Jade Cocoon

I put the game in and literally watched slack jawed at the amazing opening sequence. It was beautiful animation, and that was followed by a captivating narrative. There was text, and spoken dialouge, which I don't mind reading, but I was impressed. Most conversations had spoken dialouge, not just in key moments of the game, but everwhere. The other element of the game that caught my eye was the stunning visuals. I was so happy to see that the characters weren't sprite-like people walking on maps with heads bigger than their bodies.

Now to every gamer, you will find faults, and I found a few, but compaired to the pros, the cons couldn't make me stop playing. As lush and beautiful the backgrounds were, they were also dark. Objects sliped by many times, and sometimes there were parts of the background that looked like paths that weren't. Minor complaints to a great game, despite the fact that it's based on capturing and combining monsters dubed minions.

Additiced is all I can say now. After I had captured my first monster, and began merging and fighting I became emersed in the game. The story had me, the graphics and animation had me, and I hate to admit it, but I kind of liked the whole Cocoon Master concept.

Jade Coccoon has a dreamlike fairy-tale quality that I enjoy. There is character development and an actual plot. The sound track is beautiful; I wish I could find it. The character Po tells some good stories (the first about Alcana is the best), which is a nice diversion. My favorite element of the game is that there is no clear "good guy" and "bad guy", there is conflict on both sides. It also touches on some theological questions in an interresting way. The graphics are also quite good for a PlayStation game, and actually add to the mood and setting rather than just act as flashy eye-candy.

My only problem with this game is that it seems slightly rushed in development. There are elements in the story that seem as if they will be developed, and they just "go away". There is also a slight bug: If you save a game while carrying firefly coccoons and turn off the PlayStation, when you re-start, the special abilities and spells of the creatures in the firefly coccoons will be erased. (However, sometimes this works to your advantage for breeding.) Purified coccoons left with Mahbu are safe. The game has also crashed three times on my PS2 (twice when Levant is summoning the first Minion of a fight), but for 50+ hours of play, that isn't bad.