Sonic Adventure

[5 emblems]

This part of the game can be very time-consuming and tedious, depending on how you go about it. It can take anywhere from 5-10 hours.

There are five Chao races you need to win, each with two circuits: Beginner and Jewel. You have to win all the Beginner races before Jewel unlocks. You only get an emblem for completing each Jewel race.

Now, raising Chao can get quite complicated, and there are numerous guides out there describing all the varieties of Chao and various clever and esoteric ways you can breed them. As far as the race emblems are concerned, you don't need to bother with that. You just want to boost your Chao's stats as fast as possible, regardless of Chao type.

You access Chao in the Adventure Field. Use the Chao Garden that's in Station Square (left elevator in the hotel lobby). There will be eggs in there already when the game starts. Just play the game and let them hatch on their own.

[Chao Stats and Animals]
There are five stats to boost. When you play action stages, you can pick up animals after you defeat an enemy. The last 10 animals you get appear in the Chao Garden next time you go there (they will not appear if you complete the stage in Trial Mode). You can pick them up and go to your Chao, who will take it and get their stats boosted. Certain stages give certain animals that boost certain stats. The color listed here is the background color of tile you see when you grab the animal:

Swim = Yellow = Emerald Coast
Fly = Purple = Windy Valley
Run = Green = Speed Highway
Power = Red = Red Mountain

There are also some blue animals that appear in some stages and will always raise stats, but the stats are random each time. These are always safe to give to your Chao:

Skunk = Hot Shelter
Mole = Windy Valley
Koala = Emerald Coast

Some of the ones above will occasionally drop other stats – this is okay as it won't drop you below whatever current level you have for that stat, it will just drop the progress toward the next level (i.e. your stat number will not decrease).

[Feeding Chao]
Regularly visit your Chao in between levels in the Adventure field, and make sure you feed them every once in a while. There are fruits in the Chao Garden you can use (knock them off trees by grabbing the tree with and holding on the ), but these will only boost Stamina. To feed, just pick up a fruit and hold it in front of the Chao. It will take it and begin to eat. Note that you can overfeed your Chao, so if it throws the food away or looks sick, refrain from feeding it for a while.

The best food to feed them is Chao Fruit, which you can buy in the Black Market in the Station Square garden. Each one costs 200 rings. This fruit is good because it raises all stats equally, albeit slowly.

On occasion the Chao Fruit will disappear from the Market. If that’s the case, just finish some stages and check back later. It will eventually reappear.

[Ring Farming]
You may need to farm rings if you want to buy a lot of Chao Fruit. There are two ways you can do this. Using the Knuckles trick or playing action stages as Sonic. I prefer the action stage method, as it's faster, you can farm animals for your Chao at the same time, and you won’t waste as much time if you screw up.

Action Stages as Sonic
Merely play action stages as Sonic over and over again, making sure not to get hit so you end up with a good amount of rings. Play different stages if you’re trying to farm specific animals.

If you just want rings, play Emerald Coast. Don't worry about the time, just grab as many rings as possible and don't get hit (not a problem since this is the easiest level). I averaged around 400-450 in about 4:30 each time, so around 100 rings a minute.

The Knuckles Trick
Play Adventure Mode with Knuckles. Go around and dig in the ground somewhere ( + ). You will get random items from digging: rings, extra lives, power ups, etc. You’re looking for the electricity shield (not the normal shield) because this will attract nearby rings. Keep digging until you find it (it may take anywhere from a minute to 15 minutes).

Once you have it, go back to the Station Square hotel lobby (where the Chao elevator is). Take the staircase and stand on the rightmost switch. A trail of rings appears in the air. If you just stand on the switch, it will absorb the closest ring, which will respawn infinitely. Just stand there and rack up as many rings as you want. It takes close to 15 minutes to get 1000 rings, so around 65 rings a minute. The counter won’t go over 999, but anything over that will count, don’t worry.

You can let the game just run and do something else, but if you do nothing for around 10 minutes, the PS3 wireless controllers will automatically disconnect and pause the game (even if charging), so you will occasionally have to check it and un-pause the game.

When you have the amount you want, you’ll need to finish an action stage for it to actually save your rings so Sonic can use them (to buy stuff for Chao). I generally did Speed Highway, which you can find where you fight Chaos 0 at the very beginning of the game. Complete the level and all your rings will be saved. JUST MAKE SURE YOU DON’T GET HIT WHILE PLAYING THE LEVEL. You will lose ALL your rings if you get hit. That is the risky part and you will have wasted all that time farming if you get hit trying to finish the stage.

[Racing Chao]
There are two different circuits (Beginner and Jewel), each with five different races that require certain stats to win:

Pearl = Power, Run
Amethyst = Fly, Run
Sapphire = Power, Swim
Ruby = Swim
Emerald = All around

For Beginner, Emerald will not unlock until you've beaten the previous four. To win a Beginner race you generally need the noted stats in the list above in the range of 300-400.

Once Beginner is complete, the Jewel circuit will unlock. For these, you need to have stats around 900-1100 to win. I recommend a mix of occasional Chao Fruit and frequent animals to boost whatever stat you need for that race. Animals are definitely the quickest way to boost, so focus on the ones you need and knock off each race one by one. You don’t necessarily need to have a balanced Chao to win each race.

While racing, you can switch between Chao by using and on the d-pad. You can boost your Chao by pressing any button (, , , ) when there’s a sparkle around your Chao. This doesn’t happen often, so really there’s not much for you to do during the race. If you aren’t doing well to begin with, a boost isn’t going to make a difference. You have to place in first to win a race. No points for second place.

On the Jewel circuit, make sure you save the Emerald race for last. If you beat it prior to the others, a powerful black Chao will appear and win the other races regularly, making them a bit harder to complete. This happened to me and I had to boost my Power to 1100+ in order to win the Pearl race.