I assume you did the reasonable thing and not kill Emily using the revolver with Mike cuuuuuuus I had just had enough of her at that point no matter the cost to the cast's sanity 😅
There's a nice amount of choice in this with all the alternate paths you can take. I did a second run, restarting from chapter 7 to save everyone.
and then a third run from the beginning to bump everyone off. It's a bit harder then you might expect for some!
I was surprised at how much I ended up liking Mike at the end when I at first thought he was a bit of a jerk. Sam (Played by Hayden Panettiere) was pretty decent too though best preformance probably goes to Stormare and Dr Hill. He was loving the role from the looks of things!
Plus despite him going absolutely the wrong way about things I still couldn't help but feel sorry for Josh who just misses his sisters
Yeah Hannah running into a snowstorm wasn't the best decision but we all do stupid things when in love. Plus the prank was way too cruel. I thought it was a neat little detail that Wendigo Hannah recognises Josh and maybe even Mike
It's definitely not to everyone's taste, but I enjoyed it much more then I would the David Cage games that play in a similar way but more po faced rather then the pulpy horror of Until Dawn.
Also the opening title song was pretty neat!
Not to mention it's always nice to see behind the scenes videos... I wish more games did that.
Previously known as Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
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"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life. Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of"
@KratosMD Nice to see that you enjoyed Until Dawn. The bit which you felt was unfair for the survival of a character also caught me out. I felt that the story was a bit slow at the start and that the characters start off annoying, but once the game gets going it all becomes truly excellent. Character development is very well done in this game.
Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu (Which is Jade Cocoon: Story of the Jade Cocoon apparently in english) For PS1 (Though I used my PS3 to play it).
I played Jade Cocoon for about twenty five hours. Beating the Main Story and played a bit of the Endless Corridor. I spent a bunch of that overall time monster collecting and merging.
So... Grant us, the Beasts of Knowledge, the power to touch the spirit and enjoy this review.
A Little Background
Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu is a monster collecting and battling RPG.
The game was made by a small Japanese developer called Genki (Who ended up developing Katamari Forever among other games) and was published by Crave (Not the Kelloggs cereal) in the west.
Katsuya Kondō who helped do the character designs for Kiki's Delivery Service and I Can Hear the Sea did the character designs in this so there's a definite studio Ghibli look about the character artwork and the opening cutscene!
Apparently in the west not many Studio Ghibli films had come across at this point in time so for some people this may've been their first exposure to this style. It definitely was for me!
Jade Cocoon tells the story of a renamble silent protagonist (Though we'll stick with the default name Levant from here on in) who lives in the village of Syrus.
A strange dream occurs the night of a festival to appease lost souls which involves a mysterious figure whom looks like he has a bag on his head (But it's an owl mask... Probably)
He mocks Levant and tells him how he'll never be a Cocoon master and that his father, Riketz (Also known as The Lion of Parel & Syrus' last Cocoon master), was a coward whom ran away. There's a curbstomp batlle against the Dream man's "Minion" with Levant losing and more mocking before waking up.
The following day Levant is with his friends, Mahbu (a Nagi girl whom can use magic) & Kelmar the Blacksmith's son along with Lui whom is the watchtower keeper.
There's a strange sound from the nearby forest and the village is suddenly attacked by the Onibubu, the Locusts of the Apocalypse.
Garai, Mahbu's guardian, manages to use her magic to prevent Levant and co (along with some of the villagers) from falling into a deep sleep via the Onibubu and the powder they disperse.
A meeting is called by the cheftain of the village and before you know it Levant & Mahbu are wed, Levant getting the title of Cocoon Master and is tasked with finding the Calabas herb, a legendary plant that is able to wake people from the Onibubu and is to venture into the Beetle, Dragonfly, Spider and Moth forests to find it and save the village...
What I like
The English Voice Acting
It's kinda strange, eapecially from a PS1 game that came out in 1999 (USA) or 2000 (PAL) that this isn't mentioned elsewhere but for the time it has a rather high quality bit of voice acting. This might be helped thanks to the game's rather short length and unlike most JRPG's there's not reams upon reams of dialogue (It's nearly all voiced though) but it's quite well done for the majority.
Mahbu (Voiced by Michelle Ruff in one of her first roles), Garai, Poto and the prophet Gi are all pretty good and especially with Gi (He's kinda a narrator I guess between the chapters) there's a certain... authenticity about it and it feels quite natural.
There's no localisational changes to it as far as I could tell, no inserted jokes or references or anything like that. It's just weird in how good it is when they were all kinda crummy from this generation barring Metal Gear Solid's.
Probably Lui's is the worst but he's supposed to be the annoying, bratty kid and he's only in two or three scenes.
The mature plot
Now obviously I don't mean this in the typical grim dark MATURE kinda way it's usually used in.
While you can perfectly play this without paying too much attention other then battling and merging monsters (or Divine Beasts) there's a neat number of themes at play here with the duty and honour Levant is bound to in protecting the village.
The villagers and the adherence to tradition and the march of progress with Jibara getting Levant to seal the Divine Tree which causes things to completely go south being obviously tied to enviromentalism.
Not to mention the cruelty of man told through Poto's stories and the trials of Fire, Air and Earth with Levant overcoming and defeating the darkness in the other characters hearts.
There is a minor quibble though. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.
Riketz. He doesn't actually do anything wrong other then try to make it so that his wife, Phio, and all other Nagi women don't have to endure the horrible cursed brandings (from purifying the cocoons the divine beasts are sealed in the Nagi women get painful markings that get worse and worse) but because he tries to purify a cocoon himself he's cursed for all eternity and supposedly tainted and gone mad (yet he seems rather reasonable) & earns Elhrim's/God's wrath who causes the Onibubu (Essentially the apocalypse) to attack Syrus and made Riketz into the Chosen One of Darkness.
I think the Cursed Brandings are considered a punishment by Elhrim for a woman having fallen for Kikinak? Or maybe it's because the Nagi are only part magical/Divine that they can't fully purify it and take it into themselves?
Elhrim in general is kind of a jerk making Kikinak, Mamon and all the other Divine Spirits fall from grace just because Kikinak fell in love with a human. Only thing that's justified in the whole game really is Jibara trying to seal him. Elhrim's that one kid if something doesn't go his way then he won't let you play with his toys anymore. He honestly sucks.
At least Garai as the reincarnation of the goddess Azura (the spinner of souls) doesn't do her duty out of spite. Well... maybe spite Jibara a little who's in the process of sacrificing her but it's not as petty as Elhrim at least.
The Soundtrack
It's pretty decent and unique. The past week I've found myself humming the rather tranquil Syrus theme every now and again. There being a number of wind instruments (particularly the flute) used in the soundtrack as the core which makes it stand out from the more traditional strings or full orchestra you'll usually hear as the base of a soundtrack (Not the most gifted in musically terms but hopefully it comes across enough what I'm saying)
In fact you could say the whole game has a rather unique tone and feel to it. The soundtrack definitely adding to that.
The Merging and Battle Mechanics...
So there's four Elements your Divine Beasts/Minions can be.
Water, Fire, Air & Earth.
Water putting out Fire, Fire burning away the Air, Air scattering the Earth and Earth blocking out Water.
Of course you can merge them too in varying proportions to get a mixture of elements. Whether you want a beast that's all elements or 87.5% Air and 12.5% Fire. It's up to you and what you'd like to do with the proportions adding to how much elemental damage they take and deal depending.
The merged minion will take on the shape or body the first and the colors of the second. So... you can end up making monstrosities depending on the amount of merges you do.
Battling is a relatively simple turn based battling system. Enjoyable with you comanding one beast at a time (You can take three with you in total) being able to switch to Levant as well for attacking or capturing beasts.
There's 5 areas of Horns, Fangs, Claws, Tail and Feet that your special attacks can be tied to and you can only have one attack applied to each area.
So if you're merging a fire and water and they both have horn attacks... then you'll lose one of them. There's also modifiers like + critical or +accuracy that you can get to the skill areas at a cost of more mana being used.
Magic has unlimted spell slots on the other hand which is rather nice but if you don't have any percentage of the corrisponding element then the spell will disappear.
What I don't like
... Though there could be more skills (Or at least more on monsters). Plus Levant is kinda useless in battle
There's quite a few beasts in the game. And while there are a number of skills they're very awkward to shift around and if have a particular beast you like the look of you'll never encounter most of them again Especially after you seal the divine tree and everyone turns to stone. Once you head into the moth forest you can't go back to the other forests and the monsters you get from this point on aren't as good
Plus while Levant can attack and is used to capture Divine Beasts... He's not that useful to use in battle. The weapons and armour you can buy help out only a little in making him more feasible to use.
The lack of side quests
Whilst there is the (seemingly) endless Eternal Corridor after you finish the game (That's ridiculously hard) there's almost no other content you can take part in aside from fighting Kikinak a few extra times and catching more divine beasts as you progress.
That's it.
Not even like give this person some healing herbs or raise this beast to this level. There could've been something but it does mean there's no lagging in the main plot either.
Controls
For some reason Levant has tank controls in the overworld. Really only a minor quibble but it's a bit weird for a game like this.
Additional points
There's a glitch in the English versions where if you don't purify your cocoons before you turn the game off then they'll lose all the skills they had. Apparently it can be quite useful for merging but best to look that up yourself.
There's some content (Only one or two beasts) that's tied to the pocketstation peripheral and only works on the PAL version (Besides the Japanese version of course) apparently. They're exceedingly rare.
Theres also two special beasts you can make via merging specfic monsters in a very specific order. I don't know how you're supposed to work it out though
Monster designs aren't the greatest.
Ultimately Jade Cocoon is a diamond in the rough. There's some flaws to it, but there's a great bite sized JRPG here. Only problem is it being relatively difficult to find
8 is the score I'd give it were I rating it professionally.
Though for sentimental reasons I'd probably boost it to 9 for myself.
@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
What's up with Studio Ghibli and Playstation-exclusive games centered around monster collecting?
Good review. The vibe of this game always screamed Nausicaä to me. I distinctly remember it having (at the time) really gorgeous, high-poly character models. I'd forgotten about the full voice acting, though, which is, yes, extremely impressive given the age of this game. Even on the PS2, video game voice acting was still in its Wild West period.
Minion fusing sounds a bit more complex than I remember. I was probably a bit too clay-headed back when I was 11 or whatever to really grok the more involved aspects of the game, though.
Your comments on Levant and my experience with the human forms in DDS make me appreciative of games that exclude the squishy human element entirely in battles, like the Pokemon/Digimon games I've played.
Sounds like I absolutely need to revisit this on my PS1. It's ridiculous how many good-to-great JRPGs there are on that system, both in terms of blockbusters and hidden gems.
@Th3solution Thanks for the GIF praise; I couldn't help myself.
@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Bonus points for mentioning Katamari Forever. You had me hooked there, and then you mentioned a Spider Forest... and now I'm out!
In all seriousness, great review. I'm also wondering who did the soundtrack, as that song you embedded sounds a heck of a lot like some of the music from the Naruto games I've played. If not the same artist, then perhaps from the same school.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
He apparently only did three soundtracks. A Japanese only game, this and Siren. Though he met his wife whilst working as on Jade Cocoon 2 apparently which is rather sweet
He also did something for Katamari Forever strangely enough, I think maybe a single track? Or played an instrument for it?
There's a number of the Divine Beasts that are bugs... But you actually have to go out your way to get a spider like one for most the main game... I don't like them either but considering this is a PS1 game they don't exactly look that real at all. For the time yeah, but now not so much 😅
But I can understand if that still makes your skin crawl!
Layton Brothers Mystery Room. For a cheap mobile game (cases 1 and 2 are free, then it's a few quid to unlock the rest of the game), it was a lot better than I was expecting.
This is a spin-off game of the Professor Layton series involving Alfendi Layton and his assistant Lucy Baker. They are part of the police force, investigation the most mysterious of crimes. It's a Level-5 game, so characters generally have the usual Level-5 charm to them. Alfendi Layton is an interesting character, who thankfully has his own traits and quirks instead of just being a copy-paste of Professor Hershel Layton.
In terms of gameplay, it's much closer to Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney than Professor Layton, but it is a lot more relaxed than Ace Attorney. Case will generally involve investigating a crime scene, then questioning the prime suspect to get to the bottom of the case. There's no penalties in this game, so players can take all the time they want and rethink things if they make a mistake.
As for the story, it's pretty decent. Most of the cases are good, and there are some fine twists. The story is easygoing in most places. It doesn't get too complex and there is not a lot in the way of tension. It can occasionally get darker, which contrasts nicely with the rest of the game.
So overall, it was a fun game that was well worth my time. It was good for whenever I was in the mood for playing a more casual game that has a decent story but is still fairly relaxed.
@Ralizah It's not really F2P. After doing cases 1-2 for free, there's a one-off payment needed to unlock cases 3-6, then another one to unlock cases 7-9. Other than those, there's no other in-app purchases available.
You might like it, or maybe not, I'm not sure. Even compared to the main Layton games, it's rather relaxed. And while the story was fine, it's not as great or as in depth as the main series.
I actually kinda liked Layton's Mystery Journey, but do much prefer the main Professor Layton games. It sure does have its issues, but it probably helped that I went into it expecting it to be decent enough, but not as good than the others.
@crimsontadpoles That sounds perfect. Exactly what I'd like to see more of on the Play Store. The lack of monetization to download it made me think it was probably another mtx-riddled mess.
I'm not expecting anything similar to normal Layton, so long as the writing doesn't actively irritate me, I'll probably like it.
@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Ah, fair enough. Thanks for looking that up! Might've been a similar influence, then, in the same way that a handful of Hollywood composers all come from Hans Zimmer's academy and so sound the same whilst also sounding different. Or it's just me making connections where none exist (let's be honest, it's probably that).
If I can survive the spiders in Tomb Raider Underworld then I'm sure I could handle some PSone arachnids at some point. The kinda games you've been reviewing / discussing aren't exactly my wheelhouse but I always try and keep something different in mind to mix things up, especially after I proved my "I hate all fantasy" opinion wrong earlier in the year by playing the Dragon Age trilogy. So keep these reviews coming, please!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
Nier: Automata. I can definitively say that I have not experienced a game quite like this one before. Getting that Platinum was definitely worth it! The soundtrack was fantastic, combat was great (I usually don't care for games with any kind of character-action focus), and the story was highly enjoyable as well. Route B was a bit of a slog to get through but everything else was wonderful.
@MrGameluvr81 Great that you enjoyed it, Nier Automata does happen to be my favourite PS4 game. I agree about Route B, but overall the game is still fantastic.
Out of curiosity, did you get the trophies through normal means, or did you use the hidden shop to obtain some of them? I used the hidden shop on the fish and archives trophies, along with another one that had glitched, but otherwise did everything else. Also, did you choose to make the sacrifice at the end?
@Ralizah@Thrillho@crimsontadpoles@MrGameluvr81 I really liked Route B, I can see why some people would have struggled with it but I was that smitten with the game I was happy to play through it again and enjoy even the smallest of changes.
@MrGameluvr81 Great that you enjoyed it, Nier Automata does happen to be my favourite PS4 game. I agree about Route B, but overall the game is still fantastic.
Out of curiosity, did you get the trophies through normal means, or did you use the hidden shop to obtain some of them? I used the hidden shop on the fish and archives trophies, along with another one that had glitched, but otherwise did everything else. Also, did you choose to make the sacrifice at the end?
I used the hidden shop for only three trophies: The Circle of Death (Have your body collected), Supreme Support Weapons (upgrade all Pods to max), and Transcendent Being (All endings achieved)
I only died once in the entire game and given the location of said death, I didn't think anyone would collect my body (at least not any time soon) and just bought the trophy to save myself some hassle. My reasoning for buying Transcendent Being was that I only wanted to get the main endings and did not care for getting the other 21 endings. Supreme Support Weapons was a matter of running out of patience, since I only needed 1 more Complex Gadget to fully upgrade my last Pod but could not find one anywhere for the life of me, even though I spent a solid hour and a half looking for one! However, all of the other trophies I obtained legitimately.
In answer to your last question, yes, I did because I did mostly everything but I also wanted to help some other poor soul
Blaster Master Zero (Switch) - Retro stylized sci-fi "Metroidvania" from Inti Creates.
Pros:
While it doesn't reinvent the wheel, the classic "Metroidvania" style gameplay loop is as satisfying as ever, and switching things up with the top down, on foot dungeons keeps things fresh.
While it does have elements that wouldn't have been possible on original hardware, it mostly captures the vibe of an NES game. I also want to point out one specific neat little graphical detail in the Ocean Area, where the background will get actively become darker, then completely black, when you're in deeper areas to simulate light becoming more scarce.
Neutral:
There are tons of boss encounters, and while many are cool & unique (if mostly on the easier side), there are also quite a bit (usually 1 or 2 per area) that just consist of waves of a specific regular enemy.
Negative:
There is one door in the final area that you can only access if you have some sort of radar turned on. Only problem is, you don't need it at any other point in the game (or rather, the game previously automatically turned it on during the few segments you needed it, then turns it off) so I had no idea it was something you could even toggle on or off manually, and ended up looking that part up.
Overall it was a fun time though, and worth the $10.
@mookysam, did you take on the post game levels (in Yoshi's Crafted World)? I've yet to beat the true final boss because it's so frustratingly hard (I even caved and donned the toughest class of costume, of which I never bothered with for the rest of the game, and still can't beat it).
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
@RR529 I did complete the post-game levels but couldn't beat the true final boss either. After a couple of hours trying I just thought "sod this" and turned it off. I could only get as far as the phase where Kamek turns into a version of the King Bowser robot.
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