Jade Cocoon - Playstation monster taming games

Pal Version (UK & Europe)
Amazon.co.uk

The game begins as our hero Levant comes of age, marries his childhod friend and Nagi woman, Mabu, and takes up his father's role as the village monster tamer. His father vanished in the forest when he was a child, leaving his wife to raise their son. All monster tamer's wives come from the Nagi tribe, which have the ability to purify monsters, allowing tamers to use them for battle and create silk from them. Unfortunately the villagers believe this means they are cursed.

Apart from the basic idea of monster taming, the game's rather linear plot revolves around an ancient tribe, a curse and a divine war between light and darkness. There are no secrets, hidden areas or multiple endings, and your actions cannot change the path of the story. Unfortunately by about halfway through there are no likeable characters left in the game. Also, it is actually possible for the game to make no sense as it assumes you have taken actions you have not. (At one point I did wonder if Mabu was helping out another monster tamer behind my back).

The graphics are generally poor and not impressive. The camera angles are fixed and can cause problems during gameplay, as exits may be hidden by terrain features. The sound is variable, both in quality and volume, and required adjusting several times. Although there are voices, Levant never speaks so you spend most of the game being spoken at by other characters and can't respond.

The monsters are the best part of the game. When you capture a monster, Mabu can turn it into silk, which you can sell to buy better equipment, or she can purify it as a minion. Minion are monsters who will fight for you in battle, and you can fuse minions together to produce stronger minions or ones with different attributes. It is a very open ended system, and fusions can produce a wide range of monsters. The more monsters minions defeat, the stronger they become.

The controls are very simple. For most of the game you control Levant in a third person view. For the rest you will be fighting monster battles, which are controlled purely by dropdown menus and take little time to get used to. Only one minion (or Levant) can fight at a time, although you can swap minions if one gets damaged.

The game is also very short, about 3-5 hours, if not less, especially if you progress through the plot without backtracking to level up your creatures. This game would probably be better to rent than to buy, especially as it has effectively no replay value.

Although the game does not offer enough to keep RPG fans happy, it may provide fans of monster-breeding and collection games with a different, if basic, game that will provide some amusement. It is not particularly suitable for younger children, but no one over the age of ten should have problems with it.

The sequel follows some years after the first game and does not feature the same characters. On the PS2 instead of the PS1, it has slightly expanded gameplay.