Old Chao Strats

In the HD version of this game, when you first enter the chao garden, you generate the stats for the chao, and these stats are based on the character you first enter the garden as. In this run, I enter the garden first as Sonic which generates a chao with a D in Swim, C in fly, A in run, B in power and E in stamina (This is the best case scenario).

The plan is to raise 3 chao. 1 Child Chao to compete in all the races, 1 Hero Chao and 1 Dark chao. The Child Chao I plan to max/get close to max on all the stats. I do this by using the animal glitch (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9URM1l6wMnw) to re-use an animal as many times as I want to. I use tails as the character for this as he's the easiest to control within the garden. 2 chao are generated when entering the garden, I buy the 3rd in the black market (Along with 4 extra fruit for evolution purposes which are explained later)

The animals I use are Condors, followed by Skeleton dogs, followed by Half-Fishes. The combination of these 3 animals are both readily available in stages (Aquatic Mine, Pumpkin Hill and Green Forest respectively) and raise the stats to 99 with the least amount of animal uses. I use 129 condors, 269 Skeleton dogs and then 162 half fishes (560 total). Condors are first as it is the only one out of the 3 that reduces a stat (Run). Skeleton dogs are next as I can tell when I've given exactly 269 of them via the fly stat (as Half-Fishes don't give any fly). I don't raise any stamina levels for the Child Chao as it is not needed and takes way too long to level it up with fruit

Evolution is a hidden stat that varies from 0 to 1 and increases by 1/60th every 2:30 minutes. The only way to influence this stat is by feeding a Chao. Each bite that a Chao takes from a piece of fruit increases this stat by 1/200th. So the main aim is to feed the Hero and Dark Chao as much as possible while maxing out the Child Chao. Fruits on the tree take ~ 7 minutes to grow after the previous fruit is shaken off. Grinding while trying to feed doesn't work as things get way too hectic and I end up losing time overall. So the plan is to have "Feeding sessions" where every 7 minutes, I just feed the other two chao with all 9 fully grown fruit in the garden. Doing this 8 times within the hour should cause the chao to evolve. Leaving the garden at any point stops this natural increase in evolution stat, so things like going to the black market to buy fruit will just waste time.

Super Karate requires some luck in damage ranges from the last two Chao, as well as luck on whether my Chao kicks or punches. (Kicks are faster, but do less damage, however since I have an A in run, one kick at the start allows me to ring out much easier). It is essential that my swim and power ~ 90 otherwise I start to lose time due to longer battles and I run the risk of dying.

For races. Run stat is by far the most important (~12 seconds loss for every level of run lower than 99) follwed by Swim (~4 seconds) Fly (~3 seconds) and Power (~1.5 seconds). So run is essential to reach 99. Swim is also important for both Karate and Races, but I can afford to let a few levels slide. Power reaches 99 before the others so not much I can influence there and Fly is the easiest to raise due to condors giving a massive amount, but is arguably the least important out of the 4. Stamina boosting is fastest while flying by quite a large margin.

Finally, once one Chao starts to evolve into a Hero Chao, I abuse the other Chao to make him dark (much faster than switching out characters and petting) and then wait for it to evolve. (;_;)

Chao take up about 3:30 hours of this run and start about 4:20 hours into it. I feel that this is as much a part of this speedrun as any other mission and although it's quite different from the rest of the run, it still requires me to focus and not make errors in movement or strategy. I don't want to run things like "All emblems w/o chao emblems" because I simply love doing the chao portion of this run! ^_^