Jade Cocoon 2
Jan. 7th, 2004 03:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lathanyMy Christmas PS2 game was Jade Cocoon 2.
The game itself is about raising monsters (divine beasts) to fight with. You (Kahu) are supposed to be collecting certain items from a number of forests, but this is background stuff to the fighting.
You have an amulet that starts with a single beast, but can have seven more added to it if you win certain arena fights (plus you get another one for finishing the "quest" part of the game). The beasts surround you in a circle and both stop enemies from hitting you directly and fight back if they are on the (three spot) side facing the enemies at the time. These beasts represent the four elements - fire (fight power), earth (defense), wind (status effects) and water (recovery) and there are four centre spots (one element only) and four corner spots (two elements) to fight from.
I really enjoyed collecting, breeding and fighting with these home-raised beasties. It reminded me vaguely of chocobo breeding (from Final Fantasy VII) or blitz ball team building (from Final Fantasy X). If you like that sort of thing, you'll enjoy it; otherwise avoid this game like the plague. Unlike most of the games I play, it has little in the way of plot; but I found I did not mind that for once.
The best points were the way in which the divine beasts would evolve as they got stronger and that some of the fights genuinely did require slightly different tactics from the others. Plus the street(forest)-smart fairy (Nico) really reminded me of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
unknownid.
The worst points is that there are not that many different fights, some of the dialogue is not necessary (everyone has a final line when you finish talking to them and it's dull after the six-millionth time you hear it) and that the end-of-game boss is a real problem to beat (unless you have gone with a particular set of powered-up beasts).
But, overall, I would recommend it.
The game itself is about raising monsters (divine beasts) to fight with. You (Kahu) are supposed to be collecting certain items from a number of forests, but this is background stuff to the fighting.
You have an amulet that starts with a single beast, but can have seven more added to it if you win certain arena fights (plus you get another one for finishing the "quest" part of the game). The beasts surround you in a circle and both stop enemies from hitting you directly and fight back if they are on the (three spot) side facing the enemies at the time. These beasts represent the four elements - fire (fight power), earth (defense), wind (status effects) and water (recovery) and there are four centre spots (one element only) and four corner spots (two elements) to fight from.
I really enjoyed collecting, breeding and fighting with these home-raised beasties. It reminded me vaguely of chocobo breeding (from Final Fantasy VII) or blitz ball team building (from Final Fantasy X). If you like that sort of thing, you'll enjoy it; otherwise avoid this game like the plague. Unlike most of the games I play, it has little in the way of plot; but I found I did not mind that for once.
The best points were the way in which the divine beasts would evolve as they got stronger and that some of the fights genuinely did require slightly different tactics from the others. Plus the street(forest)-smart fairy (Nico) really reminded me of
unknownid.The worst points is that there are not that many different fights, some of the dialogue is not necessary (everyone has a final line when you finish talking to them and it's dull after the six-millionth time you hear it) and that the end-of-game boss is a real problem to beat (unless you have gone with a particular set of powered-up beasts).
But, overall, I would recommend it.
