[SA2 DC] Did you know ?

[DarkyBenji]

that you can actually race 8 of your chao in party race ?




i'm not gonna say anything about chao boost, i have to try this, to confirm if we can boost all the chao
....... i also need a reason why they remove the way to put 8 chao in party race

Edit : it's possible to boost 8 chao, more info below

[chaoadventures]

I didn't know this.

I would guess that you can't boost all of your Chao and there's the fact there aren't enough controller slots in the
Dreamcast (or GameCube) for 8 actual people so they took it out.

I wonder if SA1 has this too.

[Crazo3077]

I'm not surprised, because the Dreamcast has eight ports where Chao could each come from, but I imagine it was removed when boosting came into play.

[DarkyBenji]

it's actually possible to boost 8 chao
this must be done by having four controllers plugged in and each player sharing half of the controller

the controller 1 boost the chao 1 by pressing L
the controller 1 boost the chao 2 by pressing R
the controller 2 boost the chao 3 by pressing L
the controller 2 boost the chao 4 by pressing R
the controller 3 boost the chao 5 by pressing L
the controller 3 boost the chao 6 by pressing R
the controller 4 boost the chao 7 by pressing L
the controller 4 boost the chao 8 by pressing R

[Crazo3077]

That is actually really brilliant, and it genuinely is a shame that they removed it.

[Jeffery Mewtamer]

Considering the Dreamcast didn't sell that well(and SA2 was its Swan Song for official support), I'd have to wonder if it even got used that often. Especially if you needed 8 VMUs for that(I can't imagine the things were cheap back in the day).

Then again, if the Online features of SA2's Chao System extended to online party races, that would've been a different story(and while all sixth Gen Consoles where Internet capable, my understanding is Dreamcast had better net connectivity than GCN or PS2).

[Crazo3077]

Well I imagine that it would be meant for larger gatherings, since SEGA wanted people to take their VMUs around with them. But since it failed much harder in the US and UK than it did in Japan, English speakers probably didn't get many chances to try it out.

I also misunderstood DarkyBenji's language: this is very much in the published versions, and is even described in the SA2 manual. On page 23:

CHAO RACE (2P PLAY)
You can have your Chao race against other players' Chao, but you must first participate in a
Chao race in either Story or Stage Select Mode.

Chao Race uses your hand-raised Chao and allows for up to eight peo-
ple to play. When racing with multiple players, the controller assign-
ments are as shown on the diagram below. During the race, the odd-
numbered players can root for their Chao with [L]* and the even-num-
bered players with [R]*.

*Brackets are used in place of black boxes with a white letter inside.

The diagram has columns for Ports A through D, and rows for Expansion Socket 1 and 2. Then it says which port is Player 1 through 8. There is also text off to the side that says "You may use the Chao data saved on either the VMU or the 4X Memory Card." This is depicted in the diagram with players 2, 3, 7, and 8 being 4X Memory Cards and the others being the typical VMU with screen.

So my dismay should be over the features removal, but the removal makes sense since the system depended on the Chao being on individual devices, which is why on Gamecube it made sense to be cut back down to four.

EDIT: It is even on the site's SA2 Race page at the bottom. I cannot believe I had never noticed this.

[Mooncow]

It's funny for me because I thought Party Race was available for all versions of them game until DarkyBenji posted in my streaming topic! So it's safe to assume that the GC version removed this feature... I wonder why this was never brought up as much as the small garden sizes?

For anyone that doesn't understand the boost part, you use L and R to boost the Chao. To boost extra Chao you need to have 4 controllers plugged into the dreamcast, and each trigger boosts a Chao. (8 triggers, 8 Chao!)

Especially if you needed 8 VMUs for that(I can't imagine the things were cheap back in the day).

Not VMU's, just controllers.

I wonder if SA1 has this too.

Yes it does!

[Jeffery Mewtamer]

Party Race is in the GC versions, but apparently doesn't allow as many Chao racing at the same time. Though the 4 Crazo mentions seems higher than I remember, but I never really did party race as i would only have my own Chao to race against and I only had one Chao that was actually Race-worthy.

Probably doesn't get much attention because Chao Raising is primarily a solitary past time and in the event that you have a bunch of people getting together for 4-player gaming on Gamecube, they're more likely to have been playing Mario Kart, Smash Bros. Melee, or Mario Party than racing their Chao Head-to-Head. I'm also pretty sure more people have played the Gamecube versions than have played the DC versions and would be unaware of the finer details in the DC versions.

[FedoraBrella Chao]

The GC versions have do have up to 4 chao race at a time in party race. Each controller slot chooses and cheers a different chao.