Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu

"Yet another selection of the breeding frenzy..."

From the very beginning, I held low expectations on this one. Upon booting it up, I was presented with lucious backgrounds of an old villiage and a few convincing wild-life forest dungeons. The main charactor, although without a personality, looked nice too, especially in battle. The music reminded me of Crash bandicoot, which is a plus while holding its own in originality. The battle music was especially good.

Aside from these nice graphical qualities, what also held the game together was the monster-breeding strategy which is becoming more and more familiar with gamers as the days progress and of which I'm a fan. There isn't an IMMENSE amount of possible creatures to come up with, like in monster rancher, but there are enough to play through a second time without deja vous. Battling with your creatures is in an RPG interface, so theres nothing new here. Fighting with your main charactor (which is necessary when you've depleted your forces or are trying to conserve them) is extremly sleep inducing. I found myself turning the game off without saving, just so I wouldn't have to sit through a few of the battles. No matter who you are, you'll daydream with this one.

I do like the automatic teleportation to the dungeon's entrance upon death, I was very delighted to keep those hard earned capture credentials instead of the option to reload the game or quit. I did NOT like the rediculously limited inventory though, which does little for strategy and annoys you a great deal and forcing me to take many trips back to the town shop.

Reasons to play this game? Yes! They are as follows.

- It's monster breeding! Sure, there are other selections, but this is on the playstation! I don't know about you, but pokemon for game boy is hard on the eyes, and I'd have a pride problem with purchasing a 64. Check out the Monster rancher games first though.

- Great story! Maybe not everyone will like it, it is a little hard to follow...but it's not what you would call overly complicated. I enjoyed it, and finished the game to see the ending.

- You should be able to get the game fairly cheap by now (30-20 bucks), and the game wasn't worth no 50 bucks. Rent first though, I beat it on a rental.

Reasons you may not want to buy it.

- Horrible control. I didn't mention it above because it is not that important for this kind of game. But if your one of those gamers who just cannot stand bad charactor control for any kind of game...rent first.

- This isn't the best breeding game out there, and stay away if your an RPG freak looking for that epic experience

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99