Jade Cocoon 2

"If you like the Evolution games, you'll enjoy this"

Graphics:8/10
The visuals and animations are all pretty. Not the best in the world, but they'll do. There's no frame problems or anything like that either. But the one thing I do have a complaint about is the ogrevines sometimes get in the way of the screen. But that can be solved very easily. You can rotate the camera anytime you want. And, unlike the Evolution games, the map goes along with your camera when you rotate it. So, overall, I'd say the graphics are decent, but not the best in the world.
Sound:6/10
The sound effects are pretty spiffy. Like, when you walk along the ground in the dark forest gate entrance, the floor squishes with every step. However, the music leaves a heck of a lot to be desired. It's boring. Except when important events are happening, then the music is alright. And half the time you're dungeon crawling through the same dungeons over and over, so you gotta listen to the same boring music for hours. However, on the plus side, there is pretty good voice acting. Could be better, but it works. At least Kahu is as annoying as Tidus from FFX.
Fun:9/10
This game starts off slow, but when you get deep into it, you'll realize you're addicted. Merging beasts, finding Kalma so you can upgrade your monsters, leveling up; it's all very rewarding. Becuase if you actually fight the battles, you will eventually get stronger and stronger, and you'll notice a difference after a while. And the bosses are beatable. Which is something Evolution failed to do.
Replay:10/10
There's four dungeons at a time, that you can pick from. And there's four of each of those dungeons. And then after you think you beat the game, there's four more, and then a boss one, and then even more! You might think these dungeons are boring, but they aren't after you start building up your divine beasts. And, you have to go to the dungeons to find Kalma, anyway. And Kalma is what makes your divine beasts even stronger. And not only can you complete the dungeons, but there's the arena and the lounge. In the arena, you can do advancement tests which let you keep more beasts, or you can battle against other beasthunters for money and reputation. And with that reputation, you can complete the jobs that are in the lounge, which vary from find this item, to defeat this guy, etc. And after all that, there's a two player mode.
Battle System:5/10
The battle system works, and its original. What happens is, you get a sphere with eight spots, and you're in the middle. You get guys in front, back, left, and right of you who protect you, and you also get guys that are like, back-left, front-right, etc. And you rotate the grid to use the three guys you want. But you don't get to choose who you want your beast to hit, which becomes annoying. And you can only have one attack per element. However, other than these faults the system works.
Difficulty:Not hard, not easy, but just a tad closer to the easier side. The bosses are beatable, and the regular battles can be won. However, the game isn't too easy. A couple of later bosses are big poops, and there are a couple too many bad guys on each floor. And you don't get resurrection items until you complete a couple jobs.
The summary:
All in all, this is a fun game worth buying. It mixes the dungeon elements of Evolution, the monster building elements of Pokemon, the item collecting of Dark Cloud, and the fun of well, all of those games. There's a couple drawbacks to the game, such as there's very little story, and the battle system has some whacked out elements to it, but other than that, this is a fun game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/09/02, Updated 03/09/02