Hobbies And Interests
Basics
The best time to start raising a Chao is after beating the main game. While it can be done earlier than that, beating the game unlocks all the stages and several gameplay modes that make raising a Chao much easier. There are five basic stats important to racing: running, swimming, power, flight and stamina. Stamina is important to any Chao, while the other stats are more important depending on the particular race. It is fairly easy to tell which Chaos Drives and animals affect which stat since the color indicates the stat. The colors for the primary stats are green for running, yellow for swimming, red for power and purple for flight.
Affiliation
The evolution pathway of a Chao is based on which characters raise them and what stats they excel in. The Hero, Dark or Neutral affinity is based on what characters are used to train the Chao. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles will train Hero Chao, while Shadow, Dr. Eggman and Rouge will train Dark Chao. In order to get a Neutral Chao, you must swap between the Hero and Dark characters so that it is trained about half the time by each. A good indication of a neutral Chao is the color being green.
First Evolution
What primary stats you focus on training will also factor into the evolution of Chao as well as its performance. The first evolution has a total of 15 possibilities based on the three affiliations and the five possible stat focuses. In addition to the four primary stats (Running, Swimming, Power and Flight), a Chao trained about equally in each stat can be Neutral for the stat option (this is not the same as a Neutral affiliation).
Second Evolution
The second evolution works much like the first in that it is based off a stat choice. There are far more possibilities because the stat specialization does not have to be the same one as the first evolution. The order does matter, however. A Chao that first evolves in flying and then specializes in power will not be the same as a Chao that first evolves in power then specializes in flying.
Winning
The stat system is very intuitive to know which are needed to win a particular race. If the entire race is in water, then swimming is going to be the most important. Many of the races require multiple stats to be at decent levels in order to win. The hardest races require all of them plus decent stamina as well. Specializing will make early races easier, but you should not completely neglect the other stats.