Jade Cocoon 2:
Kahu's Curse

Review by Chi Phan

You know? When I finished playing Jade Cocoon 1, I thought it was an okay rpg but didn't think it was something that would warrant a sequel. To honest, I thought this game sold pretty poorly. Guess I was wrong on both accounts. A sequel was made, and sequel don't get made unless it sold fairly decent to warrant one. That's the thinking anyways. Oh well.....since it's out and I've brought this game, let's review it. Somewhere out there, someone is shaking his/her head in disbelief thinking, "Oh no. Another review from this loser." Well tough luck so deal with it.

Listen to my story.. Evolution time! Story?? The gameplay is the story. lol. Backdrop of the story...Hundreds or maybe thousands of years have passed with the last Cocoon. The Nagi people which was last seen in the first game have all but disappeared. As well as Cocoon Masters. In it's place are new people and new Cocoon Masters now known as BeastHunters. The only remaining memory of the past is the Legendary Cocoon Master name Levant. Somehow Levant has become immortal and is now guardian of the 4 elemental forests...End of backdrop. The story begins with young Kahu applying for a job as a BeastHunter to hunt Cocoon and raise beasts. Before becoming a professional BeastHunter, Kahu must first apply for the job from Levant who oversees things in the forest. Levant grants Kahu his wish and sends him off on a trial to see how he would do. Just before completing his trial, Kahu ends up being cursed with a demonic parasite version of himself inhabited within his body when he encounter a fairy named Nico. This curse grew Kahu a tail. So with a curse on hand, Kahu asks Levant on how to get rid off this curse. Levant told him that the curse can be lifted if Kahu can retrieve the 4 orbs deep within each of the 4 elemental forests. With this goal in place. Kahu with the fairy Nico as his companion sets off on a quest to each of the 4 elemental forests to retrieve the 4 orbs. Along the way in each of the different forests, he will meet with new characters and have small conversations with them. That's pretty much the glist of the story. Not very in-depth at all. It's pretty much just Kahu getting the 4 orbs and bringing them back to Levant to have the curse lifted. There's a little bit of a twist once Kahu brings the 4 orbs back but the twist really doesn't make much sense. The story is very short with little plot developement or character developement at all. There's summ narration from Nico but still it's nothing worth a mention. To summ up the story, go get the 4 orbs in the forest and bring them back to Levant. Wow, huh? I found myself bored to death with this story. The first Jade Cocoon had a much better story.

The return of Levant Jade Cocoon 2 has what you would call fragmented characters that are part of a storyline but doesn't really serve any purpose to the game or storyline. Since this game is a turn base/action rpg game, you're not going to get any party members other than the monsters /beasts that accompany you. So the characters that are presented in this game are supporting storyline characters. The problem is that these supporting characters don't really support the story at all and really serve no purpose. One can easily take them out of the game and there wouldn't be any effect to the storyline at all. Basically each supporting characters are assign in each of the different elemental forests throughout the game. As Kahu, the main character, explore throughout the different levels of each elemental forests, he will encounter these characters. And just take part in a casual friendly talk with them to find out what they are doing. That's about it. The game characters don't really do anything much other than talk with you(Kahu) casually when you run into them. They all have voices but just having voices alone doesn't do anything. They need to be involve in the story itself. But since the story is so weak, there's not much for these characters to do but sit in a forest and wait for you to bump into them and then engage in a friendly talk. The only interesting character in this game that's worth a mention is Levant. The returning hero from the first Cocoon. But poor Levant. Once a young and cool Cocoon Master is now reduce to some unrecognizeable guy with a beard sitting on some high and mighty chair. Levant hardly has anything to do in this game other than say a few lines. Boring characters here with good voice acting. Characters can only be as good as what the story will make them.

Wha?? Who are you? Jade Cocoon 1 has excellent graphics on the Playstation 1 and Jade Cocoon 2 does the same for the Playstation 2. The games graphics uses an excellent range of beautiful colors. The background graphics are in 3-D with excellent smooth details to them. Characters and monster designs are in a smooth detail polygon texture that is very clean. You have characters with blinking eyes with nose and mouth. Something that Grandia 2 character designs lack. The FMV are excellent but on par with FMV from other games out there. Again overall this is a really clean and beautiful rpg game. Downside?? Lack of original settings background settings. Basically you have one area or base for Kahu to move around in. Then you have the 4 elemental forests, Wind, Fire, Earth, and Water. Each forests has their own different look to them. But after travelling through the same type of forests over and over but on different levels, it get's boring. Gamers need to see graphics from different scenaries other than the same 4 forest overs and over again.

What's this? Hmm. The music is decent enough. Good fight tunes and gameplay music. Problem is that, with most rpg games, music is more than just fight tunes and gameplay. Music is what define a story's sad or triumphant moments or help put gamers in the mood of a particular story cut scene. Since the game story is so lacking of such moments, the music in general is confine to just fight tunes and regular gameplay music. For that the music is held down. Music can only be as good as what the story gives it to work with. Fight tunes and regular gameplay music isn't enough for me. In all honestly, there isn't one tune in here that any gamers will remember 5 days after playing this game. And that's the truth. The voice acting in this game is excellent as usual. It's not surprising too since the first Jade Cocoon had excellent voice over so one shouldn't be surprise if the second had the same quality. In fact the entire game is nothing but voice acting. A big thumbs up there.

Look at those teeth! Introducing the Sweet Knights Game Information    Genre: Action/Breeding Rpg    Company: Ubi Soft    Disc: 1 Disc DVD    Memory: 713 KB    Players: 1 - 2 Players Mode    Vibration: Yes    Dual Analog: Yes    Digital Control: No    Rating: Teen    Release: December 2001 This time around the gameplay is bigger and better. Yet at the same time, the main theme is still the same. That's monster raising and breeding. The gameplay is very simple and basic. Travel to each of the different elemental forests and make your way to the deepest part of the forests level to obtain the 4 orbs. Each level of the forest is a big maze. The maze isn't very hard. You have an overhead map that shows you the outline of the maze. On each level of the forest maze, you need to get the keyspore in one of the forest rooms and go to the gateway to advance to the next level. Of course monsters are roaming about. But you can avoid them by not running into them. No random encounter here. The key point to this game is monster raising and breeding so as you explore each level you will find beast eggs lying about. Collect them and bring them back to the temple to hatch and raise them. That's a good enough description on what to do in each of the forests. So now to the raising, merging, and breeding beasts. Once you have an egg, you can hatch that egg at the temple. Each beast comes in 4 types of elements, 10 types of species, and 4 types of evolve form. Now when you first hatch an egg, your beast will be in larva form. Inorder to get them to their most evolve form, you will need to level them up and merge them with a divine beast. For each evolve form, you can level them up to a maximum of level 20. But once a beast has reach level 15, you can merge them with a divine beast. Let's backtrack a little bit. Divine beasts are actually beast cocoon. You can get these cocoon by fighting Karma monsters in the forests. It's essential that you find and fight Karma inorder to get these divine beast cocoons because without these cocoon, you cannot merge your beast at all. Each divine beast cocoon comes with it's own element, specie, magic or special attack, as well as stats attribute. Getting back on track. When you merge your beast with a divine beast, you are raising your beast's evolution meter up as well as inheriting the divine beast magic/special attack and attributes. But once you finish merging your beast, it's level will restart at level 1 again. But this time since your evolution bar has gone up, your beast can evolve to the next evolution form. Your beast will randomly evolve during battles of course. That should give you enough insight on the merging and breeding of beasts. Sorry but I'm not an instruction book for Jade Cocoon 2. Read one if you want to learn more. Okay for the combat system. I'm going to try and explain this as much as I can as it's a unique system that's kind of hard to explain. You have to see it or play it yourself to fully understand it. In the first Jade Cocoon, you have 2 beast with the hero. And the hero can fight in battles. Here you can have up to 8 beasts but the hero cannot fight in battle but only use items to help out your beasts. Now when battle begins, Kahu is place in a round chess board(?) called the Beast Amulet. The Beast Amulet has 8 spots in a circle surrounding Kahu. Your beast will be place on these spots surrounding and protecting Kahu. The Amulet is divided into 4 element spots. Fire, Wind, Earth, and Water. You can only place fire beasts on the Fire area of the Amulet, Wind beast on Wind, and so on forth. It is possible to place your beasts anywhere but it would be pointless to place a fire beast for example on an Earth areas of the Beast Amulet unless the fire beast has an earth attack skill as it's secondary skill cause inorder for any beast to be able to do an action in battle, they must possess the elemental skill of the elemental area that they are standing in. Which is why you should place beasts in the areas of the Beast Amulet that matches with their elements. The 3 beasts in front of the Kahu are the only ones that can do an action. The action they do depends on the skill/magic that they are currently equipped with on the elemental area that they are position in on the Beast Amulet. Of course the key is to rotate the Beast Amulet around and use the right elemental beasts against the enemy. So how do you win the fight or lose a fight. The key is to defeat and kill all the monsters. But in the case of facing against another BeastHunter in a duel, you need to kill the beast standing in front of him so your beast can attack the BeastHunter directly or defeat all of his/her beasts. You lose if all your beasts are dead or if you life shields has been drained up. That's the short term description of it all. In short, while the gameplay is bigger and better, it can also be get pretty repetitiveness very quickly. Exploring each forests over and over again. Maybe not the exact same forests but they all look the same but just different mazes. Merging beasts over and over and over again. And there's really only one place to move around and that's the Temple. If merging beasts isn't your thing and you prefer a story driven rpg with world exploration than Jade Cocoon isn't for you. And to be honest, spending time merging beasts over and over isn't my thing. I prefer world exploration. I was pretty bored with this game pretty quickly. Thanks god the gameplay is very short. In fact you can finish this game under 25 hours if you don't want to spend time with the merging aspect of the game. The game itself seems to be divided into 2 halves. First half for the storyline and second half for the gameplay extras.

Score: 7/10

The Beast War! It's all about the extras here. Nothing but extras and replay. As stated in the gameplay section. The game is pretty much cut in half. One half for the game that involves the short story. The second half is when you finish the game. Once you finish the game, you will still be able to start off where you left off but this time you have access to 2 more levels of the 4 elemental forest. A total of 8 levels to clear. Plus you will gain access to even greater options in the Arena. As you clear the new and bonus forest stages you are also clearing way for new different types of tournaments made available in the Arena. This is pure gameplay here. Basically you are raising and leveling up your monsters so you can take parts in the different types of tournaments in the Arena. There's no story here. The time spent on the replay and extras is even greater than the time spent on the story gameplay. Excellent bag for your buck here. But then again, do you really want the gameplay on the extras to outweight that of the actual story game itself?

Jade Cocoon 2 is a big improvement from the first one in terms of gameplay but it lacks the story and characters of the first one. In the end, I'm still wondering why there is a sequel to the first one to begin with. This is a series that is missing that rpg touch that makes it a classic series. Despite the improvement of this game, it's still missing that one rpg element that makes it a really good rpg game to enjoy over and over. What is that element? You figure it out... Final Score: 7/10 Time to complete: about 20 hours for the story game. Difficulty: easy Favorite character: none Waste of good character: Levant Most annoying magic: Sleep Spell Best fighting skill: Burn Crush Best attribute: Imago Best species: Og Also try: Jade Cocoon Up next: Arc the Lad Collection

STORY Not much here. It's a very short story with a strange plot twist that doesn't really make much sense.	5
CHARACTERS A main hero with a side kick fairy with a small cast of surrounding characters that really serve no purpose in the storyline other than to talk to the hero during his journey.	5
GRAPHICS Excellent clean graphics with good colors. Downside is not enough varieties in scenaries.	8
MUSIC Small selection of battle tunes and gameplay tunes. Missing that emotional touch musical theme from the overall music. Excellent voice acting.	7
GAMEPLAY Focuses mainly on merging and breeding beasts. If that's your thing then you will love the gameplay.	7
EXTRAS/REPLAY Quite alot to do. Explore new levels of forests. New arenas to take part. Over 10 hours of extra to be spent on.	10