Sonic Chrono Adventure is the last in LakeFeperd's series of Sonic fangames made in Sonic Worlds, an engine for Multimedia Fusion 2. It was developed at a time After The Sequel was feature-complete but also waiting for the sound team to finish composing their original soundtrack. Not wanting to exploit them, Lake went with existing songs for this final installment and released it in December 2013.
Sonic is presumably travelling around after taking care of things at Angel Island. In the skies of South Lakes, there are the ruins of the once prosperous Sky Empire, but what caused its downfall? An encounter with a certain giant spherical bird robot drags Sonic through time to find out!
As an improvement of Sonic Before The Sequel Aftermath's gameplay, the levels are set in a open world and Sonic can collect upgrades that change his abilities to let him access places he couldn't before. You can download the game here.
After finishing this game, LakeFeperd retired from fangame development and began working on Spark the Electric Jester.
This game provides examples of:
- Abandoned Area: To some extent, Forced Fortress Zone, which was used by the rebels until The Empire tore it down. Afterward, it becomes Great Gap Zone West and part of Wild Winter Zone, and its ruins is only filled with Polems.
- Amusement Park of Doom: Power Park Zone. Sonic happens to be the first customer there, which is no surprise since the park was made by Eggman.
- Anti-Frustration Feature: Dying at the final boss restarts the battle instead of kicking you back to the last save point.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: SP Coconuts and SP Motobug in their second phases, and Grandpe.
- Background Boss: Grandpe stays still in the background, stomping.
- Dark Dr. Eggman to an extent in Sky Speedway Zone East. He'll keep attacking you with screen-sized laser attacks until you reach the end of the core and press the switch to stop him from getting any stronger.
- Been There, Shaped History: Pretty much what Sonic and Eggman get to do in the past.
- Bilingual Bonus: "Grandpe" (Grande Pé) means "Bigfoot". It attacks by stomping, you see.
- Bittersweet Ending: After defeating a dark-powered Eggman and his robot in the past, Sonic is taken back to Sky Empire Zone present without a heartfelt farewell to the residents in the past, thus having Gerem and the rest assume that he sacrificed his life, and Sky Empire Zone then remains uninhabited for the next century to come because of the destruction. But it's not so bad! The Endless Winter that covers South Lakes in the past comes to an end at some point, and they even erected a Sonic statue as "The Savior of the Sky Empire", the very same statue you saw earlier in the beginning of the game.
- Book Ends: The game begins with Sonic on the outside of the Sky Empire ruins, wondering how it was destroyed. The game ends inside the ruins and you learn that Sky Empire was abandoned because Sonic's been through the past and stopped Eggman there as it happened.
- Boss-Arena Idiocy: Grandpe can't be attacked directly, so the arena has switches you must activate to shoot a laser at it.
- Bottomless Pits: Averted. Since this is a Metronic-type game, where you only have one sole life, pits and other similar instant-death hazards are gone.
- Can't Spit It Out: Gerem doesn't know how to express his love to the princess.
"Gotta go fast!", she tells him... But it's actually an hallucination Sonic is experiencing. - Chekhov's Gun: Just before Sky Empire gets consumed by Eggman's new powers, you can see a hedgehog-looking robot in the container.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The Boost Sneakers' ability works much different than the Sonic Boost in the Sega games most players are used to. It still raises your speed, but the ability leaves you vulnerable to enemy attacks and hazards, and attacking enemies bounces you right back.
- Dark Is Evil/Dark Is Not Evil: Definitely zigzagged. Eggman makes use of the magnetic mass that holds the Sky Empire to transform into a shadow-looking monster that also decorates the city with darkness. But the red and black energy spheres Dr. Ucano made in Sky Speedway Zone East are gifts for Sonic, which are also kind of made with the same magnetic mass Eggman uses. The situation is more or less what the person does with the power, actually.
- Dark World: Dark Sky City Zone, once Eggman consumes Sky Empire that is.
- Darker and Edgier: Quite so. Monsters that go wild upon seeing any animal on sight inhabit South Lakes, and there's the rebels formed because The Empire has brutal laws on nearly everything put up by Dr. Ucano, who actually happens to be Eggman! And that's not even getting into the plans he has for the entire empire.
- Debug Mode: Hold the P and Q keys together to be able to swap between Sonic's abilities and Gerem or even the otherwise unplayable Tails at will. No key in this mode seems to enable Sonic's dark transformation, though. Also of note is that pressing P at the window resolution screen in version 1.0 lets you check out the Final Boss.
- Double Jump: Aside from Before the Sequel's Bubble Shield, the Hover Sneakers can give an extra boost to Sonic's jump height. In v1.1, the Bumper Gloves also function like the Bubble Shield, but it also attacks enemies within its radius.
- Endless Winter: What goes on in the past. There's still some forests around, but they're infested by Polems.
- Eternal Engine: Silicon Support Zone. Aside from being the bottom of the Sky Empire, there's not much info regarding it.
- Exposition Fairy: Rodolia the Bug hangs on Sonic's forehead for the majority of the game. She barely does much to help out, though, only speaking for Sonic's sake and directing on where to head next.
- Floating Continent: Sky Empire.
- Foreshadowing: Near the beginning of the game, there's a worn-down statue that suspiciously looks like Sonic.
- You'll hear it from a Badnik NPC before the Zone, or Eggmyte itself that Power Park Zone was created by Eggman, but once you defeat Eggmyte and move on to the next area, there's a writing on a wall that says "Dr. Ucano". In fact, there's even another Badnik before the Zone that doesn't want to mention the name.
- Game-Breaking Bug: The level after the Grandpe fight fails to load for some people, who have to resort to a save file that skips it.
- Great Gap Zone East had an invisible floor stuck between a ramp and a wall on the way to Wild Winter Zone, so you had to make your way back through Black Base Zone to get to the taxi. This was rectified in v1.1.
- Switching between Sonic and Chrono by holding specific buttons will cause one to teleport to the other's location, locking the player from switching characters.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Besides some mild foreshadowing from Eggman right before his transformation into an Eldritch Abomination, the Final Boss has it even worse than EGGATS-2013.
- Guest-Star Party Member: Gerem.
- Guide Dang It!: The Chaos Emeralds, which are scattered all over South Lakes. Thankfully they're only in the present time, so you don't have to dive through the past as well for them.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: The rebels in the past use these, but it is discussed that they're still no match against their enemies. Sonic also gains one, and it's very useful for dealing with armored enemies and certain obstacles, especially when leveled up.
- Heroic Mime: Sonic, complete with Rodolia speaking for him. Could be justified since the earlier games didn't have Sonic speaking much.
- Hijacked by Ganon: Once you defeat EGGATS in the past for seemingly the last time, a time rift appears in its place and Eggman is sucked right in. It turns out the rift that sucked Eggman in spat him out from before the past's events. This allowed him to learn the entirety of Sky Empire, the Polems on South Lakes, and replace the scientist Dr. Ucano by making an accident look like his body was damaged and changed, and used the empire's laws to make him become the ruler. All of this happens before the past events where Sonic, ATS, and Present!Eggman enters, and yet Past!Eggman gets his biggest plans to roll in secret. In short, Eggman hijacked EGGATS and himself.
- Insistent Terminology: Meta-example. Instead of calling it Metroidvania, LakeFeperd calls it a Metronic-type game.
- Jump Scare: A possibly unintentional example. After Sonic and Rondolia end up stuck in the Power Plant and meet Gerem for the first time, the EGGATS suddenly bursts from the wall behind them and sends them back to the present.
- Meaningful Background Event: As in After The Sequel, important places can be seen in the background before you reach them.
- Metroidvania: Progression still feels linear, though. This results in multiple notable gameplay differences from standard Sonic to accommodate the new gameplay structure:
- Sonic can only collect a maximum of 30 rings, and loses 10 rings every time he takes damage. This effectively gives him 4 hit points. You can still recover rings after losing them, however. When the player has 30 rings, all rings become translucent and can't be collected. You can gain additional rings through using portable ring monitor items at max ring count, however, due to a glitch.
- Sonic gains multiple abilities over the course of his adventure. The 'default' ability is his traditional spin-dash and super peel-out (and Super Sonic, if you find all the hidden Chaos Emeralds). His other abilities can either be useful for getting around, combat, removing obstacles and/or getting up to high places he can't otherwise access. These abilities can be leveled up by finding upgrade orbs hidden in various areas and often behind obstacles.
- There are no monitors strewn around the areas, instead the player can purchase them as items that they can use whenever they want. The currency for this are 'Silver Rings' that can be found through exploration.
- Mushroom Samba: Upon reaching the construction area's elevator in Sky Empire Zone, you enter into a trippy area where it looks fine at first, until it starts getting obviously wrong. You can still control Sonic and run around beating baddies, but as part of the area, you don't gain nor lose Rings (and Silver Rings too). Oh, and you run into Gerem and the princess multiple times before running into many of them at once. You even take "damage" from touching them, too.
- Nitro Boost/Sprint Shoes: The Boost Sneakers, which is like the Sonic Boost introduced in Sonic Rush. Don't expect it to work like the official Sonic titles, though.
- Original Character: The Exposition Fairy Rodolia the Bug, a Rebel Leader Gerem, the (not-so-important) Princess of the Sky Empire, the Polem creatures, and Dr. Ucano.
- Production Foreshadowing: The game features several powers for Sonic to use which change his appearance and mostly involve close-range combat. Spark the Electric Jester has a cameo after the credits, and his game further built on those features.
- Punny Name: EGGATS-2013's name, aside from referencing its origin game, sounds like "egads".
- Puzzle Boss: The battle against Grandpe uses its level's main gimmick against it, that is, aligning the circles in the the GUI with the correspondent orbs.
- Rebel Leader: Gerem, to an extent. The faction has actual captains, though, but they often have Gerem lead the way.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: Unfortunately there; LakeFeperd's English isn't really his first language, being born in Brazil.
- Scenery Porn: The graphics are nicely detailed.
- Sequence Breaking: Once you obtain the Hover Sneakers, it's possible to fly over the barriers to the left in Sky Speedway Zone South, leading you to Sky Speedway Zone West when it's normally accessible only late in the game. Unfortunately you won't be able to go on because there's another barrier right after Sky Speedway Zone East that's only breakable by the Bumper Gloves, and you can't use the Hover Sneakers to go over the walls either.
- With persistence and timing, you can use the Hover Sneakers to climb over the wall that locks you out of Sky Empire Zone City, thus skipping the lower area Silicon Support Zone, as well as Grandpe.
- Shock and Awe: A gimmick in Power Park Zone. Touching electrically-charged platforms will cause Sonic to get charged, allowing him to jump and fall with decreased gravity, while landing upon the floor will release a burst of lightning around him, which if he lands heavier will cause a bigger radius. The boss Eggmyte also uses lightning attacks.
- Shout-Out: Gerem and the Princess play a SNES game at one scene. Their dialogue as they play alludes to Kirby Super Star. Eggman also basically transforms into Dark Matter at the end.
- The Stinger: The credits end with a teaser of Lake's next project, Spark the Electric Jester.
- Time Travel: Thanks to EGGATS leaving portals around.
- Tomorrowland: Angel Terminal Zone, built by Sky Empire's drops of magnetic energy boulders and the Badniks.
