understaffed and underfunded (to the point of Sonic Frontiers originally being Izuka's last Hail Mary) WHOLE ALSO never considering to hire a seperate devteam to focus on developing Chao Garden game.
I don’t know why they haven’t made a chao garden mobile game. They’re doing everything but giving us a dedicated game. They’re a “”preorder bonus”” in Sonadow generations, they’re in the Sonic 3 trailer, they’re supposed to be a big part of Sonic’s identity but they haven’t been seen in decades.
It’s such a dumb response from Izuka, If you’re going to say it’s supposed to be integrated in the gameplay, actually integrate it into the games.
Bruh calling it Sonadow Generations is crazy.
Supposedly, a Chao garden mobile game is or at least recently was in development according to a pretty reliable leaker
No, they’re a part of the base game for sonic x shadow gens
@@SparkingSparkspls don't be zippo
They totally could have some cross promotion with the console releases for costumes in game or new chao breeds unlocked in the garden or cross progression with rings
Chao Garden was the reason why I kept playing SA2 over and over again as a kid
I've gone back and played it again many times over the years. Only 3D Sonic I played more than once.
I guess I really missed something (and I missed a lot from 1997-2005 because of long hours and poverty) because I have no idea what anyone is talking about. Even after watching this video, I still don't know what you do in a Chao garden.
The Chao Garden has to be a side part of a larger game? And it has to be an Adventure game? My jaw hit the floor, that is the most Nintendo thing I have ever heard from a non-Nintendo company.
Welcome to SegaSammy, a pachinko company wearing the corpse of Sega
Iizuka is so full of bull.
I think there's a difference in perspective. The devs see the chao garden as a way to make the levels replayable past A ranks, a little bit of progress you can make each time you beat a level again. If you take out collecting items and animals inside of the big adventure levels it cheapens the experience, because that's where most of the interactivity happened.
Sure, there's plenty of time where you can sit and pet your chao in the garden, but outside of feeding them you dont really do much. Putting them in a race or having them do karate also doesnt have much interaction, it's mostly just watching your chao do it's thing, and I think that's the fear they have with making a chao garden a stand-alone experience, you can't do anything other than cheap little repetitive mini-games, and the rest is just watching things play out.
Now I 100% believe that if that's all a stand-alone chao garden was, there would still be an audience excited for it, but I dont think it would be nearly as widely praised as the classics.
That being said, I don't think it's essentially integrated into the adventure games specifically, but I do think having it paired with a larger experience is part of why people find it fun, and there's no excuse why it couldn't have been done in any other sonic games.
I also think if there were to be a solo chao focused game, it would need something a little more action-packed to get items, just having minigames wouldn't cut it for me. Back when Sonic Runners was still live, they definitely could have integrated a chao garden into that style of gameplay, adding chao fruit and animals and chaos drives as some of the items that fly by would have been a perfect way to get items, and the chao garden experience could largely stay exactly the same on mobile
I'm on the same page with you that I prefer the action gameplay with some chao garden on the side as opposed to just the garden by itself. (Frontiers would've been perfect for it, excluding the overall moodiness of the game haha) But I think it can stand by itself if they wanted to lean towards the cozy game vibe. It would just be very different from the original which, yeah, I can see the devs being fearful of that idea.
A standalone Chao game would be the same as Nintendogs, but with Chao. And those games sold like crazy
A $40 chao garden game would sell like crazy. A mobile version would equally sell tons of copies. There’s not a giant audience but adults that grew up on it would love it on mobile or switch.
@@ganymedehedgehog371 A mobile version wouldn't be selling "copies", it would be selling microtransactions
They'd just have to add activities for you to do with your Chao that rewards you with rings/items.
Take this with a grain of salt because I can't for the life of me remember where I heard it from and I can't find anything about it online, but I remember hearing a while ago that the reason we haven't had a Chao Garden in a long time is because it was the work of a single dev, Sachiko Kawamura, who had some kind of conflict with the rest of Sega. I found a Wordpress interview with her from 2006 (you can find it if you google "Creators Interview 005: Kawamura Sachiko (August 1, 2006)") in which she was asking people to be more vocal in their support of chao, because they were falling out of favor with the rest of the Sonic team since, in her words, "'COOL' is the creed," and "Sonic characters are a business largely dependent on public favor, and without your approval, they will be forgotten." She also said they were hard to make into products since they had so many floating elements in their character design.
That being said, it seems like she's still working with the Sonic team, so hopefully she'll be allowed to make more chao gardens in the future! From that interview it seems like she was very attached to the chao and wanted them to be a Sonic mainstay.
Even as someone that doesn't like Chao (or Cheese and Chocola specifically), I want Chao Garden back in the Sonic franchise.
The issue is that they also got rid of side modes, so modern Sonic games are super short for no reason. I know GG and MD games were short too, but they were only short because of the limited cartridge space and even then they had replayability (especially S3K). Forces had no excuse being a 3 hour long game at the price of an AAA game with 100 times more content.
Sony: *reveals PS5 Pro*
Arlo: *depressed over Chao Garden*
Chao Garden is eh imo.
same tho
Me
@@repoversemediumsuper same, but i like arlo and his interests
I mean we can't be depressed about everything.
Arlo slaying me with the most brutal Chao Garden footage whilst he talks of longing for a Chao Garden
I'm like why? he wasn't trying
It says in the description that the footage is from the Game Grumps. Which explains a lot.
@@TheBlueWizzrobe game CHUMPS
@@TheBlueWizzrobe Ah yeah that makes sense...
@@mddowlingame HUMPS
What a lot of people don’t realize is that Sonic advance 1 & 2 both had mini chao gardens that had you play mini games to earn rings to buy things for your chao. What people are asking for already exists so Sega has no excuse
I think part of this creature-taking-care-of genre has morphed into 'cozy' games.
i think there’s definitely still room on the market for a Chao game next to Stardew Valley
@@extremepayne especially if it's part of a fast paced platformer like SONIC.
@@extremepayne A youtuber named Chadtronic launched a kickstarter game in that genre called "Poglings" a while back. It got funded in less than an hour, so clearly there's an audience for this type of game that's being largely neglected.
The gameplay loop between going for high scores on stages, and using collectibles from those stages to power up your Chaos, was just perfect. Even if the Chao garden doesn't come back, some equivalent should exist to preserve this gameplay loop.
if Sega was going to make a chao garden, they’d put it in Like A Dragon.
Less joke answer, the chao garden is definitely not cheap to add to a Sonic game. So I can see why they dodge it.
The real answer is always money and time. Anything else is nonsense.
TLDR get into Viva piñata
@@pobbityboppity1110did you know you can edit your comments?
This would unironically get me to play Yakuza but at that point I'd be completely abandoning Sonic lmao
Imagine if Nintendo just tweeted out “sorry guys, but we need to take down Captain Toad. We’ve realised it can’t be done because it was tied too much into Super Mario 3D World”
That's a bit of a different situation. The Captain Toad stages in 3D World didn't require resources gathered in Mario stages.
@@VitalVampyrExcept for lives
@@VitalVampyr There's no other way for resources to be gathered in a video game. Must be impossible.
@@uberculex
That's very true. Video games have never had any other way to gather resources ever. You have only ever been able to get resources from killing robots. That is the only way.
@@uberculex They could change the game, then the game wouldn't be just Chao Garden from Sonic Adventure 2 anymore. It could still be good, but it will be different.
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker on the other hand really is just more Captain Toad levels from Super Mario 3D World (I suppose they did add some mechanics to flesh it out more though).
Sega just doesn't like money I guess. Chao care game would be pretty easy money.
Normally I think the “Company is allergic to money” comment is stupid and usually wrong but in this case I’m so baffled by Izuka’s response I have to agree.
Ive been looking for the gif of your profile pic but unable to find it. Whats the source?
@@leonfire99 look up Italian Spiderman
@@ternel There's a kick starter game called Poglings, it's a pet simulator similar to Chao Garden.
@@orangeslash1667Going off their KS updates, it's currently in a state of development limbo since the original dev partner fell through and Chadtronic has just one developer remaining from the original team still chipping away at it while they look for a new appropriate partner team. Best to not expect it to release for a while.
Maybe pokemon will save us with a surprise sequel to the hit monster pet simulator from the N64, Hey You, Pikachu...
it's called Pokémon Channel and it's PEAK
(*my definition of peak may vary from 99.9% of poke fans)
@@TsukomasiWas just about to say this!
@@Tsukomasi I loved pokemon channel so much as a kid. I loved the unique gameloop of playing with Pikachu that unlocks new channels overtime as your reward over n over again. That core gameloop was very fun and thoughtful it kept us coming back for more as kids.
@@CreativeSteve69 Same! I always wanted them to make a Nintendogs-like game but with Pokémon, and Pokémon Channel kinda delivered... something similar... ish!
Its called pokemon IV breeding, pokemon Aimee and competitive
Maybe the reason we never got a Sonic Adventure 3 is because they just don't wanna make another Chao Garden mini-game?... 🤔
Thus creating the self sustaining economy
Sega do you just not want money?
Sega: frankly we don’t know at this point
Chao garden was a perfect sub game in an already good game that has a great story.
Missed opportunity
Sega could literally make a mobile game of the Chao Garden and so many people would become whales for it.
It got leaked its happenig on mobile connected to netflix
I too have been begging for the return of the Chao Garden for two decades with you, Arlo. It should've been a mainstay of the mainline series! It was _that_ good!
The ultimate move would be SEGA putting it into a yakuza game. Which are already just mini-games the game
There’s like 3 indie games in various levels of development already making their own “chao garden” games, so as far as I’m concerned Sega is just missing the market
Edit: Poglings and Bobo Bay off the top of my head, I know there’s at least 1 more that I’m forgetting (ooblets I think?)
I want the names of these games
@@foreverokami16poglings is one of them
@@foreverokami16 edited, Poglings and Bobo Bay are fresh in my mind but I’ve seen a third
Thanks for adding the names..if they make the game half as charming as chao gardens was. I will check them out
@@GodChaos333 Just looked at Poglings, I think they're getting pretty close.
You know, I'm surprised they did not try to make a Chao game with Amiibo. I could totally see them making a Chao game where every chao you raise has to come from one of those figures, which kind of sucks, but on the other hand it makes it easy to take them to another game for competition, just grab the figure.
Do third parties make games centered around Amiibo?
That... doesn't sound like a bad idea!
Maybe if you had other types of Amiibos you could get some exclusive costumes/abilities for your chao. Like (Obviously) a mario amiibo would give you chao a mario hat. Cliche, but sells the point!
considering even Mario Maker had liscencing issues regarding the Amiibo costumes, not surprised
@@edmg7 i don't think so, but what they're describing could also be a toys-to-life game, and any company could make one of those
So the garden is stilll using the A-Life stuff from NiGHTS isn't it? There's not weird patent stuff going on with them and Naka is there?
I chilled on Chao Island forums for years.... I still love my Mint Angel Chao Smüples...
The guy who wrote the chao AI (and the proto version in NiGHTS) left Sega ages ago and his last game credit I can find is FFXIV A Realm Reborn
Honestly it would be a less bonkers excuse if Sega flat out said "the guy who coded that stuff quit and it's kinda niche stuff". That's somewhat what the director of Digimon games said about making another V-Pet RPG game. (Harder to get into genre for new players, takes a lot of work to get the AI working, most people just want another Cyber sleuth game, Niche genre in and of itself, etc.)
@@KichiMiangrait's really hard for some Japanese companies to do or say anything that direct. Their society especially professional society is still very entrenched in the concept of "saving face."
@@morgan4574 my autistic ass would not survive in Japanese society, I would never know what anyone ever means unless blatant and direct.
Man, the idea that the garden can only be an Adventure thing is just... so dumb. Because Frontiers would be PERFECT for it! I mean, what are you doing in Adventure to get Chao Garden stuff? You run around Station Square looking for hidden eggs, you replay levels to get animals and chaos drives, and then you take that to the garden. What do you do in Frontiers? You run around the open zones looking for collectables to progress, you replay levels to get vault keys, and then you take that to the emerald.
Yeah, I'm over-simplifying stuff, but like I can't be the only one who thinks those two gameplay styles mesh so well. Not only would it be giving a beloved mini-game, but it would give you more stuff to do in the open zones, more replayability for cyber space aside from time trials, it would be perfect... and they aren't doing it.
I mean... at least we have the PC versions of SA1 & 2 keeping the Chao community alive. Because seriously, if you want more Chao, look into the modding scene for the Adventure games, and you'll find a thriving community.
But even still, the idea of Frontiers gameplay with a chao garden, and a new mobile game that could be used like the tiny chao garden from the GBA, is so enthralling to me, and it's just... never gonna happen. Because they don't want it to
It definitely could have happened, but I think it's worth remembering that it took a minor miracle to get Frontiers out in anything resembling a completed state. Making a chao garden mini game on par with the SA2 chao garden is not an insignificant undertaking, and I legitimately don't think they had the resources to add that into Frontiers.
After the success of Frontiers though, I would not mind if they scaled back their ambitions slightly to add in chao garden. I really want to see the little guys again.
@@webbowser8834 Oh no, it definitely should NOT have been in Frontiers, that's not what I mean. Like you said, it's a miracle Frontiers came out as good as it did.
I just mean that they should consider it for the next game, since they did confirm they're going to be sticking with the Frontiers-style of gameplay for whatever comes next, and it would still fit in amazingly well.
And supposedly SEGA is giving them a bigger budget for this go-around, so it's possible they could fit it in, either by scaling back, or by hiring an additional team to focus purely on the Chao side of things (since it's pretty commonplace to outsource side content like this, though usually it's for like... multiplayer modes and stuff)
They just have to, y'know, realize that the Garden doesn't have to be chained to Adventure first-
@@SpiderGoblin2012 I agree. I really hope we get to see that.
this is like when nintendo said "we can't have a game with zelda as the main character because what would link be doing?" basically arguing they are so inept at their jobs that they can't figure out a simple concept like a stand alone chao game
Uhhhhh. Who's gonna tell 'em
but they did a zelda game eventually. you really think there will NEVER be a chao garden game? ever? of course there will be. so many things that seem unlikely will definitely eventually happen.
It’s a perfectly valid point. Link is Hyrule’s protector. Why would Zelda need to step up if Link is fit to fight? And lo and behold, they had to go out of their way to remove him to give Zelda the spotlight.
The “64” in your name tells me all I need to know
Exactly lol
That's why I backed Chadtronic's game, Poglings. It's basically a fully fledged Chao Garden with a gameplay loop about strengthening them.
I mean, the integration goes deeper than just the collectibles. It’s the characters you raise them with, it’s the daycare and school that you put them into and you have to wait real time, so you play the main game to pass that time. It’s collecting rings in the main game to spend in the shop for the chao garden
Tru but it's still true that that integration would work with pretty much any other sonic game
The characters are not unique to the Adventure games, so that's irrelevant. A non-Adventure chao game could easily just use those characters.
A real-time clock system is not unique to the Adventure games, so that's irrelevant. A non-Adventure chao game could easily implement a real-time clock system.
Rings are not unique to the Adventure games, so that's irrelevant. A non-Adventure chao game could easily collect rings in the usual Sonic way or implement some other way to obtain that collectible.
@@totokekedile no, the characters aren’t unique to adventure games. they are however, specifically there to service the main game and aren’t just there arbitrarily.
The real time clock system is specifically there to encourage you to go back into the main game. A non adventure chao game could easily implement a real time clock, but for what purpose? Without a main game to go back to, it’d simply be there to waste your time.
The rings collected in the main game are used in the bonus chao garden mode. None of that is irrelevant.
If you’re asking for a Chao Garden game; as it exists as what you know, is because of its implementation in adventure.
The game could easily work as a mobile game or as a very casual game in itself with a variety of other activities. I feel like Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons or Animal Crossing are pretty good games to base this hypothetical game off of. It could pretty easily be a spin-off based around life in Sonic's world.
@@ridgenyan-botxv367 So something that doesn’t even really resemble the Adventure’s Chao Garden
The tiny chao garden from sonic advance and sonic pinball is basically the stand alone game you’re describing. You have mini games you play to collect rings and then use those rings to buy the stuff you need.
The only connection to the main game is that the rings you collect there also carry over to the tiny chao garden. BUT if you start a new save for the main game the rings no longer carry over to the tiny chao garden. So once you do that the tiny chao garden essentially is it’s own independent game lol
Sega simply doesn’t want to put in the time and effort it would take to make chao garden and a 3D Sonic game work cohesively
time and budget, more like. their teams aren’t given enough resources to make stuff that goes as deep into side mechanics within modern expectations of scale and fidelity. hell, they seem like they were barely given enough resources to make pretty much any entry since Unleashed
The idea that Sega refuses to conceptualize a Chao Garden standalone game is wild when there are already **two** upcoming indie games aiming to be standalone spiritual successors to Chao Garden gameplay (Poglings and Bobo Bay)
Honestly, I kinda get where he's coming from. The whole point of the Chao Garden as an experience, at least from a overarching structural game design sense, is to give you a reason to play the game after beating the campaigns that isn't just completion's sake. It was, in essence, an endgame grind for a sonic game and that is the core "point" of it in the way all of the game is put together, so I think having a standalone game wouldn't be as engaging for a large swathe of the playerbase. It's not impossible to do, but it would be a SUPER niche game that many people probably wouldn't put the money down on to play on its own. Even as a kind of diehard sonic fan, who put SO MANY hours into the garden I would hesitate before buying a standalone Chao game. It wouldn't be the same if it weren't something that gave me a reason to go in and hunt down stuff and hop back and forth between these two modes of play, in my eyes.
There are Sonic fans that adore lore and fan service though, a slower paced game with raising Chao as the core mechanic could let the writing team flesh out interactions between characters that wouldn’t otherwise get a lot of screen time. How often have characters like Amy and Espio spoken to each other? Would Knuckles trust his newer friends/allies to enter the Chao Garden on Angel Island? What if Eggman is the antagonist capturing wild Chao but it turns he just wanted to find the best Dark Chao to race with and the rest are relaxing safe and sound in a custom made Chao Garden?! Something fun and lighthearted! :P
I get what you are saying, but they could EASILY make a smaller game focused solely on the garden. Think about how many 'cozy' games there are and how many people enjoy them. They could even bring the avatar back and allow you to befriend the Sonic cast as another part of the game. An idealized chao garden would also be a part of a main series game, but they won't even do that! Just give the resources to a smaller team and have them develop the game on the side.
makes me think there should be more games that feature both modes (high-action gameplay and relaxed pet sim) and let them work off one another. of course, it's tricky to get just one right, never mind both....
A stand-alone Chao Garden game is not impossible. They basically already exist. Farming games exist. Monster-raising games exist. Pet simulators exist. They simply just don’t wanna make it, and as adults, we’re allowed to think they are stoopid for it!
They will sit on Chaos and do NOTHING with them for 20 years. They’ll hate that fans keep asking for them… oh but they’re more than happy to keep selling Chao plushes. Plushes of a thing that appeared in a game twenty years ago. 😒
What really boils my soup is that they COULD have used Chaos in Sonic Frontiers. The opportunity was RIGHT THERE. But instead they created Kokos. Something very close but not quite there. Why?? Why not use this established thing that fans like and want to see again?
This just makes me think of a Monster Rancher type Chao game. Which sounds awesome.
If Arlo's been holding his breath for 22 years, it might explain the deep blue color.
IT WAS a standalone thing long ago. There's some lost content called "Nakayoshi Chao" which was basically playing with a Chao visiting spaces.
Some things worth noting:
* The Chao community is *very* active with the advent of mods, as Chao World Extended and Enhanced Chao World have made quality of life improvements to the point where it's possible to be standalone. Chao World Extended has an API which allows for customization of the majority of the Chao system (The team is still working on the documentation of the API) and the quality of life features fix a lot of the pain points of the Chao system, to the point where it's possible to play the Chao portion of the game alone.
* There are two games currently in development that have come across my radar: Bobo Bay and Poglings -- Bobo Bay has been in active development and has a demo on Steam if you'd like to give it a try.
The things you don't want to hear:
* The point of the Chao system was to be a companion system to Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2, as the VMU (on the Dreamcast) had two games called Chao Adventure and Chao Adventure 2 which directly interfaced with each Sonic Adventure game. On the Gamecube, Sonic Advance, Sonic Advance 2 and Sonic Pinball Party have the Tiny Chao Garden, which is their companion system which links to Sonic Adventure DX and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. Without these, you lose certain functionality like exclusive fruits, and taking your Chao on the go. Sega could make a mobile companion app to their Sonic games to make this a future thing. It's been done before with games to have a companion app.
* The issue with providing a new Chao experience is that we're at the point where we don't know if it's possible for Sonic Team to separate it from the main games. We know it's *possible* (see games like Chao Resort Island) but whether they want to or not is an entirely different thing. They seem not to be motivated by the fact that there's no unique way to bind everything together. I don't know why Iizuka wants to keep it to the "Adventure series" but it's a point of contention in the community as there's been a lot of teasers about Chao as of late. People are screaming for Chao and it seems like Iizuka doesn't really know how to satisfy the itch (nor doesn't know how to pitch the idea to investors)
Pokémon already solved those issues with its boundless hunger for connectivity, culminating in making the smartphone the other device that your game console connects to with apps like Pokémon GO and Pokémon HOME, and anything that goes on a phone is another microtransaction-fueled live service waiting to happen.
I know some people have already mentioned it but "Poglings" is an up and coming Chao Garden inspired Indie game, looks really fun!
Bringing up the DS reminded me of the game Sonic Chronicles. You can find Chao in that game and pair them with one of the characters, and you actually see the Chao flying behind them in battle.
Even if they don't give us a full garden, I'm positive they can give us Chao back as a part of the world. Seeing them in shorts and promo art is nice, but they know they can do more.
On the bright side, we do have inde projects, like Chadtronic's Poglings, to look forward to!
thats one Im kind of concerned about, what will the game be ? like, how will you make gathering the drives and animals interesting ?
They don't for the most part sadly. It's too cozy
Also Bobo Bay
"Chao Garden cannot exist without Adventure". Sonic Advance on the GBA had a mini Chao Garden.
Like how you described at the beginning, Advance was pretty much the minigame to that Chao Garden even for me. "We can't/don't want to make a new one" basically translates to "we don't like money" at this point. It's very silly.
You might like Wobbledogs, closest thing I’ve seen since
My Chao Garden data got corrupted last month because it was in a third-party memory card. It had a Chao from a retail copy of Sonic Advance, so I felt like I killed someone else's dog.
That's some old data
Oof, sorry man. I hate save data corruption.
You know, Chao Garden would be a perfect mobile game, harkening to the mobile Tamagotchis of the 90s. And SEGA could cynically flood it with resource timers (for fruit, drives, and animals) and microtransactions (for fast resources, special Chao, costumes), and I think people would still just be happy to have it.
Just leaving money on the table, guys...
I went so deep into the Chao garden rabbit hole as a kid. Had forum pages printed out on how to get a Chaos Chao and what it meant when my favorite Chao reincarnated or died. I’d spend hours trying to stop a death from happening. Loved the game too, but the Chao Garden was special. Also there’s a Chao garden minigame on the GBA that connects to S2B
There's a kick starter game called Poglings, it's a pet simulator similar to Chao Garden.
@@orangeslash1667 yeah, I used to follow Chadtronic and saw the original announcement but never knew what came of it
@@logandevitt7017 it's still in the works, albeit a bit slower than before since the team helping him left earlier this year, there's monthly updates on the kickstarter
I remember the major Chao Garden website. It was very colorful, well thought out and insanely thorough for getting your favorite Chao, the driver and animal collecting too.
I don't entirely agree with what they said in the interview, but I do understand where they're coming. You said it yourself "The main game of SA2 was [there to get stuff] for the Chao garden" when talking about your experience with the game, and that's just it: The main stages and the Chao Garden are synergistic. You get Chaos drives, animals, rings, etc in the main stages and that gives you an incentive to visit the garden to use them, and then as you get invested in the garden, you have an incentive to go back to the main stages, and repeat. Both also serve as breaks for one another so neither get stale or repetitive. I'm sure a standalone Chao Garden game COULD work (and as much as I want an SA3 and don't like boost gameplay, I don't see why it couldn't be attached to a Boost game or a frontiers 2?), but there would absolutely need to be some sort of level(s) or gameplay thing tied to it you get items from and to prevent it from being too repetitive.
Or, you know, they could just make it a total gross gachafest and get people addicted that way, but i'd rather that not be what we get.
The boost gameplay wouldn't fit cus it doesn't incentivize exploration as much as the adventure style. Ppl alr didn't like the sun/moon medals bein a mandatory part of Unleashed in the daytime stages Chao would make that SO much worse for them & most sonic games R boost in the mainline titles these days
Having the Boost Character grab the animal automatically upon the destruction of a robot wouldn't slow down the gameplay or require exploration.
@@WaterKirby1994 U're doin more than that don't be dumb
@@nightlydata2181 I covered animals, rings/coins can just be placed on the main paths & run through. What else would you need to gather for chao in stages? The problem is that Sonic devs don't want to give us Chao Garden.
@@WaterKirby1994 That's not "exploration". They don't wanna do a garden but there's more than 1 reason beyond jus apathy to it
There is a childhood part of me that demands to learn game design like a mad scientist out of sheer angst about this
"If they won't make another Chao Garden, I swear I will create one for myself if I have to!"
My Chao of choice was a Neutral Chao raised solely on Chao Fruit, bought with 999 rings collected by doing circuits of City Escape. 😄
Soooo much of my play time was just looping through City Escape "Lost Chao Find", gunning for MAXIMUM RING..
That is definitely the kind of brain bending logic I can see only coming from Sonic team.
Yeah, I won't question it, their reason is just stupid. Of course a chao garden feature could be added to other Sonic games outside of the adventure series. Sega has already shown to be able to adapt it when Sonic Adventure went from having small hub areas to just level advancing in SA2, having the chao box with the key to take the player to the chao garden after clearing the stage. Sonic Heroes could have had it, by adding hidden collectables in the stages. With more characters in that game, that'd open the possibility of more variations of chao with characters like Big or Cream. Granted I never played Sonic Frontier, but I imagine a chao garden being hidden in the world and the player could access it anytime once they found it, and have more things to put into the world to use for the chao. I really wish Sega would just say they don't want to do it, or give a reason like needing innovation to bring it back. I'd accept that a lil more.
“If the stars align” is code. The next time the planets line up, that’s the date we will get Adventure 3 with a chao garden.
This is the most SEGA decision. Decades of fans begging for a thing, but there will be no effort to give fans what they want. Absolutely incredible.
To be fair to SEGA, they listen to and have listened to fans a LOT over the years. People forget just how many decisions they made for Sonic games were done directly due to fan feedback and requests. It’s just that when they do follow fan requests, it isn’t always successful.
Chao Garden really just seems to be the one area they’ve been unwilling to move on. It is admittedly baffling that with all the other fan requests SEGA has answers, that is the one where they draw the line.
Chadtronic is making a game called Poglings that's heavily inspired by the Chao garden stuff 🙂
For those interested in a Chao Garden game, Bobo Bay is an indie game in development that is heavily inspired by Chao Garden. It's still a long way from any sort of release, but I thought I'd put it out there.
It's not the same, it's not got the same action or adventure
@@o0kaelas There's a kick starter game called Poglings, it's a pet simulator similar to Chao Garden.
@@orangeslash1667 from what I've seen of poglings it also doesn't hit the same notes that chao garden does.
I mean it's chao garden, but it's missing the adventure half? Combat? Fast exploration?
@@o0kaelas The only other option is Sonic Adventure 2 on Xbox One backward-compatible or Steam????
@@orangeslash1667 sonic adventure 2 on steam is the best bet because atleast that can have stagemods, charactermods, and new chao content added.
cant have all that new content on xbox1
I brought and played Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 from day one and to this day I never like Chao at all.
Kids don't know who cool Chao garden was back in the day of SA2.
SA2 Chao garden with online play would be so CRAZY!
I don't go about my day expecting to hear that masterpiece of a Rusty Ruin remix grace my ears in a random UA-cam video, but you or whoever chooses the music for these videos (especially the Sonic ones) has good taste.
Off-topic, but I can't wait for your video on the PS5 Pro, lmao. We all know it's coming and it's going to be glorious.
Everything about this. I had it down pat in SA 1 and 2 on which animals and drives to get and how to quickly get a lot of rings to get the good fruit for my Chao, found all the secret eggs in SA 1, played the Chao Gardens in the Advance games...and have been waiting for one ever since. "If we do a Chao Garden we have to do SA3" combined with "people have been wanting this"? Sega, HELLO, give the people what they want!
Sega is simply punishing Arlo for hating the Sonic movies.
I knew you were gonna talk about this, you’re thoughts mirror mine in this regard..
I know how you feel Arlo. All I'm going to say is it's the same sort of thing that's happened with F-Zero. No one at the company has a passion for the project. Without passion there's no push to navigate the political waters at the company to secure the manpower and funding to make it happen. And without that there is no game. That's all there is to it.
Just wait until some fan makes a fan game of chao garden and it's amazing
The only thing worse about a developer not wanting to do something and lying about it is actually believing the "purity of vision" bullshit reason you've given not to make the product people want
Minecraft fireflies moment
We need VR chao garden
They just don't want to admit that Chronicles exists.
That's for legal reasons. Technically they 'won' that lawsuit, but it was partly due to Penders missing the statute of limitations, so if something else showed up with the same characters, a new one could be brought. Now he'd probably lose that as the similarities weren't all that strong, but it would still cost money as he's shown he's perfectly willing to throw good money after bad on cheap lawyers to pursue poorly thought out legal cases.
@@professorhaystacks6606 There's a kick starter game called Poglings, it's a pet simulator similar to Chao Garden.
They have to pay Ken Penders enormous royalties every single time they admit Chronicles exists, which has nothing to do with Chao Gardens.
My point is that was the last game with a Chao Garden
@@markerikson7423 Sort of... it wasn't really a fully-featured one. Frankly I had forgotten it even had any such thing.
Don’t worry, if Sega won’t do it, the fans will
And they have! Look up Poglings and Bobo Bay
Virtual creature content is mobile now. All the AI creatures, talking cats, etc. There are loads of virtual creatuers to take care of.
SEGA, even Sonic Team, has a hand in the mobile market, and even Nintendo showed you can use it as a platform for something new. This isn't really an excuse.
@@KirbyLinkACW Sega doesn't want to compete with an already saturated market.
"if you've never played the adventure games then don't because you'll play the chao garden and be sad that it's not in new games" you did not deserve the chao garden and im so fucking happy it's never coming back
Yeah this is bull, they can absolutely make another Chao garden
I've always thought about how one of the greatest strengths of SA2B was the chao garden, not just by being a fun minigame, but that it gave you a tangible reason to replay the levels, and for the most part let you CHOSE which parts of the game to replay, resulting in people choosing the levels they were better at or had more fun with, which made them absolutely dwarf the time spent in levels they didn't like with time spent in levels they did like, which also made the player reach a point where they started to feel a real mastery over their favorite levels layouts. Like, having all the emblems just isn't that tangible of a reward, your number that is only really on screen when it's going up, is maxed out, whoopdy doo. But getting animals and chaos drives to feed your pet chao, getting rings to buy them the cool hats, that's a real area of the game you can sit in and enjoy the results of your effort.
Funny enough there was a leak for a chao mobile game so lol who knows. He was proboly just tired of answering the question.
Likely not by sonic team is the trick.
@@professorhaystacks6606 well yeah... they don't got the budget or manpower for it.
@@pinktrutle1490 Manpower is an issue, so fair point there, but the budget is coming from SOMEWHERE, so if it went to Sonic Team instead they'd at least have the budget.
@@professorhaystacks6606 But if they can't make the game because of they;re already low manpower how can it go to sonic team?
@@pinktrutle1490 eh? I'm saying it couldn't for that reason but that the budget is not a reason. This is assuming it is cheaper to outsource than to hire new personnel.
I absolutely ADORED the Tiny Chao Garden on my GBA as a kid. I would spend ages just playing the little minigames and raising my little Chao. I never had Adventure 2 Battle, so I could never bring the Chao over to it. Other than Rings for purchasing stuff, _there is basically just watching the little guy wandering around. _*_Most of my time with Sonic Advance has been spent in the Tiny Chao Garden._*
There is _very_ clearly an audience for a Chao Garden and the fans are very much begging for it.
Iizuka is a butthead. Sonic Team needs a new guy in charge.
Yeah Izuka says all kinds of wack stuff, sometimes it seems like he just says whatever pops into his head at the moment. Remember the "only male hedgehogs have super forms" comment? 🤦♀
@@aarOuOnthat sounds like something Chris Chan would say
@@aarOuOn There's a kick starter game called Poglings, it's a pet simulator similar to Chao Garden.
@@aarOuOn Also the now defuncked "two worlds" thing.
Pretty disrespectful tbh, Iizuka's done a lot of good for this franchise and has sacrificed a lot for it as well
I just played Sonic Mega Collection and Sonic gems collection and also Sonic Heroes so to this day I don't really know what the chow garden is.
1. I thought you weren’t interested in Modern Sonic?
2. I’m surprised you used footage from the Game Grumps especially since they still haven’t finished this game.
I was literally born in 2002. Crazy that people have been waiting that long.
I hope everyone has a great day :D
I hope you do too!!! 😁
I do not
@@CrodoLibro😭
I would love chao to come back :(
Sonic Fans: First Time?
Hey, i have some good news! I don't know if you are aware, but a fellow UA-camr who had similar woes about Sega and the chao garden had decided to do something about it.
Chadtronic is making a chao garden clone, or a spiritual successor, called Poglings! It is fully funded and on the way to being finished. When it's done, it'll be releasing on a few different platforms, like the Switch!
Not exactly a chao garden game, but at least it is more than SEGA is doing about it, that's for sure.
Hot take. The Chao garden is the worst part of Sonic adventure 1 and 2.
If y’all want more chao garden, highly recommend getting the pc version of sa2 and looking into mods. Specifically chao world extended and enhanced chao world, those mods add a ton of content and longevity to the chao garden. It fills the gap sega’s left pretty well I’d say, and still gets updated with new stuff. Along with other mods to just generally fix the not great port, like input controls, render fix, and cutscene revamp.
This, along with the fact that the modding community is active with customization mods (thanks to Chao World Extended's API), it's a good way to play Sonic Adventure 2 on PC. We're in the middle of something big to encourage the Chao Garden resurgence.
I reckon we're on the same wavelength or something cuz literally just two days ago I started rewatching a whole bunch of Chao let's play type content here on UA-cam.
I miss it so much.
Thanks for reminding me how old I am... 22 years since SA2B is wild..
I didn't know you were a chao garden fan! I feel the same way about it. Been waiting years and years...
I've seen sega trying all of these different concepts and changes to the formula over the years. It feels like that they're still trying to find their identity with Sonic games, even after all these years. They want a financial home run, and they haven't had it. Since they don't have a reliable cash cow, they're not open to putting in some niche feature. They are unwilling to take the risk.
I feel like there's a hole in the market for a game like chao garden. Maybe Poglings will be it. We need some indie studio to PROVE financially that there is a market for this stuff. Then sega will be like oh now it's a safe bet...which is lame but it is what it is.
Projects like Poglings and Bobo Bay showcase how the concept can and will exist standalone. Since resources for Chao were collected outside the actual garden, there are many ways to fill that gap and create a fun game loop. Farming, minigames, the Chao events themselves, exploration maps involving using your raised Chao to access new areas. The list goes on. You could slap a deep pet sim on as a companion to anything, let alone the experience on its own being fun and worth the investment. It's incredibly flexible.
If Iizuka doesn't see it, it's Sega's loss. Indie devs will pick up the slack.
"SEGA Just CRUSHED My Dreams"
My friend, that's part of being a SEGA fan. My heart goes out to the fans of the NiGHTS series begging SEGA to just acknowledge the franchise.
I had the exact same experience. except i perfected the game because i had very few games to play. Even my sisters got memory cards so they could have a chao garden and they didn't even like sonic and were years older than me lol
Edit: I also agree with Arlo. I always thought Chaos could be a its own game. When i was studying game art & design i planned out a similar game for a class. wasn't hard to make it stand alone...
I'm not the biggest Sonic enjoyer but I'm a little inside the community. I have never heard of or had the idea of a stand-alone Chao garden game but WOOOOW, that sounds really great!
I don't know why they can't just do a companion app-type deal. link the Chao Garden app with Sonic/SEGA games somehow and when you complete a stage in a Sonic game (or some other task in another game) you get rewarded with rings, animals, and drives, and if you complete a special task (like getting an S-rank in a stage) you get rewarded with a special cosmetic item for your chao. they could probably also include special reward codes for similar stuff on physical media like the comics, any sound tracks, etc.
it's brand integration, it's advertising, it's fun, and it's something people have been begging for literal decades.
Alright Arlo im about to blow your mind. Theres a dude making a standalone chao garden game with a demo out RIGHT NOW its called Bobo Bay
I feel like the big appeal of the Chao Garden is the adventure gameplay attached. They both bounce off each-other and the progression of both the garden and the main game extend the life of the overall product. You have an incentive to replay levels because you want to raise your Chao. You also are more invested in those levels because you are interacting and looking for things for your Chao.
I think a stand alone game would need another way to distribute items for your Chao. Anything mobile like would be too repetitive and tedious.
They could just attach it to a different style of gameplay like Sonic and Blaze. I could see you collecting Chao items on a 2D plane with a 3D model and 3D garden system attached.
Edit: Also would they have hero and dark Chao? They would have to rethink some systems. There was a very deep system where some characters touching Chao or helping them changed the Chaos physiology.
Can't be stand alone. Guess Tiny chao garden doesn't exist.
And once again, fangames do what Sega don't.
1:32 He just like me, fr fr. When I was young, Chao adventure 2 battle on the gamecube was all I cared about. I didn't have computer access so I ended up having to figure all this stuff out myself and I enjoyed it to no end. This animal gives this, these colored drive forms give this, angels, devils. Even though I played it so often I still never scrapped the surface of the chao stuff. It was just so soothing. Though with how sonic games have been recently, maybe this is a blessing in disguise? There was so much depth and nuance in SA2B that I feel like if they did it today it'd just have so many cut corners, missing features, etc.
The only other thing that I think gets teased or referenced as much but isn't actually given to us is another Kirby Air ride game. It's getting to the point where the references are so plentiful that it's almost infuriating lol