Nostalgic gaming feature breakdownfrom @mike_sunday

Transcript

This is way more than a minigame. This was the Chao Garden from Sonic Adventure. Now everyone remembers the virtual pet craze from the nineties and February, but I don't think any system was as complex and had the loyalty that the Chao System had developed by the Sonic Team. Now the Chao Garden was actually built on top of the a life system from Nights Into Dream for the Sega Saturn. But what's so great about the Chao system is that it's treated as a core game loop mechanic as opposed to just a separate mini game in the Sonic universe. So while you're playing Sonic Adventure, you actually collect chaos drives and you're able to give them to the chows, which gives them a physical mutation like tails or horns, but also affects their ability to swim, fly, their stamina, their power, etcetera. But it wasn't until Sonic Adventure two where we got the Chao Kindergarten, and the system totally went berserk. You could buy rare Chao eggs, seeds, different items to give the Chows. There were classrooms where the Chows could learn specific skills. You could even visit a fortune teller or your Chaos could even get sick. But what's even more memorable is the VMU unit for the Sega Dreamcast. You could actually load your Chao onto it and take it with you. Now I never played Sonic Adventure two for the Dreamcast better I did play it for GameCube. And that's where they introduced the tiny Chao Garden which you could access through a Game Boy Advance and a cable. So So after a certain amount of time your chows would eventually expire and depending on how happy they were they would either be reborn or sort of just disintegrate which is quite sad if you think about it. But it's really this attachment to these virtual pets which makes this game so special. They behave like infants or better. And so when you pet them or interact with them, they may clap or seem happy, which is what makes you want to take care of these chows as opposed to neglecting them. Now tier were super rare chows that people tier to unlock like ghost chows, ones wearing like a shell, flame chows, but the ultimate was the chaos chao who never died. They were immortal better they couldn't actually breed. Outside of the sonic games, the symbol of chows have gained their own life and have become an iconic mascot and can be found on pfps across any sort of social media platform. So do you remember Chauce? Which was your favorite? Let's have a discussion down in the comments.