[REVIEW] Jade Cocoon

A game being older and relatively obscure in no way diminishes how playable it can still be, even in the face of so many other games of the same genre. And sometimes, just sometime, an overlooked game can actually have some groundbreaking mechanics for its time, mechanics that I really wish had become more standard over the years. Such is the case with Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu, developed for the Playstation by Genki and published by the now bankrupt Crave Entertainment.

Jade Cocoon is one of those games that I think slipped a lot of people by back in the day, and even though it received a PS2 sequel, said sequel was so radically different from the first game that they may as well have been from different franchises entirely. Which is a shame, because there are some brilliant elements to Jade Cocoon that I have yet to see repeated in other monster-raising sim/RPGs, even after all these years. And it’s lack of public visibility, even back in the day, constantly surprises me, especially when you consider that Katsuya Kondo, who worked with Studio Ghibli, did a lot of the artwork and design for the game.

So what is it that makes this game so special, something I consider still very much worth playing even now, over 20 years after its initial release?

A PLAGUE UPON YOU

You play as Levant, a young man who wants to become a Cocoon Master in order to follow in his father’s footsteps and also to protect his village. A Cocoon Master is one who enters the Divine Forests beyond the village and tames the Minions who live wild within. So far, sounding like a fairly standard setup for a game in which you collect and battle with a variety of monsters. But one day, the peace of the village is shattered by an invasion of Minions, a swarm known as the Onibubu. Which sounds kind of silly to English-speakers, I’m sure, but one potential way of interpreting that word is “demonic buzzing” in Japanese. Which sounds just a bit more menacing.

The Onibubu shouldn’t have been able to break through to the village, and so people begin to worry that the Day of Judgment is upon them. Many villagers have fallen into a deep slumber and cannot be awoken, and so it’s Levant’s task, as a Cocoon Master, to venture into the forest to find a cure. Not before he marries Mahbu, though, a Nagi women who must be married to a Cocoon Master in order to allow him to do his job properly. She purifies the cocoons of the Minions Levant brings from the forest, taking upon herself Cursed Brandings that will eventually claim her life.

Yeah, just a little bit different than your standard monster-raising RPG at this point, I think.

The story definitely goes beyond Levant just bringing back the cure for the sleeping villagers, and there’s a whole lot of religious and social commentary, as well as strong hints of solid world-building, all packed into what really is a fairly short game. The main story takes maybe a dozen hours to beat, which isn’t the shortest RPG ever, but it’s still not going to be too much of a time-sink for people who want to beat it. It’s one of those games that kind of throws you in the deep end where the story is concerned, giving players legends and stories and brief glimpses of the history of this fantastical world, but without giving massive infodumps about all of their meaning and relevance. That’s on the player to absorb and appreciate as they play.

A TANK IN THE FOREST

For all that I love Jade Cocoon, it’s not without its flaws. One of the problems I think will be noticed first are the controls. Tank controls. Now, tank controls have their place, especially when you’re looking at lots of shifting camera angles that might result in a character running forward but then the next screen over the perspective makes them need to run to the right. Doubly so when you’re trying to chase down or avoid enemies. But with Jade Cocoon you typically have 1 or 2 slow-moving enemies onscreen at a time, which don’t speed up until you approach, so they’re either easy to avoid or impossible, no matter what sort of control scheme is being used.

Combined with the fact that most screen changes let the character continue to move the same way they were facing to begin with, and the ones that don’t often have a short loading screen, and it makes the tank controls feel entirely pointless.

But as annoying as tank controls can be, they can be adjusted to, with time. And when you’re lost in the art style of the game, sometimes the frustration of accidentally turning a little too far and running in a circle for a moment loses some of its annoyance.

The second problem I find is that unless you really love monster-raising RPGs and/or fantasy mythology, you might find yourself getting bored by the linearity of the story. Jade Cocoon is fairly slow-paced, with a formula that largely breaks down to, “Go into the forest, find a thing, return to the village for a new piece of story, go into a new section of the forest…” Rinse and repeat. Getting through the forests is slow in itself, given Levant’s movement speed and the general nature of forest trails (lots of winding around and backtracking), so I can see this turning some people away from the game, especially if they’re used to more action-oriented games.

I’ve seen many reviews compared this game to Final Fantasy VII, based on the fact that they’re both RPGs from Japan that were released for the same system. Myself, I think that’s a bit unfair to Jade Cocoon, starting with the fact that the games were actually released almost 2 years apart, and ending with the fact that there are a wide variety of subcategories within the RPG genre. Jade Cocoon is much closer to being comparable with Pokemon than Final Fantasy VII, and anyone who starts playing this game with the idea that it’s similar to a Final Fantasy game because one came out on the same system is going to be seriously disappointed.

And also needs to re-evaluate their critical thinking skills.

Despite mediocre reviews, I still maintain that Jade Cocoon is a good game with some amazing monster mechanics, which I’m going to discuss now.

CHANGE ISN’T ALWAYS BAD

As mentioned previously, monsters in this game are called Minions, and most are decidedly insect-like in appearance. You get some dragons in there, and some things that look kind of like pointy armadillos or armoured pterodactyls, but it’s mostly insects. You can have 3 Minions in your party at any given time, switching them out to fight in a turn-based battle system that will feel very comfortable for classic JRPG veterans. Each Minion also has an assigned element: Water, Fire, Air, and Earth. Water beats Fire, which beats Air, which beats Earth, which beats Fire. Fairly typical, that.

But if you think this game is just like so many other monster-raising RPGs, where all you do is catch new things and level them up to become stronger, you’re in for a surprise. Jade Cocoon has merging, in which you can fuse two monsters together to create a new one. This can be done to acquire something with stronger stats, to add an additional element for better type coverage in battle, or just to play around with a Minion’s appearance.

Because yes, the appearance of the new Minion takes cues from both its sources. If you have Horned Armadillo and decide to merge it with Strange Pterodactyl (not their actual names, I’m just giving descriptions for the sake for an example), you will end up with a Winged Armadillo. Do it the other way around, with Strange Pterodactyl as your base and merge it with Horned Armadillo, and you’ll have a Horned Pterodactyl. The colour scheme will also merge, so if you merge something blue with something yellow, you’ll end up with something more greenish. The order you merge Minions in matters as much as the Minions themselves.

The combinations are pretty much endless. You can mix and match and build something unique, something you love the look of because you’ve slowly taken bits and pieces of the Minions you like most and combined them into the best of everything.

But just hang on, because it gets even better than that!

Minions in the game change their appearance as they gain levels, and by this, I don’t mean that they evolve to new forms entirely. No, it’s more like they grow up. Horns become longer and sharper, wings become larger and more impressive, legs get bigger and thicker. All sorts of subtle changes happen as the Minion grows in strength thanks to battles, and it’s something I’ve never seen in any other game since. Take, for instance, the earliest appearance of Hiralco, compared to its final appearance once it’s done maturing.

Whereas even Jade Cocoon‘s sequel opted for a more Pokemon-esque transformation in its monsters, Jade Cocoon did something incredibly special with the slow and subtle change of appearance as monsters leveled up. And as each piece of a Minion has growth patterns coded into them, this also works with merged Minions. Your unique little-bit-of-everything monster that you designed will also grow up and assume a more mature form over time.

This is where I think Jade Cocoon‘s masterstroke really lies. It’s an okay RPG by most standards, though nothing that really sets it apart from the dozens of others that were released in the few years surrounding it. Except for the way it handled its monsters. It was brilliant innovation that went unappreciated by many players and critics alike. As I said before, I can’t think of a single other game that made their monsters this way, even this game’s sequel, and I think that’s a great disappointment and loss of potential. If this could be done with a first-generation Playstation, imagine what somebody could accomplish with modern consoles, or on PC.

IT GOES ON AND ON, MY FRIENDS

The main game may be relatively short, but once it ends, you can access the endless post-game dungeon, the Eternal Corridor. The Eternal Corridor contains many Minions that weren’t in the main game, making it an essential challenge for completionists who want to fill out as much of their Minion list as possible (the North American release can’t be fully completed due to a few cut Minions and glitches). The challenge isn’t in navigating the dungeon, as each room is pretty straight, barring a few that merely have a secondary dead-end branch, with a battle at the end before proceeding to the next room.

No, the challenge is in the fact that once you begin traversing the Eternal Corridor, the only way out is death or retreat. Either one will reset the process and make you start at the first of its 1000 floors, no matter how far you made it in your last run. Getting through the whole thing in one sitting is a test of stamina, determination, and a team strong enough to handle the battles before you. Plus a whole load of healing items. Can’t neglect those.

The Eternal Corridor also has boss fights, and defeating the boss means a chance to obtain the boss’s skin. Which sounds more disturbing than it really is; what it means is that you can use the skin during merging to change your Minion’s appearance. Got a badass Minion on your team but wish it looked just a little more like a panda? There’s a black-and-white panda-patterned skin that can make your dreams come true. By the time you reach the thousandth floor of the dungeon, you’re likely to have stockpiled a number of some of those skins.

Jade Cocoon really is an overlooked gem of the PS1 era and the monster-raising RPG genre. It might not be perfect, but it had some impressive mechanics for its day, which make it still enjoyable to play even now. The level of customization in its monsters is second to none, and I wish more games took inspiration from this, rather than the sequel taking a bit too much inspiration from other games. Of all the potential games to get modern remasters, this is the one I hope for the most, as I think it could thrive on modern consoles where it just sort of existed on earlier ones.

There’s a lot to love about it if you’re the patient sort and you’re looking for something uncommon in s monster-raising game. Jade Cocoon did have a digital release for the PS3 and PS Vita, but only for Japan; English speakers are going to have to track down an old PS1 copy if they want to play this unique game. I assure you, thoughl if you’re anything like me, it’s absolutely worth it.