A Look Into Video Games: Chao

 Chao are a group of small creatures from the Sonic series. They generally are good, and were used as virtual pets in the Sonic Adventure games.

I missed out on the Dreamcast version, so I eventually played Sonic Adventure DX after Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. Which was a bit weird on how Sega chose to re-release the two games. I had some fun, but the features on how to raise your Chao were gimp compared to the sequel.

 I had a lot of fun raising my chao in Sonic Adventure 2: Battle on my Gamecube, and I'm not afraid to admit it. They could evolve, change color, hairstyles, and play around. Sure they didn't do much, but it was a neat idea for the time at least. I can't believe a game like Sonic Adventure had this but not something like a RPG.

 You even had a few world stages you could later unlock for your chao. From Heaven, to Earth, and to a Dark-setting with red "water"...yes water. 

You could also battle and race your Chao. Which was a fun time-waster but got boring a little quick. 

What was really cool is that in both versions, you could transfer your Chao into a more portable world. 

Dreamcast owners got a few quests on their VMUs, though I never got a chance to play those. A few friends had nice things to say about them though. 

Gamecube owners could transfer their Chao to their select Sonic games on Gameboy Advance. I put some of mine in my copy of Sonic Advance 2. 

 I think my favorite Chao is the huge walker robot from the battle mode of the Gamecube version. It has a huge beautiful laser attack that I loved using.

My brother would always man the Dark-Chao walker to make it an equal match. Good times.

The Legendary Starfy Review

Even though the series was Japanese-only throughout the GBA days, I was intrigued to see the series come stateside. However I decided to wait for a price drop, and then forgot it's total existence for awhile. My girlfriend got me this for Christmas so I was happy to take Nintendo's "new" series out for a spin.

While the game might share some similarities with the Kirby series, it's not a shameless clone. Starfy absorbs no enemy's powers, and swims rather than floats. The marine platforming is interesting to say the least, but yet the underwater gameplay at times makes you want to swim back to the surface and come back for air.

Starfy does many things right; it's cute, colorful, has fun levels, whacky bosses, and even 2 player co-op. However despite what it does right, it just never breaks the mold. Starfy feels like a basic platformer with decent levels that anyone can enjoy. That's all fine and good, but it doesn't hold a candle to the finest Kirby games out there. I know that's a rather unjust comparison, but I'm not exactly going to pre-order a sequel. 

Score: 7 out of 10

Things I Like: Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland

I remember buying this game years ago when it first came out which also followed the release of the cartoon series. I was surprised to find out that this is just a GBA remake of the NES game Kirby's Adventure. 

Which isn't such a bad thing I suppose. It's cute with lots of color, and simple gameplay.  

 

 

 It also added some decent mini-games that weren't in the original NES release. 

 

 Despite it's very easy difficulty, and short length, I still love this game. One of Kirby's best quests in video game history.