Well, I said I'd start a thread for this, so here it is. =P I'll start by saying this is a lesser-known game, and not exactly amazing or anything, but it's a fun game, and it had some interesting aspects to it. That said, here goes nothing... (Prepare for a long read.)
Starting Up
After the opening credits, you're introduced to the background of the game's plot, with a narrated anime cutscene. (Wow, I don't recall many of those existing on the PSX. But, hey, I might be wrong.) Wanna watch it now? Thank YouTube. Long story short, though, some deities got a bit upset about the humans, so there're all sorts of beasties running about now. Beasties known as "Divine Minions," which can be captured and controlled by you, a "Cocoon Master." (Yes, the game's a bit of a Pokémon knock-off.)
Starting a new file, you're given some additional introductory narration, you name your character (canon/default: Levant), and continue listening to the old guy. The game starts with a series of events, including some strange dream sequences, a swarm of "Onibubu" attacking your hometown, you and your gal friend getting hitched (more or less), and setting off on your journey to battle the Divine Minions of the forest, in search of truth... or whatever. (Honestly, I kinda forget the motive.)
So, here's your hometown, Syrus. Here, you'll find a handful of citizens' homes, some public areas, shops, and your home. The blacksmith will be your source of weapons and armor, the item shop will be your source of healing items and such, and Garai's residence is where you will go to take care of your Minions. (More on that later.) Of course, you won't be able to do much in the beginning, but after entering the forest, you will have several opportunities to return here to do whatever you need to do. Speaking of the forest, let's move on to the Forest Gate:
From right to left, these are the entrances to the Beetle, Dragonfly, Spider, and Moth forests. Of course, your first visits will be in the Spider Forest, and you'll progress toward the left. (By the way, there's more than just going to each of these forests, but it's story-related, so I'll leave that up to you to discover.) To enter each of these forests, you'll need a key, which you will obtain through story events, of course. Now, before we move on to the forests themselves, let's take a look at your menu.
Menu
Ignoring the minions for the time being, let's just look at the main character.
- Fireflies: Minions you've captured and haven't purified back in town yet.
- Use: Inventory. Use Mugworts to heal yourself, and Liquors to heal your Minions. (Yes, Minions heal by consuming liquor, apparently, haha.)
- Detail: Check your character's stats out. Much of this is pretty obvious, but I'll explain a few things on this screen.
- Capture Level: Basically the only kind of level your character has. While his stats are affected by equipment and stat-boosting items, his Capture Level will increase by capturing Minions. The higher their level, the more difficult it will be to capture them, but the more EXP you will receive for doing so. While Pokémon has different levels of balls to make capturing easier, you've just got your Capture Level.
- Rank: Honestly, I'm not sure what the ultimate purpose of this is, but it'll change every now and then, and with it, you'll notice a different tune played when you summon or capture a Minion. (I'm pretty sure what affects your rank is how many different species you've captured.)
- Empties/Fireflies/# Captured: "Empties" are how many attempts you have left to capture Minions. Can't capture Minions if you don't have any cocoons to hold them in. "Fireflies" refers to how many Minions you've captured so far. (Go to the 'Fireflies' menu to view them.) "# Captured" refers to how many species of Minions you've captured in total.
- Equip: View and use weapons, armor, and accessories. Weapons will allow you to damage Minions yourself, and will sometimes have additional effects such as elemental damage or status effects. Armor is basically just armor, though certain types of armor may have resistances, or affect your speed. Accessories have various effects -- usually additional stats or resistances.
- Valuables: "Key items," basically. Most of these aren't important, though you may find some special tablets along the way, which will explain how various things in the game work. Your main reason for coming to this screen, though, is the Hunter's Earring, an item you'll receive early on, which allows you to warp out of the forest, to the Forest Gate area, enabling quick travel back to town.
The Forest
The forests are your "dungeons" for this game. As you meander through these places, you'll find visible enemies that will trigger battles upon contact. Some enemies move more slowly or more quickly than others, so some can be easily avoided, while others are nearly impossible to dodge. On that note, some enemies will even be sleeping, which can sometimes allow you to walk past without a battle. (The 'Sleep Spores' item will put Minions to sleep temporarily, allowing you to avoid battles entirely for a while.) Along with Minions, you'll occasionally find some chests filled with all sorts of goodies, and every now and then, you might even find a weapon just lying around. (You may also occasionally run into a usually-optional mini-boss, the Poacher, who will summon Minions of his own in combat against you. Of course, you can't capture his Minions, so these battles will be good sources of EXP for your own Minions.)
Battle
The battle setup is pretty standard. Attack, Defend, Use an item, Summon a Minion, Capture a Minion, and Retreat. Self-explanatory, right? So I'll move on to the Minions' battle menu:
- Attack: Physical attack. Nothing special here.
- Defend: Reduce damage from attacks, while replenishing a small amount of Mana.
- Special: Special attacks. These will usually, but not always, be elemental. Some will have status effects or other additional effects, and some will basically just be like physical attacks. Every type of purebreed Minion has a preset Special list, as well as Magic list (I'll get to that in a moment), so in order to change these lists, you'll have to do some experimenting with merging. Anyway, special attacks will cost Mana according to what kinds of effects they have. The thing that's particularly interesting about these special attacks, however, is that, well, as you'll see in the game, there are 5 types of them: Horn, Fang, Claw, Tail, and Legs. What makes these types special is that each type of Minion has a sort of affinity with these types. For example, minions with long horns will specialize in Horn attacks, and will actually do more damage than Minions with short horns. The damage output of special attacks is determined by these kinds of factors, as well as the Minion's Attack value.
- Magic: Your typical spells. Elemental damage, sometimes to multiple targets. Status effects. Healing. That kind of stuff. Damage output is affected by the Minion's M.Atk value.
- Switch: Swap the current Minion for another, or return control to the main character. (Necessary for capturing, retreating, and using items.)
Minions & Nagi Magic
Back in town, speaking to your wifey, Mahbu, will allow you to heal yourself and your minions, and then check out whatever you've caught, do some merging, make some cash, et cetera. Merging can get a little complicated, so I'll give that its own explanation, but for other options here... 'View' will allow you to simply check out Minions' stats, abilities, and appearances. You also have the option of renaming Minions here. 'Spin' is a nifty option, and will prove to be very important when you're planning to buy things. Since you don't get reward cash for common battles in this game, the way you make money is selling things, and Minions can be sold, in a sense. Here, you can sacrifice Minions in exchange for different types of silks, which can then be sold at a shop. (The quality of the silk depends on the level of the Minion, and perhaps other factors as well. Not entirely sure of other factors, but level's a safe stat to judge for these.) 'Equip' is where you go to select which Minions you would like to use in battle. You can only bring a total of three with you; the rest you've captured remain in storage until you do whatever with them. Now for merging...
Merging Minions
Merging Minions is how you customize your Minions, basically. Things get really interesting here, and I consider the merging aspect the coolest feature of the game. By merging Minions, you can change stats, give additional abilities and change current ones, and change their appearance as well. Let's take these two Minions pictured above for example. Patalchu is a Fire-elemental Minion that specializes in physical power, while lacking in magic and speed stats. Terfrayd is an Earth-elemental Minion that specializes in speed and defense, mostly focusing on physical power as a means for attacking. Now, if you would like to merge these two, there's the decision of who to use as the base and who to use as the complimentary seed. This decision will indeed affect the results. The most obvious being appearance:
(Left: Patalchu + Terfrayd, Right: Terfrayd + Patalchu)
The first Minion selected will act as the base. In other words, the final result will most closely resemble this one. The second one chosen will affect the change in stats and abilities, as well as certain physical features. To get into specifics a bit...
- Stats:
As you can see, the main focuses for stats are Attack, Defense, Speed, and Magic. That red dot indicated where in the statistic field your Minion lies. When it comes to merging, let's say your Minion's stat field looks like this. Would you like to continue to focus on attack power, leaving it vulnerable in other areas? Then merge it with a Minion that has a similar stat field. If you would like to strengthen other stats, then you may do so, though at the potential cost of lowering its currently high stats. - Element(s):
This is the element table, using a Fire-elemental Minion (Patalchu) as an example. Wild Minions will all be only a single element, but through merging, it is possible to give additional elemental properties to your Minions. However, you must keep in mind that multi-elemental Minions will have weaker elemental properties than purebreeds, and the more you mix them, the weaker some of those properties will become. Let's use those Fire-Earth combos from above for an example:
Now, in this particular case, we're lucky enough to see opposite elements merged. This means each of the purebreed parents' elements are reduced by... probably about 25-33%. This means that elemental attacks will be less effective than if they were possessed by a purebreed, and elemental defenses will be weakened as well. However, your merged Minion will now be able to wield multiple elemental powers.
Forgive me for not using opposing elements here, but I will explain the difference in that situation. If you were to merge Fire with, say, Air, then both elemental properties would decrease (I'm pretty sure... it might only be the weaker one), but the stronger element (Fire, in this case) would have the advantage, and decrease less than the other. (Air, in this case, will decrease by about 50%, which is a greater decrease than if they were opposite elements.)
On a less-important note, elements will affect the color of your merged Minion as well. Purebreeds will, of course, maintain their respective colors. I'm not sure about opposite elements (with Patalchu+Terfrayd and Terfrayd+Patalchu, both wound up green), but opposing elements will sort of mix. For example, red (Fire) and yellow (Air) will mix to make a sort of orange-ish Minion.
One more note concerning elements: There are certain Magic abilities in the game that will change the in-battle environment to a Minion's advantage. For example, a Fire-elemental Minion may have a spell to strengthen its Fire attribute. However, hybrids (multi-elemental Minions) cannot use these spells, due to possessing more than one elemental attribute. That said, if one or both of the parents have one of these spells, then it will not be carried over. - Abilities: I'm not 100% about this, since it's been a while since I read the details for this, but I'm pretty sure that the properties of the seed parent's abilities will be passed onto the base parent's abilities. So a seed's Earth-elemental Horn attack should overlap the base's Fire-elemental Horn attack, making the end result an Earth-elemental Horn attack. The same goes for additional effects in special attacks. As for Magic spells, the list will simply continue to build.
- WTF is this thing!?
Although the chance of accidentally stumbling upon one of them is extremely low, there are two particular "recipes" for creating unique Minions. Basically, merging certain Minions may eventually result in a unique Minion being created, with its own unique appearance, as well as a preset list of abilities. I managed to find one by accident a long time ago, but never got it again, so good luck with that. (I'm pretty sure there's an FAQ on how to get them, so that's a better idea than trial and error, I'm sure.)
Conclusion
So, I suppose that's about it. As I suggested before, the merging aspect of the game is a major selling point, especially since it takes so many factors into account. As you progress, you'll find more powerful abilities and Minions, and more special effects, et cetera. The usual RPG stuff, basically. I just have to warn you that the game is a bit short. (You may be surprised just how short it is, when you complete it and look at the game clock on your save file.) However, after completing the main story, you will have the option to continue playing where you left off, though in an additional forest known as the "Eternal Corridor."
The Eternal Corridor is a series of neverending forests, each based on a single element. (So all Minions in a particular area will share the same element.) Each forest ends with a boss, and as you continue through the EC, you will not only see an increase in the enemies' levels, but an increase in the number of boss Minions you will fight. (The first round of bosses will just be singles, but the second round of them will be two at a time, and then three, and... I'm not really sure if it goes past three, since I don't think I've gotten that far. It's pretty damn tough later on.) These bosses have a chance of dropping special "skins," which can be used when merging Minions. The only point of using these skins, for the most part, is to make your merged Minions' "skins" resemble the bosses you fight. (For example, one of the bosses looks a bit skeletal, so that one's skin would make your merged Minion have a bony appearance, as if a skeleton.) There is another purpose, though, which is those special "recipes" I mentioned above. (Again, resort to an FAQ.)
The purpose of the Eternal Corridor is basically just to level grind, and do more experimenting with merging Minions. One thing I didn't mention earlier, though probably should have, is that Jade Cocoon actually has a two-player versus mode (accessed via the title screen), which allows you to upload your Minions and do battle with a friend's Minions. This said, you now have so much more of a reason to level grind after beating the game, right? Haha.
All in all, although Jade Cocoon is not one of the greatest games out there, I've found it to be pretty entertaining, and it's got some nifty features worth checking out. The soundtrack is pretty neat, too (and damn-
