Jade Cocoon 2

by Sony

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005NH6G
• Item Weight: 8 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: December 18, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,590 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Jade Cocoon 2 takes place a few hundred years after the original, with a new hero named Cafu. Cafu's mind has been plagued by karma, which is driving him to insanity. Setting off with the minion he raised, he must find the four orbs that can take away his karma. Playing as Cafu, you will command over a hundred minions, and will experience a huge number of events in this 3-D adventure. The monster raising and breeding elements, which are based on the experience points that are accrued during battles, add great depth and interest to gameplay.

Product Description

Jade Cocoon 2 takes place a few hundred years after the original, with a new hero named Cafu. Cafu's mind has been plagued by karma, which is driving him to insanity. Setting off with the minion he raised, he must find the four orbs that can take away his karma. Playing as Cafu, you will command over a hundred minions, and will experience a huge number of events in this 3-D adventure. The monster raising and breeding elements, which are based on the experience points that are accrued during battles, add great depth and interest to gameplay.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jade Cocoon 2 almost perfect. Almost., January 15, 2002

By 

S. J. Wright "anothersteve" (St. Paul, MN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jade Cocoon 2 (Video Game)

Jade Cocoon 2 is a great game with a few flaws. ... I'm going to concentrate on a few details ..., some that I really like and a few that I'd really like to see fixed for Jade Cocoon 3.

First, the good stuff. As you might guess, you are limited to the number of monsters that you can carry around to do your fighting. This number increases as you advance in skill, but you always have more monsters than you can keep with you. One of the best features is that your monsters gain experience even when they aren't with you. The monsters on the bench get about a third of what the active ones get, and over time it adds up. It is great not to have to keep swapping out monsters in order to get them all built up.

Also, you can leave the forest any time you want. (Except during a battle, of course.) This is good because you are fairly limited in the supplies you can carry - even after buying all of the backpack upgrades you can only carry 30 items. Plus, you pick up a lot of stuff in the forest. If you get really beat up, run out of supplies, or have too much loot to carry any more, you can easily teleport back to the main area.

My third favorite thing is purely visual. The animations of the spell effects are great, and get better as your monsters learn tougher spells. Further, each animation is pretty short, so the battles don't take any longer just because your monsters are more powerful.

On the down side, the menu system really gets old quick. For instance, something as simple as moving an item from your inventory to the warehouse requires a menu choice, a confirmation of that choice, then choose the item, then confirm the item, then an acknowledgement that the move was made. I much prefer the inventory system in, say, Dark Cloud, where you moved stuff back and forth between your inventory and the warehouse, and then just got out when you were done. Every single action has the same hoops to jump through, which makes monster management more of a chore than it should be.

I've read on the game website that there are more than 200 cutscenes with a bunch of different characters. I am betraying either my age, my lack of appreciation for anime, or my years of soaking in American media, but I think about half of both the characters and cutscenes could have been removed. Maybe it made more sense in the original Japanese. Or maybe it makes more sense if you are used to Japanese pop-culture. I've got nothing against storyline, but a lot of these scenes seem to do nothing more than slow things down. I found the storyline in the original Jade Cocoon more compelling.

Along with that, I wish they had done a little better job with the English translation. I can always tell what the characters intend to say, but the dialog doesn't flow smoothly. It doesn't sound like native speech to me, which probably adds to the feeling that the cutscenes are breaking up the flow rather than moving the game along. In Jade Cocoon 3, they definitely need to get some young Americans to help them write the dialog for the US release.

Note that I gave it 4 stars. These things detract from the experience, but not so much that I've stopped playing. Even with these issues, it is still an addictive gaming experience. The good things more than make up for the bad. I'm past 30 hours with the game and my guess is that I'm about 60% done. ...

I bought this one when it came out on the strength of the original Jade Cocoon. I'll be picking up Jade Cocoon 3 as soon as I can, based on the strengths of this one.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Got Monsters?, March 3, 2002

By 

Angela Englert "Angela" (Dallas, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jade Cocoon 2 (Video Game)

Jade Cocoon 2 is the kind of game which invariably will be explained, failingly, in comparisons: Final Fantasy X, Monster Rancher, Pokemon, etc. It is no less fabulous for the seeming inability of gamers to describe its pleasures for what they are. If I were to compare JC2 to another game, the title that springs to mind would be Okage: Shadow King, and that simply on the virtue of its irreverent charm and heavy stylization, for be assured that the gameplay stretches leagues and leagues deeper, and the experience becomes far more addictive than that relatively lukewarm RPG. JC2's prime offering for you, prospective customer, lies in the endless drip feed of pure RPG dungeon crawling, monster evolving joy -- and the game's developers have stuffed JC2 with enough side quests, arenas, dungeons, and monster variations to keep your thumbs rooted to the dual shock for just one more level, one more merge... Before long, you'll start marking time with your bladder. Critics who whine about repetitiveness apparently have never spent an afternoon with Monster Rancher 3 or Phantasy Star Online -- and even those games are enjoyable. After all, who cares about going back for seconds if the game makes it so entirely worth your while? Other selling points include JC2's cute character designs (including a faux girl band with a dead ringer for Scary Spice), inspired voice acting (yes, probably better than FFX) and very nice graphics throughout, from the actual battle animations to the high-res boss cut scenes to the anime narrative bits. JC2 is every bit worth your time and money, and for all the love that went into this title, it's also well worth yours too.

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An awesome Monster game, August 9, 2001

By 

Yaseen S. Karaman "yahusaan" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jade Cocoon 2 (Video Game)

In this game you get to buy cocoons and capture monsters within them. You would think this would be like some kiddy pokemon game but this had a creepy, eerie feel to it. Not only that but When you capture the monster you can fuse it with another to form a more powerful and cooler form. I love this game and I think it is a must buy for gamers and anime fams (yes it has anime cutscenes). Buy it!