The only ULTIMATE Chao Guide - Guide for Sonic Adventure 2 Battle

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle
 Raising Chao

SECTOINS (Hit Ctrl+F and put in the name of the section you want to find to 
skip through faster)

Section 1: About SA2B and Chao
Section 2: Alignment-Hero, Neutral, Dark
Section 3: Animals
Section 4: Chaos Drives
Section 5: Fruits
Section 6: Toys and other goodies
Section 7: RINGS OMGROFLMAO
Sectoin 8: Q and A
Section 9: Copyrights and other fun stuff like that
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UPDATES: The one section NOT found in the Contents
July 24, 2008
-Updated Animals section
-Updated Q and A answers.
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Section 1: About SA2B and Chao
Sonic Adventure 2: Battle
Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (commonly shortened to the acronym SA2B) was Sonic's 
first appearance on a Nintendo system. It was a redo of the hit game Sonic 
Adventure 2 for the SEGA Dreamcast. The game reintroduced Shadow as the new, 
anti-Sonic, who has a crazy past. SA2B was released in 2001 (the exact date is 
June 21, but I could be wrong), and has sold millions of copies since. The game 
is considered by many to be Sonic's last great game.
Chao
Instead of the common "cute adorable animal" definiton, I came up with 
something better. A Chao is an antromorphic, child-like, animal that could be 
considered the "babies" of the Sonicverse. Chao have the ability to take on the 
appearance of an animal they are given, and can absorb Chaos Drives to improve 
various stats (such as Running, Swimming, Power, and Flight). Chao are 
generally very playful, and love attention. The Chao actually made their first 
appearance in NiGHTs (not Sonic Adventure), but the chao we know now were 
introduced as "pets" in Sonic Adventure.
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Section 2: Alignment-Hero, Neutral, Dark
Like many things, Chao can be raised through a Heroic alignment, a Neutral 
alignment, or a Villainous alignment. Each one can be achieved through a manner 
of who you get to raise the chao. Heroic Chao are usually the product of being 
raised mainly by the Hero characters; Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles (you'll hear 
that in order to get a Hero chao, it must be raised primarily by Sonic. This 
isn't true, as you can get a Hero chao by raising it with ANY of the Hero 
characters). Villainous Chao are usually the product of being raised mainly by 
the Villain characters; Shadow, Dr. Robotnik (Eggman), and Rouge (like with 
Hero Chao, you'll hear to get a Dark Chao, it must be raised primarily by 
Shadow. This is also false, spending a majority of the time around any Villain 
character will get you a Dark Chao). In many minds, the hardest alignment to 
get is the Neutral Alignment, mainly because you have to split the time you 
spend with a Chao in half between Heroes and Villains. Is it impossible to get 
a neutral chao, no. Is it hard to get a neutral chao, very.
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Section 3: Animals
Animals are generally the easier method of Chao raising. Animals boost multiple 
stats at once, but raise one stat moreso than others. Animals are also divided 
into multiple subgroups based on what they boost the most. The groups are 
Flight (purple), Power (red), Speed (green), Swim (Yellow), Neutral (blue), 
Special Light (Gold), and Special Dark (black or white, I haven't seen one in a 
while). Neutral boost no primary stat, and the Specials have unusal effects. 
With Dark Specials, there's bats, skeledogs (or horses, I'm not sure what it 
is), and the INSANELY rare mutant. Bats can get rid of your Chao's legs forever 
(and I mean this, it happened to me once). I'm not sure what the skele-thing 
does, but I think it helps your chao learn how to put stuff on it's head. The 
mutant is the most hardest animal to find ever, but it seems to have cool 
effects. Apparently, the mutant turns that little emoti-ball above your chao's 
head into a fireball, but I'm not sure, cause i've never actually found the 
mutant.
Animals can be found one of two ways, the first of which is out in the open 
just roming around. There are usually 20 animals in the action stages, 15 
shooting stages, and 10 animals in the hunting stages. Collect all the animals 
and you get a free life. The other way to collect animals is to find and break 
the last 2 of 3 chao boxes in a stage. The second box you break (if you collect 
the key) will have four or five animals inside of it. The thrid box (if you 
collect the key from the first) will have the rare animal for the stage inside.
Every animal and it's specific sections:
 Speed
  Rabbit
  Cheetah
  Boar (Pig)
 Power
  Gorrilla
  Tiger
  ???
 Swim
  Seal
  Penguin
  Otter
 Fly
  Peacock
  Parrot
  Buzzard
 Neutral
  Ram
  Raccoon
  Skunk
 Special Light
  Unicorn
  Dragon
  Pheonix
 Special Dark
  Bat
  Skele-horse
  Mutant
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Section 4: Chaos Drives
Chaos Drives are normally the method of raising preferred by those who don't 
want their chao to possess strange animal traits (Pheonix wings? Dragon breath? 
Psh, not for me). Chaos Drives only upgrade one skill (Flying, Speed, Power, or 
Swimming) and don't upgrade as well as animals. However, it's easier to get 
mulitple copies of a chaos drive, mainly because every stage that isn't around 
Eggman's Pyramid of evil has GUN Robots, and they're powered by Chaos Drives.
If you prefer to go and collect endless amounts of Chaos Drives as opposed to 
having to search for the animals AGAIN, the best characters to use are Dr. 
Robotnik and Tails, because you can kill everything, but collect what you want. 
I prefer to find the Chaos Drives in their first stages (on the Prison Island) 
because...well, because there's and abundance of enemies, very few places that 
you're gonna die, and nothing kills you back most of the time.
If you use Sonic and Shadow to collect Chaos Drives, things could be hap-
hazardous, because you don't have that freedom of choosing which Chaos Drive 
you want most of the time. With the hedgehogs, the plan is kill, grab, and go! 
Their stages aren't geared towards collecting the Drives, but more towards 
getting rings.
Using Rouge and Knuckles is pretty much useless. You don't encounter many 
enemies in their stages, and you probably have better things to be looking for.
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Section 5: Fruits
A fruit generally does not raise any stat other than stamina, with the only 
exception being the Chao Fruit (I think that's what it's called, it might 
be "Skill" but I'm not sure). The fruits generally raise the stamina stat by 
four section...things, and keep your Chao full. As it grows up and matures, you 
won't have to feed your Chao, it will pick up fruits on it's own.
But there are other fruits that can raise OTHER stats that aren't stamina. What 
you need is a GC/GBA connection cable and any Sonic Advanced game that has a 
Tiny Chao Garden. Buy the fruits from those games, and import them into SA2B. 
Now you have new fruits that raise more than just stamina. The only problem is 
getting your chao to EAT the fruit...
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Section 6: Toys and other goodies
So, have you seen those screens of Chao playing with toys? Yes, you actually 
can get those, and it's as simple as raising your chao to be insanely good at 
one (or more) thing(s)! Just raise your Chao's stamina (always) and any 
particular stat that you think the Chao should specialize in. I'd recommend 
going to the Chao Doctor in the kindergarden and seeing what your "specializes" 
in. Once you've gotten your Chao's specialized skill up to what you think is a 
considerably good level (*Cough*99*Cough*), put them in the Chao Races. Win the 
race on all levels, get a prize! Simple as that.
I'm sure that you've seen a Chao that has cool stuff on it's head. Well, you 
can get and eggshell that came with the Chao after it hatched, and hope it puts 
that on it's head, or you can go to the black market and buy something there. 
However, things in the black market are expensive, and unless you have one of 
those crazy cheats that give you the maz rings, then you're not getting what 
you want for a LOOOOOONG time.
Seeds are fun. If you've beaten the crab pool beginner race, then you've gotten 
the shovel, and if you've beaten the flying beginner race, then you have the 
waterbucket...thing. If you have those, then that's all you need, and if you 
haven't, beat those races. But with those, that's all you need to plant a seed. 
Just give the seed to your Chao, give them a lil bit to find a place to plant 
the seed, then wait for the tree to grow. It's a really cheap way to get 
multiple fruits for free that would've costed millions of Rings otherwise! I 
think the seeds cost about 300 rings, but the fruits cost about 120 each, and 
you can get at least 3 fruits at one time from a planted tree, so you've saved 
360 rings right there.
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Section 7: RINGS OMGROFLMAO
Rings are pretty much the lifeblood for buying stuff ANYWHERE. You can collect 
rings by running through stages and not dieing or getting hit at all. Or you 
can sell stuff, which is kinda useless at first, but whatever!
If you prefer to collect rings, I recommend going through City Escape (Sonic's 
first stage), and doing that millions of times, cause if you don't get hit at 
all, and know all the secrets, you can collect over 300 rings in one trip!
But if that takes too long (3 minutes a run, I COULD BE DOING BETTER THINGS), 
then you can go out and sell stuff. There's a glitch in the game that allows 
you to sell really high priced stuff, and keep the item you just sold. What you 
have to do is save first, cause if something awesome just happened, you don't 
wanna lose it. Then you take your high priced item, take it to the black market 
and sell it. LIKE THE SPLIT SECOND AFTER YOU SELL THE ITEM, hold down 
A+B+X+Y+L+R (in other words, hit the game reset code) or just hit RESET on the 
Gamecube/Wii (if you're playing on one) and then go back into the 
stage select. You should have all the rings you got from the item. Go into the 
Chao Garden, look for the item. If it's where you last left it, then you didn't 
screw up! If it isn't where you left it, well you'd better hope that you can 
collect enough rings to buy that item again. But if you did it right, just 
rinse, lather, and repeat until you have the desired amount of rings.
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Section 8: Q and A

Q: How long does it take for my Chao to evolve?
A: Uhm...I don't know the exact time, but stay at least an hour in the Chao 
Garden.

Q: How does time work in the game?
A: With the Chao, time only passes when you are in the garden. Otherwise, time 
is pretty much stopped.

Q: How do I know when my Chao is about to evolve?
A: Excellent question! I actually do not know how to predict that your Chao is 
about to evolve. If I do find out, then I'll be sure to tell you.

Q: I'm lazy and I don't feel like collecting the same animals over and over 
again, is there like an infinate animal cheat or something?
A: Yes and No. No, there is not a cheat, but yes, there is a glitch. What you 
do is you take the Chao, get it to sit still for long enough...somehow, find 
your animal, stand in front of the Chao with enough distance between you and it 
so it doesn't grab the animal, place the animal in front of the Chao, and the 
Chao should use the animal, but the animal should still be able to be reused. 
If you don't understand how this works through text, go to Youtube and look 
up "Infinite Animal Cheat-Sonic Adventure 2 Battle" There should be plenty of 
people willing to show you how to do this godforsaken glitch.

Q: Have you ever done the Infinite Animal Glitch?
A: Yes. I actually have done it. I've used the glitch plenty of times. I've 
increased my chao's skill level up to twenty levels once.

Q: What's better, Hero Dark or Neutral Chao?
A: I don't really have a personal preference.

Q: What's your power level?
A: I'm pretty sure it isn't over 9000.
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Section 9: Copyrights and other fun stuff like that

Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Chao, Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower, Dr. 
Robotnik/Eggman, Rouge, Knuckles, Shadow the Hedgehog and anything related that 
I might've missed are all (C) SEGA and Sonic Team
Youtube is (C) Google I think...

This guide was made specifically for Cheatcodes.com and was made because every 
other guide I found was lacking in useful information in my opinion. Everyone 
else needs permission to post this, or a section of this guide anywhere.
Questions, Comments, or stuff that you know that I didn't in here, just e-mail 
me at speedmanic_sm@yahoo.com OR g.gabriel.p@gmail.com.

NOTE: Just because I give you my e-mail address doesn't mean that I'm going to 
be your friend. Keep the questions somewhat formal, and don't beg me to be your 
friend.
NOTE: If you've asked me a question that I don't know the answer to, then there 
isn't much I can do about it. Don't go whining to your mom because I'm being 
mean and not giving you an answer that I don't have. That's childish, and I 
have better things to do than waste my time with childish people.\
NOTE: No, I haven't completed this guide yet. It will be updated as I relearn 
everything I knew before, because it's been forever and a day since I last 
played SA2B. If you tell me something that I didn't know, I'll put it on here, 
and give you the proper credit you deserve. Why? Because everyone likes credit.
NOTE: I'm pretty sure my power level isn't over 9000.