So I just made a stunning connection related to Jade Cocoon 2!
So as you all know in the Legend of Zelda series, Ganon appears at full power as a large porcine (pig). In Jade Cocoon 2, Vordrech's line leads up to Blumen; let me stop there for a second, and let me compare.
Ganon:
-Large Porcine
-Bipedal
-Uses weapons
Blumen:
-Large Porcine
-Bipedal
-Uses claws as weapons
Could this not be the bridge that ties together every major game series to date?
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Friday, April 26, 2013
Jade Cocoon as a series (Introduction)
At first glance, I think people passed Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu for the PSone as a shameful Pokemon rip-off. They'd be right if they actually developed a sense of originality.
To start off, the opening sequence, which is FMV (acronym for full-motion video, which was a relatively new thing back then), looks like it was directed by world-renowned animated movie director for Studio Ghibli, none other than Mr. Hayao Miyazaki. EVERY character was designed by Katsuya Kondo, who worked on animations for Kiki's Delivery Service and I Can Hear the Sea (also as part of Studio Ghibli and directed by Hayao Miyazaki).
Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu was released by Crave Entertainment in the US, and developed by Genki INC. in Japan in the late 90's (specifically 1998). In my heart, and before I was totally into Pokemon, Jade Cocoon was my one true passion, totally capturing my vision on a game where you truly capture monsters and train them for extended periods of time, helping them grow stronger and stronger. This was in my opinion, the ideal monster capturing game, and it was released on the PlayStation! Albeit doing better, Pokemon didn't have many of the unrecognizable monsters that have been around in Jade Cocoon 1, such as Arpatron (the very first monster that you receive in the game), Spiral, Hiralco, etc. It had you defeating other monsters in order for your monsters to grow even stronger; and it had managed to bring in a mechanic that no other RPG had. And that was merging monsters; but it didn't give you the offspring of one of the parents, no! It actually gave you a hybrid of the two mixtures! With one, you have the body style, and with the other, you have the skin! Plus, as each monster has different special attacks, there are limitless combinations of special moves and even a mixture of the four elements in the game (Fire, Earth, Air, and Water).
In 2001, Genki released a sequel to Jade Cocoon 1 for the PS2; this would become known as Jade Cocoon 2, published by Ubisoft Entertainment. Now... this is where I run into something around the internet called "sequelitis". Its a disease in video games that compare a first game and a sequel in its series that make the sequel even better or worse than the original, or vice versa. Here's my diagnostic for this case of Sequelitis.
In Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu (SPOILER ALERT), you play as a mute protagonist, whom you can name, much like Pokemon. However, his preset name is "Levant". Levant lives in a small village called Syrus, in the land of Parel. His wife Mahbu is a Nagi maiden; in the games, the Nagi are a sacred people who believe that Elrihm, god of the forest (the source of all life) created the "beasts of knowledge". In other words, Elrihm created mankind. However, one of Elrihm's servants, the Divine Spirits, was caught being seduced by a man. And so a promise set by Elrihm was broken; their two children were to hold massive powers. Those two were light (Kumari) and darkness (Kaya). The game then opens with Levant on a watchtower with his soon-to-be wife, Mahbu, who listens to the flute that Levant's father gave him before he left. After getting annoyed by an orphan named Lui (the guardian of the watchtower, and the holder of the Beetle Gate's key), Mahbu proceeds to chase him and insult him. He returns home to his mother Phio, before going to sleep. He has a dream; he is in the middle of the Wormhole Forest, where an illusion of Mahbu tells him that he's going to be late for something. He chases it, before it completely disappears in the fog. He stops and notices an illusion of Lui, who he proceeds to chase after, before reaching a dead end. A man suddenly appears out of nowhere, and challenges him to a battle after learning he is the son of the Lion of Parel, and the Cocoon Master who must save Syrus. After losing horribly, he awakens.
Blah blah, I could go on with the entire story.
In Jade Cocoon 2, which takes place 100 years after the events of the first Jade Cocoon, you play as Kahu, who wants to become a Cocoon Master after discovering a newly redesigned Temple of Kemuel. After passing the exams and meeting a new friend, who has actually helped in infecting him with a beast called the "Kalma", he finally gets to meet Levant, who gives him a BeastAmulet, a device which allows him to store up to eight beasts at once.
Now, going off for a second; in the original, you could store up to three beasts at a time. In Pokemon, you can store six Pokemon; in Jade Cocoon 2, you can store up to eight beasts at once! Dramatic improvement over the original. Plus, also in the original, the monsters (or minions as they were called) had their stats separated upon seven stats; Health, Mana (how much of these points are left so you can use special attacks and magic), Attack, Defense, Magic Attack, and Magic Defense, and Speed. Albeit similar to Pokemon, the difference is that when you merge monsters in JC1, the stats combine, such as level, and all the others change, depending on what is being merged in a specific order. So, say perhaps you select a level 2 Spiral to be merged with a level 22 Spiral. Nothing would really change, except maybe some physical aspects of its form would change, such as horn size, fist size, and others; not only that, but stats wouldn't change either. That would be like if you raised it all the way to level 22 without merging it.
Anyway, and then Kahu has to set out to find the four Forest Orbs, much like Levant did in the first JC. Along the way, he meets interesting characters. To find out more about said characters, visit the Jade Cocoon 2 Wiki on Wikia. When he does, he has to battle the Kalma inside him for supremacy. Once he does, Levant absorbs the Kalma from Kahu, and proceeds through the Kaya Gate, the path of the Chosen One of Darkness. Once gathering the four elemental JEWELS, he gains angelic wings, and the ability to travel to Levant, and Lilith, the hatchling of the Black Cocoon (fun fact, Lilith is actually the final form of the Kalma evolutionary line, when it looks like the Disciples of Darkness are). Once defeated, all is normal at the Temple once again.
Okay... now, on with gameplay mechanics. This time around, Jade Cocoon 2 employs the same basic premise; defeat other monsters to have your own gain strength in battle. However, the stats this time around are different; there are still Health Points and Mana Points, but there's Strength, Vitality, Wisdom, Spirit, and Speed (Attack, Defense, Magic Attack, Magic Defense, and Speed, just like from the last game). And, the merging mechanic is different. There are still the same four elements (Fire, Earth, Wind, and Water), but every time you merge with a Seed Beast (you defeat Kalma out in the wild, take it to Ra in the Room of Life, and you get rewarded; this is a Seed Beast, and it gives an attack when you merge), you get the Skill/Spell that it carries, depending on its element, and grade (from D to S, with S being the highest). The form doesn't change at all, but you get to raise it even more so that it gets even stronger (the beast that has the highest level of merges out of all them is my Reylon, which has about 20 merges), and it gains the attack of the Seed Beast (one monster can have up to two attacks, but no attacks can oppose each other's elements, i.e. you can't have a Water and Fire attack on the same beast). Plus, there's something in the game that totally rips off Pokemon; evolution. However, evolution works differently. Every time you merge a monster, a bar in your monster's status screen fills up; at certain points, when your monster reaches a certain level, it will evolve into a new form, complete with upgrades to stats. When the "evolution bar" on one beast is full, it will evolve into its "Most Evolved" form past Level 15.
Well, that's all you ever needed to know about the Jade Cocoon series in a nutshell. You can purchase Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu (Tamamayu Monotagari) on the Japanese PlayStation Store for about 600 yen ($6.04), and Jade Cocoon 2 wherever it may be sold (Amazon is your best bet). Good luck!
-Hollis Pierman
To start off, the opening sequence, which is FMV (acronym for full-motion video, which was a relatively new thing back then), looks like it was directed by world-renowned animated movie director for Studio Ghibli, none other than Mr. Hayao Miyazaki. EVERY character was designed by Katsuya Kondo, who worked on animations for Kiki's Delivery Service and I Can Hear the Sea (also as part of Studio Ghibli and directed by Hayao Miyazaki).
Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu was released by Crave Entertainment in the US, and developed by Genki INC. in Japan in the late 90's (specifically 1998). In my heart, and before I was totally into Pokemon, Jade Cocoon was my one true passion, totally capturing my vision on a game where you truly capture monsters and train them for extended periods of time, helping them grow stronger and stronger. This was in my opinion, the ideal monster capturing game, and it was released on the PlayStation! Albeit doing better, Pokemon didn't have many of the unrecognizable monsters that have been around in Jade Cocoon 1, such as Arpatron (the very first monster that you receive in the game), Spiral, Hiralco, etc. It had you defeating other monsters in order for your monsters to grow even stronger; and it had managed to bring in a mechanic that no other RPG had. And that was merging monsters; but it didn't give you the offspring of one of the parents, no! It actually gave you a hybrid of the two mixtures! With one, you have the body style, and with the other, you have the skin! Plus, as each monster has different special attacks, there are limitless combinations of special moves and even a mixture of the four elements in the game (Fire, Earth, Air, and Water).
In 2001, Genki released a sequel to Jade Cocoon 1 for the PS2; this would become known as Jade Cocoon 2, published by Ubisoft Entertainment. Now... this is where I run into something around the internet called "sequelitis". Its a disease in video games that compare a first game and a sequel in its series that make the sequel even better or worse than the original, or vice versa. Here's my diagnostic for this case of Sequelitis.
In Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu (SPOILER ALERT), you play as a mute protagonist, whom you can name, much like Pokemon. However, his preset name is "Levant". Levant lives in a small village called Syrus, in the land of Parel. His wife Mahbu is a Nagi maiden; in the games, the Nagi are a sacred people who believe that Elrihm, god of the forest (the source of all life) created the "beasts of knowledge". In other words, Elrihm created mankind. However, one of Elrihm's servants, the Divine Spirits, was caught being seduced by a man. And so a promise set by Elrihm was broken; their two children were to hold massive powers. Those two were light (Kumari) and darkness (Kaya). The game then opens with Levant on a watchtower with his soon-to-be wife, Mahbu, who listens to the flute that Levant's father gave him before he left. After getting annoyed by an orphan named Lui (the guardian of the watchtower, and the holder of the Beetle Gate's key), Mahbu proceeds to chase him and insult him. He returns home to his mother Phio, before going to sleep. He has a dream; he is in the middle of the Wormhole Forest, where an illusion of Mahbu tells him that he's going to be late for something. He chases it, before it completely disappears in the fog. He stops and notices an illusion of Lui, who he proceeds to chase after, before reaching a dead end. A man suddenly appears out of nowhere, and challenges him to a battle after learning he is the son of the Lion of Parel, and the Cocoon Master who must save Syrus. After losing horribly, he awakens.
Blah blah, I could go on with the entire story.
In Jade Cocoon 2, which takes place 100 years after the events of the first Jade Cocoon, you play as Kahu, who wants to become a Cocoon Master after discovering a newly redesigned Temple of Kemuel. After passing the exams and meeting a new friend, who has actually helped in infecting him with a beast called the "Kalma", he finally gets to meet Levant, who gives him a BeastAmulet, a device which allows him to store up to eight beasts at once.
Now, going off for a second; in the original, you could store up to three beasts at a time. In Pokemon, you can store six Pokemon; in Jade Cocoon 2, you can store up to eight beasts at once! Dramatic improvement over the original. Plus, also in the original, the monsters (or minions as they were called) had their stats separated upon seven stats; Health, Mana (how much of these points are left so you can use special attacks and magic), Attack, Defense, Magic Attack, and Magic Defense, and Speed. Albeit similar to Pokemon, the difference is that when you merge monsters in JC1, the stats combine, such as level, and all the others change, depending on what is being merged in a specific order. So, say perhaps you select a level 2 Spiral to be merged with a level 22 Spiral. Nothing would really change, except maybe some physical aspects of its form would change, such as horn size, fist size, and others; not only that, but stats wouldn't change either. That would be like if you raised it all the way to level 22 without merging it.
Anyway, and then Kahu has to set out to find the four Forest Orbs, much like Levant did in the first JC. Along the way, he meets interesting characters. To find out more about said characters, visit the Jade Cocoon 2 Wiki on Wikia. When he does, he has to battle the Kalma inside him for supremacy. Once he does, Levant absorbs the Kalma from Kahu, and proceeds through the Kaya Gate, the path of the Chosen One of Darkness. Once gathering the four elemental JEWELS, he gains angelic wings, and the ability to travel to Levant, and Lilith, the hatchling of the Black Cocoon (fun fact, Lilith is actually the final form of the Kalma evolutionary line, when it looks like the Disciples of Darkness are). Once defeated, all is normal at the Temple once again.
Okay... now, on with gameplay mechanics. This time around, Jade Cocoon 2 employs the same basic premise; defeat other monsters to have your own gain strength in battle. However, the stats this time around are different; there are still Health Points and Mana Points, but there's Strength, Vitality, Wisdom, Spirit, and Speed (Attack, Defense, Magic Attack, Magic Defense, and Speed, just like from the last game). And, the merging mechanic is different. There are still the same four elements (Fire, Earth, Wind, and Water), but every time you merge with a Seed Beast (you defeat Kalma out in the wild, take it to Ra in the Room of Life, and you get rewarded; this is a Seed Beast, and it gives an attack when you merge), you get the Skill/Spell that it carries, depending on its element, and grade (from D to S, with S being the highest). The form doesn't change at all, but you get to raise it even more so that it gets even stronger (the beast that has the highest level of merges out of all them is my Reylon, which has about 20 merges), and it gains the attack of the Seed Beast (one monster can have up to two attacks, but no attacks can oppose each other's elements, i.e. you can't have a Water and Fire attack on the same beast). Plus, there's something in the game that totally rips off Pokemon; evolution. However, evolution works differently. Every time you merge a monster, a bar in your monster's status screen fills up; at certain points, when your monster reaches a certain level, it will evolve into a new form, complete with upgrades to stats. When the "evolution bar" on one beast is full, it will evolve into its "Most Evolved" form past Level 15.
Well, that's all you ever needed to know about the Jade Cocoon series in a nutshell. You can purchase Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu (Tamamayu Monotagari) on the Japanese PlayStation Store for about 600 yen ($6.04), and Jade Cocoon 2 wherever it may be sold (Amazon is your best bet). Good luck!
-Hollis Pierman
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