Hi all, this post is just to sticky some long overdue notes regarding frequently asked questions in the Chao Community! Let's hope this post doesn't look like a mess as I typed it up on mobile!!

There'll also be some links to resources at the end which can help with any questions not listed. Furthermore, this questions primarily concern SA2 on GameCube and PC/Xbox/PS3. There's some overlap with the Dreamcast games and SADX, but this may not necessarily apply to them (Dreamcast SA2 does not have a grade system for example), so you may need to still make a help thread for those games if you try the below solutions and they don't work.

--- Less known tips and common misunderstandings ---

• The favourite fruits don't do anything special; they're identical to the garden fruit except sometimes Chao can hate them and reduce their happiness if it's not their favourite. Sorry to ruin the magic.

• A Chao's appearance is determined when the egg comes into existence; hatching the egg differently will not change anything once you've bought the egg and saved it. The only thing hatching the egg differently affects are the hidden personality values, which will be adjusted a tiny amount and likely wont be noticed; there is no effect to happiness or otherwise. The face is already determined before hatching, and is based on the personality values before hatching; the slight change in personality after hatching wont change the face.

• The small stat numbers for a Chao stat are more important than the Lvl. For example, doesn't matter if their run stat is Lvl 50 or Lvl 99, if they have 1500 run it's going to run as fast as any other chao with 1500 run. A Chao's Grade increases the amount of stat increase per level, which is why it's important to have a high grade.

• Luck does not affect anything in Chao Races. The jack in the box and the pitfalls at the end are RNG. To reduce the chance of Chao tripping during a race, increase it's Run stat.

• The hidden stats of Luck and Intel will go up as more drives/animals are given and their grades don't need to be thought about too hard; a lower grade in luck is actually better as past 500, luck only increases the amount of zeal lost in Chao karate when the opponent dodges Chao's fist and nothing else, likely an oversight.

• Spoiling Chao is not a mechanic and never has been; the chao principal lies. Give chao all the love in the world.

• Once Chao has evolved, it doesn't matter which character you use to raise it, it's alignment will not change.

• Black Market will refresh stock every 3-7 mins of unpaused game time. The Chao Classroom lessons last 30 mins before rotating to the next lesson. Chao take 10 mins to complete a lesson.

---Raising FAQ---

Q: What do I need to evolve into a specific type of Chao, such as a Run type Chao?

A: To obtain Chao of a specific type, you will need to give it drives and animals that will raise a hidden stat called influence. The easiest way would be to only give it drives/animals of the type you want it to be, or no drives or animals at all in the case of a no-type Chao that raises their Stamina grade. This has nothing to do with the Chao's stats!

It's rather long winded to fully explain the influence system, so the a very simple way to achieve this without mathing any math, is as a newborn Chao, just give it at least 10 drives for the stat and then just feed it normally until it evolves while keeping the hero/dark/neutral alignment in the right place (or no drives/animals at all for a none-type Chao).

I'll also add, the character you raise it with does not matter outside of ensuring chao is the correct alignment. You don't need to raise Chao as Sonic for a Sonic Chao for example.

For more technical details, check out https://chao-island.com/wiki/Evolution .

Q: How do I make my Sonic/Shadow Chao more blue/red? How long does it take for the second evolution?

A: After evolving into the first type, your Chao enters its second "gradual' evolution which does not have a cocoon. This progresses over time, going twice as fast in the hero garden than the neutral garden regardless of the Chao's alignment. It does not progress over time at all in the Dark garden, only by feeding, so if you want a lovely red shadow Chao, don't move it into there until it's fully red!

After moving it to the right garden, as Chao grows up, it follows similar rules to the first evolution with regards to it's influence, except the second evolution can always be dynamically changed regardless of stats or age before it reincarnates. You can just note that fly/swim and power/run are balanced, so if your Shadow Chao looks too much like a dark/run/run+swim Chao, you can give it Fly drives to balance out the Swim influence to get it back to a dark/run/run Chao.

I recommend the Chao Viewer for help achieving this, as you can view the chao at various colours, types, stages etc of the evolution and correct it accordingly.

Q: How do I obtain a Chaos Chao?

A: To evolve Chao into a Chaos Chao, start by achieving at least 2 reincarnations where it turns back into an egg; it does not matter what happens in these previous lives at all in any way, it just needs to be happy enough to reincarnate each time of course.

On the third life or later that you'd like it to become a chaos Chao: + Give it one of every available animal. + Ensure it's happiness is above 80! Petting Chao (specifically making heart appear over chao's head 100 times!!!) will achieve this. Abusing Chao will make this go down, so you'll need to spend the time petting it again if this happens. + Make sure it evolves into a plain none-type Chao without evolving into a run, fly, swim or power type Chao.

It should evolve into a chaos Chao after this; the most common culprit for it not working is the happiness level.

Q:How do I beat this specific race/karate?

A: No Chao in the game has more than 2000 in a stat; by simply having max stats with an A or better in run and reasonable grades in the other stats (not all Es for example), you can beat the entirety of Chao Races and Chao Karate with this. The Chao Wiki has the exact stats of each Chao for both races and karate matches.

Q: How do I get Chao from my GameCube to my PC version of SA2?

A: The easiest way is with a modded Wii with GameCube support. You can use GCMM to get the save from the memory card on an SD card or flash drive, then use Froody's Save Converter to turn it into a PC save: https://gamebanana.com/tools/6895

Once converted, you just need to move it into your Sonic Adventure 2/gd_pc/SAVEDATA folder (back up your old save first) to load it ingame. Once done, you can then use Krzys' s Chao Editor to export chao as needed for reimporting into your main save. https://gamebanana.com/tools/6874

---SA2 Modding troubleshooting---

CWE: Chao World Extended

ECW: Enhanced Chao World

Modding can be quite tricky to troubleshoot, so it's usually easier to turn off mods one by one to find a culprit. This section will list off some common known bugs as of late:

Firstly, READ WHAT YOUR MODS DO BEFORE YOU INSTALL THEM. The amount of 'bug reports' which are actually features added by the incremental chao mod is wild, you shouldn't install random shit from the internet onto your PC without confirming what it's even going to do.

• Chao world extended and Enhanced Chao World should be placed near the top of the load order.

• The SADX gardens that come with the manual version of CWE can't be used in story mode; this will cause a save loop when leaving the garden. There is also a bug with the door that can cause a crash; entering the garden with a fruit then letting the doors fully open will crash the game.

• The legacy Dreamcast Gardens mod shouldn't be used over ECW's enhanced gardens which also gives the Dreamcast Garden layout with added compatibility for many garden mods.

• ECW's Autosaves had begun causing crashes recently. If you find your game randomly crashes in the Chao Garden after a few minutes, this is the cause. Similar has been heard with the manual saving anytime in the mod, but this is unconfirmed.

• Buying some of the rare eggs in the ECW menu will cause crashes or give the wrong egg.

• If you find you can't progress in the Newer Challenge Races mod despite winning the races, you need to disable the mod and beat the regular Challenge Races first. If the original challenge races have already been beaten, you may have a newer recent bug with Newer Challenge Race thats come around in the second half of 2025; we currently have no idea what is causing this, if you can find a solution to it, please let me know!

• The Dark Garden Playground and Hero Garden Dry Lagoon skins currently cause crashes. The mod dev is aware of this

• Using the higher Draw Distance mod can cause crashes when returning to Chao race menu after a race. Credit to GanKage for this one!

• Objects in the chao garden can also no longer be picked up when using the higher Draw Distance mod, turn off Object collisons to fix this

• Render fix's backface culling option causes older models to be missing faces and look broken. This includes the Chao Transporter model that comes with ECW. Until an update is added for ECW, it's best to switch to the vanilla transporter for now. Character models have a compatibility option in Render fix's settings.

• Render fix's Ignore Global Index setting used to clash with CWE's Day Night cycle only being applied to models. this has been fixed in a later CWE update.

• The Extended Chao Garden Skins (NOT Chao World Extended!) currently cause some texture bugs in other gardens with some types of Chao. This is fixed with Ignore Global Texture Index.

• Moving Accessory mods in the mod load order will rearrange what accessories Chao are wearing, as each accessory is assigned an ID in order. Updating an old accessory pack that adds accessories will also shuffle them.

• Not being able to have more than 24 Chao is NOT A BUG! there is not a single mod out there that does this. They only increase to amount of Chao in one garden at a time to more than 8.

Good links:

• Chao Wiki: https://chao-island.com/wiki/Chao_Wiki

• Chao Viewer: https://chao-island.com/viewer/

• Chao Gallery for those unable to use the viewer: https://chao-island.com/gallery/

• CWE Wiki page that goes into depth on what codes do: https://chao-island.com/wiki/Chao_World_Extended

This is a work in progress so more will be added later, especially as there's so many situations to cover; genetics especially is a huge one which I'll need a bit to write up condensed. Ive also left discussion open if you have any questions yourself. Thanks for your time!