Was it Good? - Jade Cocoon

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The Ray of Hope shall lead the Champion of Light to the Nagi Temple, and the Divine Beasts will break down the Great barriers and bring about the time of Convergence...

Ok so the plot is a mess, but the gameplay is solid.

Jade Cocoon was a late 90's creature capture game riding the success of pokemon and digimon, but with a unique merge mechanic, with virtually unlimited creature appearances.

But, was it any good?

Thanks to the Patreon, Twitch and youtube supporters who keep this channel alive :)

[wcjerky]

_Jade Cocoon_ wants you to merge so much, it merged its monster capture game with an existential dread game.

[Lexichuu_]

Hi, one of the editors of the Jade Cocoon Wikia here.

If you want an example of *how* powerful that Dragoncrest sword you got is; Any% (No Minions) uses it to entirely skip the first elemental boss of the late game (and if you get a 50% drop from that guy, the second one too) with an item that only costs 200 money. It makes your attack so strong during damage calculation, it's as if you were a creature at level 36.

It's a 1% drop from a minion that was added to the story forests from the endless post-game to give more options in non-Japanese copies of the game, and those only spawn 50% of the time. So yeah; pretty rare! :)

[eletric_shower]

I love how you put research into the technical part of game. This adds so much to a normal game review.

[fireflocs]

18:16
Minor correction/elaboration: Creatures do get generally larger as they level up - but this is done by making each body part scale in a way that broadly mimics how aging changes a body in the real world.
Basically, low level creatures have disproportionately large heads, because in the real world babies and young children of most species have large heads. And as they level up ('get older'), the limbs and torso become proportionately larger - in addition to the creature becoming larger overall. Limbs and necks also tend to be proportionately thicker in higher level creatures.

I always thought that was a really nice touch of the system.

[jackjohnson]

OH MY GOD!!! You have no Idea what a rush of nostalgia you just gave me! I loved this game as a kid. I never finished it, because I hadno clue what was going on, but the fusion mechanic was so unique and intresting. I'm really looking forward to this video.

[CompletelyNewguy]

A correction on the Ocarina that Kikinak gives you. It's not meant to improve your capture but rather summon Kikinak so you can fight him again, in the same area of course. This is a great way to increase Levant's HP as he frequently drops great walnuts. He also gives you MASSIVE lore dumps and basically confesses that he SCREWED OVER EVERYONE in the game because he got horny. I love how the other divine spirits talk to him, calling him a pervert and stuff because it's HIS fault they're all like this and why god hung up the phone on them. Yeah Elrim doesn't like your species a whole lot, most of it coming from you're a constant reminder of the promise that was broken.

[BarokaiRein]

Ocarina is the absolute perfect instrument to use as a flute in a game that tries to look old and mystical. The instrument is believed to be about 12 000 years old, possibly far older. Many of the ancient ones were made to look like animals, I've got couple that look like birds myself, but I have to say, the plainer ones usually feel better to play.

I think the reason why this instrument has was somewhat common to see in games back in the 90s is because in the 1950s quite a lot of schools started using plastic ones at music class and in 1960s a mathematician named John Taylor designed a 4 hole ocarina that can play up to 13 different notes. So it's possible that a lot of people in the development team had grown with this instrument in mind, and wanted to look into it's history when making games.

Also during world war 2 American military started using Ocarina as an instrument to bolster morale of the troops. These ''wartime ocarinas'' were made out of stern stuff like metal or bakelite, neither of which would make as good of a sound as one made with pottery.

edit: fixed couple of typos.

[marcussherlock]

The first time I played I made my merged creatures early on and stuck with them, refusing to change them. If I wanted new powers I would make something new. I was hugely attached to every single one, they were my freaky little harlequin babies and nobody else had anything like them. The aesthetics and mythology have since inspired me to create a D&D setting with a similar essence, and led me to the discovery and love of the Ainu culture that contributed some of the real-world inspiration. This game was very special to me as a kid, and I replayed as a teenager and understood it more. When I did it out again in the future (and if my PS2 still works) I will play it again.

[FifthOfNovember_Original]

YESSSS! This was one of my childhood's "most wanted games"! I used to have this on a demo disc which I played hours and hours, trying to combine the few demo monsters it had to create something new and cool! Some 20 years later I finally got myself the full version and the game was almost as much fun now as it was back then! The story of the game hits differently as an adult and definitely feels much more darker now.

EDIT: Seems like many people share the same experience of playing and liking the demo alot, but not owning the full game until much later in life (if at all).

[heronoverdose]

I've just remembered growing up I never used Mahbu's ability outside the demo because I didn't want to hurt her.

[brackmadar]

Love to death this game, gave it to a friend to play one weekend when we where teens and he managed to get to the earth boss in the dark forest using only Levant, english wasnt our native tongue and he really didnt study it, so when i saw him again the first thing i did was ask him sbout which cool monster he had made, his eyes bulged out from his face so hard, we still laugh about this game to this day and his achievement of makingn it that far in hard mode

[MrDark]

Mahbu's voice actress also voiced Yukari from Persona 3. Thanks Josh for covering this one. Brought tears to my eyes to see a dearly held childhood game finally get the recognition it deserves

[fireflocs]

While a lot of plot is presented in an _incredibly_ difficult to parse way, the gist of it is:

A Divine Beast (anthropomorphic animal nature spirit - like Kikinak) and a Beast of Knowledge (human) fell in love in the ancient times, and this made Elrhim (God) _so mad_ that he invented a bunch of new forms of suffering, and a bunch of rules that if you break them, you get those forms of suffering.
And this is why only women can purify cocoons (if a man tries, the cocoon turns evil and the man goes insane), why women who purify cocoons get cursed brandings, and generally why the forest and civilization have to be enemies.
Levant's father, Riketz tried to defy all this by abandoning his rigidly-defined role as cocoon master, and trying to find a way to purify cocoons without consequence. Your role is to prevent Elrhim from throwing another tantrum (the onibubu attacking and everybody turning to stone is essentially the beginnings of said tantrum) by defeating Riketz and bringing him back into line.


It's basically 'God is an emotionally-unstable jerk and his rules are arbitrary, but we have to obey and keep him pacified because he's too powerful to fight or overthrow', but said with grandiose metaphors and elaborate terminology. It's like how the ancient Greeks saw their gods, but explained in dense, super-Shakespearean language.

[ruc]

I knew somebody would find this gem eventually. That monster combining system was ridiculously innovative for its time and that music during the opening fights? Iconic.

[notednuance]

This game is like trying to remember a weird dream you had.

[Evanz]

Dammit, right after Future Cop LAPD now you cover this hidden gem too? You’re really giving so much validation to my entire childhood, thank you!

Fun fact: one of the first area songs of Final Fantasy 16 is almost identical to the forest music in this game!

[snoozd]

I loved this game as a child. The voice of the man you fight in a dream at the beggining terrified me (at least in the french dub). Even my little sister who was in pre school remembers him. I should try to play it to the end one day.

[Crazakun]

As a big Studio Ghibli fan I couldn't help but think, "Hey, you got your Princess Mononoke in my Nausicaa!" "Well you got your Nausicaa in my Princess Mononoke!"

Just for that, I'm intrigued.

[nintenx]

Had you told me Josh was working on a "was it any good?" For a story focused creature collector in which you must fuse monsters to make them stronger I'd have assumed a "Was it any good? Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series"

[declanflynn]

So basically crimes against Charles Darwin... the game