Features an Improved Chao Garden should have

[Ivogoji]

Simple, suggest what you think an official revamp of the Chao Garden system should be like.

Features from the Sonic World Chao Garden:
- nametags for Chao that can be toggled on or off
- the ability to automatically see a Chao's stats while its sleeping
- an inventory for storing items you don't want displayed in the Chao Garden
- day and night cycle in the Chao Garden
- unobtrusive alert messages that tell you if a Chao is hungry/sleeping/drowning etc.
- Chao remaining stationary when you leave the Garden and not moving until you return, instead of respawning in weird places
- luck and intelligence being easier to measure (I'm not sure how I feel about them no longer being hidden stats in Sonic World though)
- hats that influence stats instead of just being too expensive decoration like they are in the Adventure games
- ridiculous character dialogue during Chao interaction ( "DROWN IN DARKNESS!" Mephiles bellowed as he gently placed the Chao to the ground)

Other features I want to see:
- a practical way to keep track of Chao bloodlines ingame
- a log specifically to record the names of deceased/released Chao
- Chao can occasionally spout dialogue like in the Tiny Chao Garden. Perhaps they can learn new phrases based on increased Intelligence or from interacting with certain characters?
- more interaction between Chao (ex. Hero and Dark Chao not getting along, Chao who dislike one character not getting along with Chao who like that character, Chao grooming each other or displaying affection)
- more behaviors than just those influenced by small animals
- greater incentives for raising Chao to evolve certain ways and for breeding Chao, like getting emblems for certain outcomes or unlocking additional items in the Black Market
- the possibility of raising a Chao to become like the Doctor, Fortune Teller, Principal, or Black Market Chao
- the ability to equip Chao as companions in regular gameplay and having them power up the characters in certain ways depending on the type of Chao they are, kinda like the Chao in Sonic Chronicles
- more customization options for Chao Gardens
- additional minigames besides Chao Races and Chao Karate
- all eggs and items from the Tiny Chao Garden accessible
- more character Chao besides the Tails, Amy, and Knuckles Chao, and easier ways of obtaining them

[Crash32]

Every character should say "Don't Worry Buddy" as their only dialogue whilst interacting with Chao

[Ivogoji]

I wonder what features Chao World Extended has that aren't just cheats and would work as gameplay elements?

[chaoadventures]

I didn't use Mephiles in the Sonic World Garden yet. I should go do that.

...

I did that. Best thing ever.

Anyways, agreeing with what you've said Ivo, I think there should be...

Spoiler:

A new Chao Daycare, Chao Laboratory and BBS official affiliation with Chao Island, and Online Black Market. ("Online Black Market" sounds even shadier.)
These would all function like they did before, and the Black Market would have more exclusive, rare stuff, like a Tails Chao.
If they bring Themes back as well, they could also put those in there too. (I feel like I have spoken of so many illegal things.)

Also, let's make that inventory store everything you buy when your Garden is full. I want to get that Pan before it leaves the shop again.

More body-gear. Not just hats. I want to give my Chao a bandana like the Shop Chao in Sonic Riders and other stuff like that.

How about that unused, head decapitating pacifier, huh? How about making that an actual item?

The unused Chao Playground. Finish all of your work for once Sonic Team.

More Chao per Garden/More than 3 gardens.

More special looking Chao in general, like Character Chao, but they don't look like a specific character, they just look cool.

Mini Games that give you rings for playing them but don't have as horrible payouts as the Tiny Chao Garden ones.

Keep not using the SA1 Chao Race system. I still don't know why my Chao still can't swim when it can swim in the Garden. And why it actually starts swimming midway and then stops. (I mean really.)

Super Duper Rank Chao Karate. Because can.

Chao Karate divisions that make it better to focus in one stat than the others.

Stuff from Chao World Extended that I think would fit nicely:

Spoiler:

Chao Karate give medal

Normal Chao can make Color Chao.

Mixing Chao colors

Lucky Chao

Dynamic Lifetime

Chao can drown

Bully Chao

Hunger's difficult

More sick Chao (Y'know, Chao almost never get sick.)

Chao attention

Better Chao personality

AI Evolution

More chao animation (Naturally)

Every character should say "Everything will be okay." as their only dialogue whilst interacting with Chao

Fixed.

[Chapon93]

This'll be a pretty long post, fair warning.

Ever since seeing the Chao area titled "Chao World" it got me thinking of how it could be expanded.

I'm surprised at how much Chao content was cut from the game, and this was back in 2001!

Reading this thread, I even came across some ideas I already had that used to be in the game (Chao Daycare for example).

So instead of being a list of ideas this'll be more a general idea of a possible Chao World, with some features mixed in.

The first major change is the default area would be changed to a hub world. Think kind of like how Station Square was in Sonic Adventure 1, but Chao themed instead.

This area would have a section for shops, a section for school, a section for mini games, a section for the gardens, and an options area (not sure what it would be themed yet), maybe an online area as well. You would first arrive through a transporter as usual though. Your Chao would be able to come with you throughout all areas, although you aren't required to bring them to all locations (just the school and possibly mini games/adoption).

Shops: Instead of one black market with items shifting around, it's sections would be split into different shops. On the other hand there will be more variety of items to make up for this. Examples of shops are Clothing & Hats, Fruits/Food & Seeds, Eggs, Chao care, and Decoration. The latter two would include new items not previously in the games.

Spoiler:

The Clothing Store would include previous hats, as well as new hats, and more clothing options (maybe seasonal related items as well).

The Food Store would include fruits as well as food from other games (such as cake, chili dogs, etc.) with the food having different effects than fruit. Seeds would also be under the food store since they are used to grow food.

The Eggs Store would include all variety of eggs previously existing as well as new kinds. Egg price would depend on rarity as usual, but you wouldn't be limited based on save file. Regular eggs would be free, but you can't buy them if your gardens are full.

Chao Care Center would include items that help take care of your Chao such as medicine, floaties (this could be equipped so Chao who can't swim can go in water safely without drowning, no more worrying about baby Chao rushing for the water), items that impact Chao behavior, etc. Chao care would also include other things such as Adoption (where you can donate unwanted Chao to find a new home instead of being sent to the woods. Happiness would be returned to default to prevent new owners being stuck with abused Chao suddenly dying on them.), as well as a birth certificate where the time the Chao was born is recorded as well as what you name them. (Name can be changed later from options) There also would be an area to get a Chao file/ID of some kind which would allow you to use the same Chao on multiple platforms without losing data.

The Decoration Store would be for items to decorate your garden which you could place as you want (could also include seasonal items). You could also pay to expand your garden which would make the area larger, as well as allow for more Chao to be in it at once.

School: Chao Kindergarten would be renamed to Chao School. This is because the Chao Kindergarten would be expanded a bit.

Spoiler:

Classroom will have more lessons. What your Chao can take will depend on how old it is, with more difficult lessons being done when it's older. These will be indicated when your Chao is in class. You can also check your Chao's progress to see which lessons it already has and hasn't taken. Your Chao's intelligence will also increase from taking a lot of lessons. Might also include books instead of adding a separate library.

Health Center will act mostly the same as usual. Instead of giving medicine when your Chao is sick he'll tell you what condition the Chao is in, and you buy the correct medicine at the Chao Care shop (won't be too expensive though). He can also tell you how close your Chao is to your character. When looking at badges you can select which one you want your Chao to wear (or select the one it's currently wearing again to remove it)

Principal's Room will have it's database expanded a ton to cover more about the behaviors of Chao as well as breeding options, etc. (Pretty much like how Chao Island is now)

Fortune Telling House will give an actual fortune, be it the weather coming up, how your Chao will do (if it's lucky in races for example), etc.

Daycare will keep an eye on your Chao when you're busy for whatever reason or want to free the garden of some space for awhile. It's possible for them to make friends with other player Chao if you're connected to the internet as well. (the Chao info and data will be saved as well as the owner so you can further contact them. If the owner approves you can have a play date with their Chao in the playground. You can toggle if you want your Chao to be shared online in the options, as well as friend invites and play dates)

Playground will include special toys and items for your Chao to play with that aren't in your garden. Other players Chao can appear here if you're online.

Post Board would include messages from other Chao raisers in game and notifications of upcoming events.

Note: I think I'll take a break for now. I'll edit on more ideas later. Let me know what you think so far though! (Sorry if it's too long, I know I shouldn't be so obsessed with a 15 year old mini system)

[LimitCrown]

I hope that Jewel Chao return and that there is a way to obtain them after meeting certain requirements. Maybe they can be purchasable from the Black Market after, for example, collecting a large amount of emblems or anything like those, but the chances of Jewel Chao eggs appearing are somewhat lower than the chances of Shiny Chao eggs appearing. I also hope that Shiny Jewel Chao return as well with their appearances resembling those in the 2004 PC version of Sonic Adventure DX.

[ChaoGardenBuster]

I wonder what features Chao World Extended has that aren't just cheats and would work as gameplay elements?

Well...

Spoiler:

Chao Karate give medal

Normal Chao can make Color Chao.

Mixing Chao colors

Lucky Chao

Dynamic Lifetime

Chao can drown

Bully Chao

Hunger's difficult

More sick Chao (Y'know, Chao almost never get sick.)

Chao attention

Better Chao personality

AI Evolution

More chao animation (Naturally)

These all sound like excellent ideas but if there was an official revamp I don't think the "new" sonic team would follow through with it, or at least every single idea listed here. We're better off with a fan doing this except make it...perfect (almost perfect) Make it better than sonic world's chao garden, a fan chao garden that isn't lazily done and almost matches the official chao garden but with added features you guys listed here.

Every character should say "YOOOOOSSHHH" as their only dialogue whilst interacting with Chao

Fixed x2

[DarkyBenji]

I wonder what features Chao World Extended has that aren't just cheats and would work as gameplay elements?

the only feature that you can say "cheats" are :

Spoiler:

Powerful Chaos Drive = i made the drive better, there was useless because of animal glitch, ok that level up chao faster, you can call shenanigans if you're a GC user

Chao never Die = blocking your chao to make gray cocon

Auto Generate Stats = auto level up stats until lvl 10, but give bad point stats, yup i added punishment for laziness

More than 99lvl = there "Nerf Cheated chao stats", a ANTI-CHEAT CODE, not need to worry about it

and that's it, unless there other feature you call cheats and i wonder what it is

I'm surprised at how much Chao content was cut from the game, and this was back in 2001!

indeed, alot of think was unused, first i though it was only online feature (playground, library), but then i found unused animation (and i still didn't add all of them back to the game)

what i would like is :
- The Clothing Store (like Chapon93 idea)
- More food (sonic world did good on it, except the immortal fruit, i didn't like it, too easy to get immortal chao)
- more egg color (turquoise please)
- better/more chao action and interaction *look the chao tree climb unused animation*
- more medal, and possible to change/remove them to make your chao look better (same for hat)
- more garden (and set 8 chao limit to 16 chao per garden, so much "lively")
- the return of DC dark/hero garden
- omochao ("welcome to chao world" please)
- more names for fortune teller
- more animals (SADX + SA2B animals ?)
- online kindergarten (of course)
- online chao garden (possible to send toy, fruit, rings and chao to your friends, or just invite him to your chao world)
- and chao race/karate online

and that's it

[Chapon93]

These all sound like excellent ideas but if there was an official revamp I don't think the "new" sonic team would follow through with it, or at least every single idea listed here. We're better off with a fan doing this except make it...perfect (almost perfect) Make it better than sonic world's chao garden, a fan chao garden that isn't lazily done and almost matches the official chao garden but with added features you guys listed here.

While I'd love to, I'm sadly more of an idea guy than someone with the experience to make it personally. The most I could do would be concept art.

The work with the mods here have been great, so maybe we could one day.

It's not that I don't have faith in Sonic Team (well they were the ones who made what we have at least), but it seems unlikely they'd ever give Chao a large focus again (which is a shame as I think it could even stand on it's own if given the chance ). I was thinking about it recently and I think the reason why Chao are so appealing is not just the AI element, but that they're fantasy creatures. With a dog video game it's not as exciting as you could get a real dog as your pet, but you can't do that with Chao.

[Jeffery Mewtamer]

If there are online features, I'd want as many of them to be peer-to-peer as possible and to minimize the number of client-server aspects. This is to preserve as much functionality as possible for when Sega eventually takes the official servers offline.

Regarding Eggs, I like the idea of the black market having a dozen Eggs in stock at a time: Normal(infinite stock), 5 monotone(1 of each), 5 Shiny(1 of each), and 1 Jewel(1 in stock).

Expanding on Chap's(hope you don't mind the name shortening) ideas:

Personally, I'd prefer if Changing name, badge, and viewing a Chao's expanded stats was something you could do at anytime via the pause menu rather than requiring you to go to a specific location. Say, get close to a chao in the Garden, and it's main stats appear as part of the HUD. Press a button or select and option from the pause menu, and it brings up detailed information comparable to the SA2B Health Chart. Perhaps the main purpose of the Chao Transporter could be like the PCs in PokeCenters from the Pokemon games: letting you easily organize and view information for your entire Chao collection, except each "Box" would be the inhabitants of a specific garden.

I like the idea of having separate Clothing and Grocery Stores and think a Toy store would be a good addition. Perhaps the Clothing and Toy stores could have displays showing how the item would look on an actual Chao or in the Garden ala Tom Nook's store in Animal Crossing. Perhaps the Clothing Shop could also have a tailor who would, for a premium, create custom gear for your Chao.

I'd expand the idea of an Egg shop into a Breeding center. In addition to selling Eggs, they'd also carry Heart Fruit(which wouldn't be available from the Grocer), and handle the arrangements for one player to bredd their Chao with another player's. Perhaps the Breeding and Adoption centers should be under the same roof.

Perhaps a layout as follows:
Chao Mall:
-Chao Tailor
-Chao Grocer
-Chao Toys
-Chao Pets(sells Small Animals, perhaps expand the use of Small animals from one use stat boosters to being actual pets for your Chao and the Pet Shop sells things your Chao need to look after their pets).
-Chao Arcade(featuring such things as improved versions of the TCG Minigames, the Casinopolis Pinball Machines, and a bunch of new minigames for Rings.
Chao Health Center:
-Breeding Center
-Adoption Center
-Chao Doctor(Diagnosis Chao Illnesses and appropriate Treatment, for a fee will add a Genetics page to your Chao's Charts giving you the complete breakdown of it's alleles for things like stats and breed, perhaps other data that isn't updated automatically in the gardens).
-Pharmacy(Sells the medicines the Doctor prescribes along with Chaos Drives(essentiall Chao Vitamins) Nutritional supplements and other such things).
Chao Kindergarten/Daycare/School/What have you:
-Art Room: Classes in Drawing, Painting, Sculpting(Advanced students only), etc.
-Music Room: Classes in Singing, Dancing, and Musical Instruments. Advanced students can take group classes to form a Choir or Band.
-Gymnasium: PE Classes, will Raise stats and grants skills useful in the Stadium.
-Principal's Office/Library: Includes information on Chao.
Chao Stadium:
-Chao Race
-Chao Karate(New features include Double, Triple, Tag Team(2 per team, 1-on-1, can Tag out at anytime and the out partner recovers Stamina while out, Match goes until one team is fully KO'd), and Team(5 to a team, 1-on-1, best 3-out-of-5) Matches. Also includes an Endurance mode where your Chao doesn't get to rest between matches an new opponents enter the arena as soon as you KO'd the last one). Each Devision has Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum difficulties with each tournment win gaining your Chao that division's medal in that difficulty's medal. There's also a Master Medal for beating all divisions at a given level and everything except Singles allows teaming up with another Player's Chao.
-Chao Gymnastics: What it sounds like.
-Iron Chao competition: Basically a strong man competition, but with Chao. Events includ heavy lifting, breaking stuff,etc.

Some expansions to breeding:
Color: No additional alleles, but all are co-dominant and will produce a blended color in non-pure Chao. Normal is still recessive to Color genes. Some blends might be hard to ditinguish from pure colors (such as Pink vs Red/White or Purple vs Red/Blue), but only Pure Chao will have a colored Eggshell instead of the generic eggshell).
Shinyness: Heterozygous individuals now have a weaker version of the effect. In effect, we now have non-shiny, half-shiny, and full-shiny Chao.
Jewel Chao: still dominant over Colors and also blend. Again, only pure Jewels will have jewel eggshells.
Shiny Jewel: Half-Shiny produces the Bright Chao effect while full-shiny Jewels are Translucent. Classic colorations result when the Shiny Jewel's base color is pure normal, but will otherwise blend both color and jewel coat.
Two-Tone: pure-color Two-Tones are as in previous games. Mixed color two tones, instead of blending, will have one allele as their main color and the other allele as their marking color. As a result, monotone red/blue and monotone blue/red are the same, but two-tone red/blue and two-tone blue/red have their colors flipped.
Eye color is now it's own set of genes Same pure colors as for skin with blending, and with a variety of genes for luster including dull, normal, bright, and luminescent(glowing in the dark).

The Player's Stats(accesible via a pause menu option or hotkey at anytime) include such things:
-Total Playtime, Number of Chao Raised
-Chart of Evolutions raised.
-Records for highest stat value achieved in a Chao, which medals one's Chao have earned, most medals won by a single Chao, etc.
-Breeding Charts showing which blends of of monotone, blends of two-tone, blends of jewel, and blends of a pure jewel with a pure color in a half- or full-shiny. Charts for tetra-blends(a half or full shiny with two different color and two different jewel allels) aren't included because of the combinatoric explosion making it impractical.

Expanding on the Pet idea above, Each Chao can only raise one small animal as a pet, and each small animal can only bond to a single Chao. If the bond grows strong enough, the Chao will unlock a more advanced version of the skill the small Animal teaches and gain a full and permanent set of that animal's parts that will remain even if the Chao becomes a Chaos Chao. Perhaps adding Hedgehog, Echidna, and Fox small animals and requiring this full-bond between Chao and Pet could be used to trigger an evolution into a Amy, Knuckles, or Tails Chao. Perhaps a Chao that is bonded with a rabbit will become a Cream Chao and a Chao bonded with a Bat will become a Rogue chao, while animals corresponding to species not yet used for a Anthro just create a Chao that is permanently like that animal. Perhaps alignment also affect this process, so a Hero Hedgehog Chao is an immortal Sonic Chao and Dark Hedgehog an Immortal Shadow Chao, etc.

To help keep such Chao rare, the bond should take time to form and is weakened by things like the Chao reincarnating and giving the Chao small animals in a stat-boosting capacity, and the animals aren't immortal, though the bond extends their lifespan and even if you get your Chao a new pet of the same species, you have to start over from Zero on building this bond. So say, if the bond is at maximum at the time of the Chao's last reincarnation, You'd need to give it all of the small animals shortly after its last hatching and then fix the damage the bond took from the reincarnation and giving of animals before evolution to prevent the Chao becoming a oridinary CHaos Chao.Let's say, something along the lines of bond starts at 0 and maxes at 1000, a Chao Year boost it by 100, reincarnation drops it by 50 and each small animal given as a stat booster drops it by 1. If there were say, 49 small animales(seven in each of seven categories), if it was 1000 before the last reincarnation, the last rincarnation and giving it all the animals would drop it to 901, and you'd have to get it back upto 1000 before evolution. Given evolution typically occurs around the age of 1, this gives plenty of time, but there would be other ways to weaken the bond, so you'd have to be careful. Thankfully, once your Chao evolves into an Animal Chaos Chao, it's pet also becomes immortal provided the bond stays above 0(and the reincarnation and animal penalties are gone).

Sorry if this isn't well organized(I pretty much typed things as they came to me instead of doing any proper organization). Feel free to tear my ideas to ribbons or expand upon any of them.

Also, in regards to the comment about fantasy creatures vs virtual versions of real animals: I think you forget an important fact: We Chao fans are a vocal minority within the Sonic fanbase. In the larger Sonic Fandom, the prevailing opinion is that Chao raising is boring and many players would've never touched Chao if not for the Race and Karate emblems. Granted, if Chao were marketed as their own thing, they would probably appeal to an significant number of people who would never touch a Sonic Game. Also, Nintendogs did well enough to get a sequel and a Cat-based spin-off if I'm not mistaken, so there's definately a market for virtual pets based on real animals.

[Chapon93]

I like some of your ideas. I don't mind you shortening my name. I plan on adding more ideas to my original post as well as editing in ideas from other posts too (will try to credit as mentioned). Funny enough I also had a similar idea for a Chao arcade, but also including the option to convert rings to tickets to buy prizes.

[arkhamtheknight1]

If there are online features, I'd want as many of them to be peer-to-peer as possible and to minimize the number of client-server aspects. This is to preserve as much functionality as possible for when Sega eventually takes the official servers offline.

Regarding Eggs, I like the idea of the black market having a dozen Eggs in stock at a time: Normal(infinite stock), 5 monotone(1 of each), 5 Shiny(1 of each), and 1 Jewel(1 in stock).

Expanding on Chap's(hope you don't mind the name shortening) ideas:

Personally, I'd prefer if Changing name, badge, and viewing a Chao's expanded stats was something you could do at anytime via the pause menu rather than requiring you to go to a specific location. Say, get close to a chao in the Garden, and it's main stats appear as part of the HUD. Press a button or select and option from the pause menu, and it brings up detailed information comparable to the SA2B Health Chart. Perhaps the main purpose of the Chao Transporter could be like the PCs in PokeCenters from the Pokemon games: letting you easily organize and view information for your entire Chao collection, except each "Box" would be the inhabitants of a specific garden.

I like the idea of having separate Clothing and Grocery Stores and think a Toy store would be a good addition. Perhaps the Clothing and Toy stores could have displays showing how the item would look on an actual Chao or in the Garden ala Tom Nook's store in Animal Crossing. Perhaps the Clothing Shop could also have a tailor who would, for a premium, create custom gear for your Chao.

I'd expand the idea of an Egg shop into a Breeding center. In addition to selling Eggs, they'd also carry Heart Fruit(which wouldn't be available from the Grocer), and handle the arrangements for one player to bredd their Chao with another player's. Perhaps the Breeding and Adoption centers should be under the same roof.

Perhaps a layout as follows:
Chao Mall:
-Chao Tailor
-Chao Grocer
-Chao Toys
-Chao Pets(sells Small Animals, perhaps expand the use of Small animals from one use stat boosters to being actual pets for your Chao and the Pet Shop sells things your Chao need to look after their pets).
-Chao Arcade(featuring such things as improved versions of the TCG Minigames, the Casinopolis Pinball Machines, and a bunch of new minigames for Rings.
Chao Health Center:
-Breeding Center
-Adoption Center
-Chao Doctor(Diagnosis Chao Illnesses and appropriate Treatment, for a fee will add a Genetics page to your Chao's Charts giving you the complete breakdown of it's alleles for things like stats and breed, perhaps other data that isn't updated automatically in the gardens).
-Pharmacy(Sells the medicines the Doctor prescribes along with Chaos Drives(essentiall Chao Vitamins) Nutritional supplements and other such things).
Chao Kindergarten/Daycare/School/What have you:
-Art Room: Classes in Drawing, Painting, Sculpting(Advanced students only), etc.
-Music Room: Classes in Singing, Dancing, and Musical Instruments. Advanced students can take group classes to form a Choir or Band.
-Gymnasium: PE Classes, will Raise stats and grants skills useful in the Stadium.
-Principal's Office/Library: Includes information on Chao.
Chao Stadium:
-Chao Race
-Chao Karate(New features include Double, Triple, Tag Team(2 per team, 1-on-1, can Tag out at anytime and the out partner recovers Stamina while out, Match goes until one team is fully KO'd), and Team(5 to a team, 1-on-1, best 3-out-of-5) Matches. Also includes an Endurance mode where your Chao doesn't get to rest between matches an new opponents enter the arena as soon as you KO'd the last one). Each Devision has Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum difficulties with each tournment win gaining your Chao that division's medal in that difficulty's medal. There's also a Master Medal for beating all divisions at a given level and everything except Singles allows teaming up with another Player's Chao.
-Chao Gymnastics: What it sounds like.
-Iron Chao competition: Basically a strong man competition, but with Chao. Events includ heavy lifting, breaking stuff,etc.

Some expansions to breeding:
Color: No additional alleles, but all are co-dominant and will produce a blended color in non-pure Chao. Normal is still recessive to Color genes. Some blends might be hard to ditinguish from pure colors (such as Pink vs Red/White or Purple vs Red/Blue), but only Pure Chao will have a colored Eggshell instead of the generic eggshell).
Shinyness: Heterozygous individuals now have a weaker version of the effect. In effect, we now have non-shiny, half-shiny, and full-shiny Chao.
Jewel Chao: still dominant over Colors and also blend. Again, only pure Jewels will have jewel eggshells.
Shiny Jewel: Half-Shiny produces the Bright Chao effect while full-shiny Jewels are Translucent. Classic colorations result when the Shiny Jewel's base color is pure normal, but will otherwise blend both color and jewel coat.
Two-Tone: pure-color Two-Tones are as in previous games. Mixed color two tones, instead of blending, will have one allele as their main color and the other allele as their marking color. As a result, monotone red/blue and monotone blue/red are the same, but two-tone red/blue and two-tone blue/red have their colors flipped.
Eye color is now it's own set of genes Same pure colors as for skin with blending, and with a variety of genes for luster including dull, normal, bright, and luminescent(glowing in the dark).

The Player's Stats(accesible via a pause menu option or hotkey at anytime) include such things:
-Total Playtime, Number of Chao Raised
-Chart of Evolutions raised.
-Records for highest stat value achieved in a Chao, which medals one's Chao have earned, most medals won by a single Chao, etc.
-Breeding Charts showing which blends of of monotone, blends of two-tone, blends of jewel, and blends of a pure jewel with a pure color in a half- or full-shiny. Charts for tetra-blends(a half or full shiny with two different color and two different jewel allels) aren't included because of the combinatoric explosion making it impractical.

Expanding on the Pet idea above, Each Chao can only raise one small animal as a pet, and each small animal can only bond to a single Chao. If the bond grows strong enough, the Chao will unlock a more advanced version of the skill the small Animal teaches and gain a full and permanent set of that animal's parts that will remain even if the Chao becomes a Chaos Chao. Perhaps adding Hedgehog, Echidna, and Fox small animals and requiring this full-bond between Chao and Pet could be used to trigger an evolution into a Amy, Knuckles, or Tails Chao. Perhaps a Chao that is bonded with a rabbit will become a Cream Chao and a Chao bonded with a Bat will become a Rogue chao, while animals corresponding to species not yet used for a Anthro just create a Chao that is permanently like that animal. Perhaps alignment also affect this process, so a Hero Hedgehog Chao is an immortal Sonic Chao and Dark Hedgehog an Immortal Shadow Chao, etc.

To help keep such Chao rare, the bond should take time to form and is weakened by things like the Chao reincarnating and giving the Chao small animals in a stat-boosting capacity, and the animals aren't immortal, though the bond extends their lifespan and even if you get your Chao a new pet of the same species, you have to start over from Zero on building this bond. So say, if the bond is at maximum at the time of the Chao's last reincarnation, You'd need to give it all of the small animals shortly after its last hatching and then fix the damage the bond took from the reincarnation and giving of animals before evolution to prevent the Chao becoming a oridinary CHaos Chao.Let's say, something along the lines of bond starts at 0 and maxes at 1000, a Chao Year boost it by 100, reincarnation drops it by 50 and each small animal given as a stat booster drops it by 1. If there were say, 49 small animales(seven in each of seven categories), if it was 1000 before the last reincarnation, the last rincarnation and giving it all the animals would drop it to 901, and you'd have to get it back upto 1000 before evolution. Given evolution typically occurs around the age of 1, this gives plenty of time, but there would be other ways to weaken the bond, so you'd have to be careful. Thankfully, once your Chao evolves into an Animal Chaos Chao, it's pet also becomes immortal provided the bond stays above 0(and the reincarnation and animal penalties are gone).

Sorry if this isn't well organized(I pretty much typed things as they came to me instead of doing any proper organization). Feel free to tear my ideas to ribbons or expand upon any of them.

Also, in regards to the comment about fantasy creatures vs virtual versions of real animals: I think you forget an important fact: We Chao fans are a vocal minority within the Sonic fanbase. In the larger Sonic Fandom, the prevailing opinion is that Chao raising is boring and many players would've never touched Chao if not for the Race and Karate emblems. Granted, if Chao were marketed as their own thing, they would probably appeal to an significant number of people who would never touch a Sonic Game. Also, Nintendogs did well enough to get a sequel and a Cat-based spin-off if I'm not mistaken, so there's definately a market for virtual pets based on real animals.

It sounds good but the parts shouldn't be stuck on a Chao, only if you choose it then the part stays on it. Also the bond between animal and Chao should affect the personality of the Chao so if it doesn't look after the animal, the animal starts trying to get more attention. You would have to teach the Chao how to raise the animal. If the animal dies then the Chao buries it and is effected by the loss for a while.

Improved speech from Chao would be better so you can understand it more. Hints or icons like Sims above the Chao head if no speech is available.

Something to stop the Chao bumping into the Character would be good as in SA and SA2, if you stand close to the Chao or the Chao runs to you, it will get hurt. Some form of Collision Detection would help with it so players don't get punished for what was the fault of the game engine.