 Jade
Cocoon, Crave Entertainment's second domestic RPG release, is a considerable departure from the traditional RPG formula. Developed by Genki
Studios, the game is more of a monster-rancher RPG hybrid than anything
else.
The game's story is complex to say the least. Basically, it is a tale of Man
versus Nature as the forest world attacks humanity for past transgressions.
Among the convoluted plot line is a complicated history of myth and legend
which unfortunately never really explains or clears up anything. Dialogue
is almost entirely spoken with very good voice acting. At the center of the
story is Levant, and his love interest, Mahbu. For some reason, Levant is mute so the player always has to imagine what he would say in any given situation.
Levant's goal is to become a Cocoon Master and save his village from the
danger of the forest. Along the way, he uncovers the history of his world
and the real identities of the principal characters.
Graphically, the game is very rich, sporting lush forest environments and
detailed polygon characters. The enemies are also polygonal and display a
wide range of movements and battle animations. The story is told through
numerous anime sequences in the style of Miyazaki anime seen in films such
as "Kiki's Delivery Service" and "Princess Mononoke."
The world consists of four forests and one village. Later on, the four
forests are reused as different dungeons in a different story setting with
new enemies. This is one shortcoming of the game. The forest environments
are impressive at first, but get repetitive. Because of this and the nature
theme, Jade Cocoon loses any graphical variety it may have had at the
beginning. The music and sounds of the game are actually well done --
being both memorable and fitting the theme of the story and its environments.
The originality of Jade Cocoon comes from its battle system. The player
controls Levant throughout the game, but there are no hit points, experience
points, or money obtained by defeating enemies. Instead, since Levant is a Cocoon Master, he doesn't kill his enemies but must capture
them. In fact, if you kill an enemy you get no reward. The only way to
advance your character is by capturing more powerful enemies to increase the
Capture Experience level. Once enemies are captured into cocoons, they can
be used to aid you in battle. A maximum of three allies can be equipped at
a time.
The attacks of your allies are based on a Fire, Water, Earth, Air
system in which one element is dominant over one other. Fire beats Air, Air
beats Earth, Earth beats Water, and Water beats Fire. The allies, unlike
the human character, gain experience and hit point levels upon killing the
enemy. This means that to succeed in the game the player must balance
killing the enemies with your allies and capturing them to increase Levant's
capture level.
 Another twist is that captured enemies can be merged with
one another to make new allies with traits from the two merged enemies. The
player has an infinite amount of options on merging enemy characters. In
each case, depending on the elemental strengths, new magic or attacks can be
developed in the new ally. Finally, if there is an excess of captured enemy
cocoons, Levant can spin the cocoon silk and sell it for money. Buying
better weapons, armor, and items is the only way to increase his strength and defense.
Through providing so many possible merged ally
varieties, the game succeeds in its monster-rancher aspect. As an RPG,
however, the battle system takes a long time to execute and can get tedious
after awhile. The lack of the human character growth is an unfortunate
shortcoming of an otherwise intriguing battle system.
While the monster-rancher aspect enhances the gameplay, the story and characters could
have used more depth without being as confusing. The anime and graphics give a
unique nature-centric feel to the game but it's overdone. The environmentally-correct theme gets
old too fast for my taste. Jade Cocoon ultimately develops as an unbalanced RPG.
|
