Cool Cool Jam

"It's Time to Start a Band!"

Cool Cool Jam became a part of my collection because everything just looked so cool. The box, the character art and the concept made CCJ look like a killer. The reports about the gameplay also sounded quite appealing. I very little Japanese, so understanding the game was a bit of a problem. Cool Cool Jam's visuals help, however. The game's manual is fantastic eye candy; there are dazzling colors, logos and layouts, and it is filled with great art of fellow band members (imagine small green birds playing 6 foot trumpets and drumming skeleton dogs). When turned on, the introduction is suitably quirky, and the menus and the art in the game are also nice.

In Cool Cool Jam, your object is to form a band. You can choose between a boy and a girl, and from there on you walk through town, jamming with innocent villagers and 'Men With Hats.' If you do well, you get pieces of instruments (there are twelve instruments in all). To jam, you first have to please people by clapping to a certain tune. Playing the instruments is very fun to do. Each instrument requires you to hold your NGP in a different position, and the controls are different for each instrument. To play the guitar, for example, you have to hold your NGP upside-down. The strings are controlled with the two buttons, and you pull them with the joystick. You have to pluck the strings when the matching color reaches the respective string's end.

Graphics 7
The graphics are okay. When you walk around in town, the graphics are very colourful and funky, a bit like CFC but less detailed. Expect a LOT of pink and yellow! While playing an instrument, the graphics are very clear and simple. The instruments look okay, but I don't like the hypnotizing background. The backgrounds make me dizzy. People in the town have the same "walkie-walkie-when-standing-still" animations as in CFC, and the character art is awesome, if I haven't mentioned that already.

Sound 10
The sound is great! The music is really funky, catchy and of high quality. I found myself humming the tunes at school all day! There are a lot of musical styles, like rock, reggae and house. Every style requires a different instrument. There are virtually no sound effects, which I don't really mind.

Gameplay 8
The actual jamming is ace. You really get the feeling you're playing in a band because you take the solos in turns. All of the instruments play differently, and some take getting used to. Fortunately, the music actually matters while playing. Forming a band is a bit more difficult. If you don't know any Japanese, like me, you have to simply talk with everybody and go everywhere, and finding people to jam with is not so easy. Finding people for your band is done by accident, and not really fun. Normal mode is called the Joinas mode, and there is also an option called the Session mode. You can play with the instruments you've unlocked in Session mode, and you get points for how well you play.

Overall 8
Jamming is easy to do without any knowledge of Japanese (the instructions are in English), so that won't be a problem. The rest of the game will be one, sadly. It's difficult to get new members for the band, although running around and talking to everybody kind of does the job. The game would've been a lot more fun in English, but it is still worth while in Japanese. Cool Cool Jam is quite a cool game, and it is recommended to all who like music games. The graphics and music are good, and it sure is the only NGP game to let you scratch with a six-limbed alien. The only downside is the Japanese text, because of which the game is a bit difficult to understand.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/27/07