Jade Cocoon: The
Story of the Tamamayu

Story

The story begins in the village of Syrus. Monsters have begun to overrun the forests surrounding the village since the disappearance of the village cocoon Master. Luckily there is a new Cocoon Master and his name is Levant (hero). Levant is the son of the previous Cocoon Master. As the new Cocoon Master, he must undergo a trial of tests before being fully ready to tame and capture monsters. Levant is then sent out to pass the trials of the 4 dungeons/forests.
Now the strongest part of this game is the story or should I say the presentation of the storytelling. There are alot of voice overs in this game. Lucky for us, they are very well done. Playing through the game gives you a sense of watching a bedtime story unfold. Listening to some of the characters, especially an old man sitting by a tree, tell fairy tales of long ago reminds you of some good old bed time stories when you were young. It is very well done. While the story itself isn't too deep or in-depth, it is presented to the gamers in a nice fashion.

Score: 8/10

Graphics

The game uses big blocks of polygons in a 3-D environment. This is done beautifully. The polygon characters while big are very good in details. The background graphics will rival that of any FF games. The game also uses an excellent abundance of rich colors. One can't help but be impress with this kind of graphics. The only downside is that the monsters don't look as good as they can be. Overrall, it's one of the games with the best graphics out there.

Score: 9/10

Music

Music wise, it's very weak. The game may impress you with it's presentation of the story and graphics but it's music or lack of music is very forgettable. I believe there are like only two or three tunes available. The best sounds probably comes from the cocoon Master's flute when he's playing it to capture a monster. That should tell you how bad it is.

Score: 3/10

Gameplay

Unlike regular action rpg, Jade cocoon mixes monster breeding and catching with turn base action fight sequences. Overrall the gameplay is very weak and unimaginative. Not to mention boring as hell. Where do I begin here?
Let's start with the fact that there's only one village to explore around and only 4 dungeons. Alundra may only use one village but it's gameplay goes beyond exploring only 4 dungeons. Have I mention that each of these 4 dungeons are very short with little puzzles to solve? The gamemakers didn't put much thoughts into making dungeons, that's for sure. Have I also mention that once you finished passing the 4 dungeons, your very next objective is to go back and explore the same old boring ass dungeons again?? You would think these guys would at least get off their asses and give us new dungeons to explore instead of just sending the player back to explore the same 4 dungeons that he/she had just finished exploring. How exciting is it to go back and explore the same 4 dungeons that you just finished?? Very weak imagination here. Moving on.

Monster breeding/Battle system: The game uses a one on one turn base fight. Now these turn base fight is just like any other turn base fight except you have a catch and summon monster commands added to your other commands. If you want to, you can catch a monster instead of killing it. You won't get experience for it though. Bring the capture monster back to the village. There you can breed it, merge it with another monster, or turn it into silk to get money. If you decide to breed and keep the monster, you can then bring it with you on your next exploration. During a fight you can then summon that monster to fight in your place. It's still a one on one battle though but between two monsters this time. Now inorder to go far into the game, you have to balance leveling up Levant (hero) and his monsters. You don't want to end up having a high monster level and a low level Levant. And vice versa. On another note, each monster is an elemental monster as in fire, wind, water, and earth. So it's a good idea to make sure the monster's element you are using is stronger than the other monster's element. Overrall, the monster breeding aspect get's boring after awhile and with only 4 simple unimaginative dungeons to explore, you're left wondering what rpg game to play next after halfway into the game.

Score: 4/10

Extras/Replay

Jade cocoon gives you a couple of extra stuff that you can do after finishing your game. First, there's an eternal corridor where you can basically explore. The corridor is endless and there's no save point in there. There are monsters that you don't get in the regular games plus mini-sub bosses as well. You can get rare animal skins for you monsters from the sub bosses. But the eternal corridor is nothing more than a battle ground for you to fight in with no real purpose or goal. It get quite boring without any purpose after 15 minutes.
Second, there's a two player mode where you can challenge friends to a best out of matches between your monsters and theirs. Get's pretty boring pretty quickly.
As for replay. To be honest, do you really want to replay this game again?? I'll leave it at that.

Score: 2/10

In the end, Jade cocoon is a nice looking rpg. But nice looking rpgs don't cut it these days. You'll end up feeling empty after finishing this game. A good rental or buy at used price. I going to give it a 6 as a final score due to the graphics and story presentation.

Final Score: 6/10