Having troubles raising a Chao? After having searched around for information on raising and evolving Chaos I found information on them to be either scarce or non-existent. Most other guides merely list off a bunch of Chao evolution combinations and a list of colors; well here is how Chaos really work…
You’ll start off with two Chao eggs when you first enter the Chao world. You can let these eggs sit there until they hatch or you can pick them up and shake them to speed up the process (walk up to an egg, press and hold B and begin to move the control stick, much like how you shake down fruits from the trees for a few seconds and set it back down). You can also throw it against the wall, although this will usually result in your Chao hatching with a pretty hideous expression on its face (and it’s permanent) so I don’t recommend it. It will also result in your Chao not liking you right off the bat, so just don’t do it! Another method of speeding up the hatching process is to pick the egg up and jump around with it for a while before setting it back down. Each one of these egg-hatching methods will give your Chao a different facial expression: mad, sad, or happy, or just a regular Chao. I haven’t found any way to get a consistent face yet though.
Once your Chao has hatched you can begin feeding it. Start by feeding it fruit from the tree in whichever zone your Chao is in. Your Chao will also eat these on their own so be careful not to over-feed them. The Chao will throw the food away if they don’t want it.
Make sure you take some time before evolving it to send your Chao to class. The classroom is where your Chao improves its intelligence. During some Chao races the intelligence factor of your Chao will play an important role in how well they do so try to keep them as intelligent as possible. The classroom is also a place you can put your Chao if you need to get them out of the Garden for a while (which helps to prevent unwanted aging).
Steps of your Chao’s Life
Now here is where things start to get confusing. There are many theories as to how evolution of a Chao occurs, but after extensive testing I’ve found the following method to work most consistently and accurately.
The first evolution is a permanent, special evolution and all of your Chao’s preceding evolutions will revolve around the outcome of this first evolution. The Chao will evolve primarily based on what type of Chao Drives you give it. There are four types: Swimming, Running, Flying and Power.
It’s easy to tell which Chao Drive is which as the color of the Chao Drive matches the stat it will increase (e.g. yellow will increase swimming). This first evolution takes both a large amount of time and a large amount of Drives, contrary to what many other guides say. As your Chao ages the effects of what drives you’re giving it become more and more noticeable.
For example: if your Chao was just born and you gave it 100 swimming Chao Drives you would hardly notice a difference, but if you wait about a half hour after giving it these items, it will start to change color. For some reason when a Chao has just hatched out of its egg it will take a much longer time for Chao Drives to have a noticeable effect, so give it time.
Another factor is the Chaos’ alignment (neutral, hero or dark). Depending on what alignment you want you should start feeding your Chao using fruit from the hero room or dark room (or neutral if that’s what you’re aiming for) and feed the Chao using characters of that alignment. For a neutral aligned Chao just feed it with both typed of characters evenly.
After a given amount of time and food the Chao will evolve with a new alignment (or still neutral if that’s what you’re aiming for) and will be one of five types. This gives 15 possible Chao combinations:
Neutral>Running Type
Neutral>Swimming Type
Neutral>Power Type
Neutral>Flying Type
Neutral>Normal Type
Dark>Running Type
Dark>Swimming Type
Dark>Power Type
Dark>Flying Type
Dark>Normal Type
Hero>Running Type
Hero>Swimming Type
Hero>Power Type
Hero>Flying Type
Hero>Normal Type
Make sure to feed your Chao only the right type of fruit and the right type of Chao Drive depending on which of the first 15 evolutionary combinations you want.
Important: I can’t clear this up enough! Evolving a Chao has nothing to do with what animal parts it has on. Those are just really terrible side-effects of using animals to level up your Chao. Giving your Chao an animal will improve its stats the same way a Chao Drive will (only less effectively) and potentially give your Chao a body part similar to the used animal. It’s not permanent though. If you wish to remove these bad looking animal parts just get a Dog-Skeleton animal and give it to your Chao. The Dog-Skeleton doesn’t give you animal parts but has a chance to take existing ones away.
After the Chao goes into the egg it will hatch and have a brand new cool looking appearance! The neutral type Chaos look neat as well, but it’s important to note that a neutral type Chao will not evolve any further beyond this point.
The Second Evolution is not really an evolution, contrary to popular belief. Your Chao won’t go into an egg for this transformation and it is not a permanent affect.
If your Chao has just hatched it won’t be able to change its appearance for quite some time. When your Chao reaches a certain age giving it a different color of Chao Drives will have an effect on it. You can feed it any type of Chao drive now and each of the 15 original combinations of first evolution Chaos now has 5 more possible looks. The effect of the new Chao Drives will not be as drastic as the first transformation, but will have a noticeable effect on the Chao (typically a color change). None of the effects are permanent, so take your time and have fun seeing how many different ways you can transform your Chao.
Example: a hero flying Chao normally has two purple hairs on its head and medium sized wings. If you were to feed it lots of purple Chao Drives you would notice a few changes. They’re small yet very noticeable changes. In this example the Chao would gain two extra hairs and its wings would grow larger. It takes time, but after a certain amount of time after your Chaos first evolution, say three hours, these effects are become nearly instant as you switch between different Chao Drive colors.
Example 2: When the Hero Flying Chao gets it’s two extra feathers and larger wings and I started to give it green Chao Drives the effects were noticeable almost instantly. The problem with this evolutionary stage is that its nearly impossible to tell whether your Chaos transformation is complete or whether feeding it more Chao drives will continue to make it change. In the example I used of the Chao with the big wings - feeding it green Chao Drives made it lose its wings and turn an ugly tint of green, so in this case it was a change for the worse! Take some time to experiment! There are approximately 75 different Chao combinations.
If any of this guide is unclear or you’re still having trouble feel free to send me an e-mail.
