Tamamayu monogatari

I love the art style in this game. Opening movie prepares you for epic adventure in a spirit of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. But I got disappointed halfway through the game.

In your journey you will have to fight a lot of monsters, and to level up your character, you have to capture as many of them as possible, like in Pokémon. Captured monsters have to be purified in a village first, then you can equip, sell or merge them. Merging is the most interesting mechanic in this game, but merging menu could be more intuitive and user friendly. You basically mix 2 monsters into one, so it will get traits from both "parents". There are 4 elements in this game - earth, fire, water and air. Fire monsters are weak against water monsters, water against earth, and so on. Monsters level up as they defeat enemies, so you have to choose either capture them to sell or merge, or to defeat and level up your pets that way.

Battles are very slow, and short pauses between animations will drive you mad at some point. Get used to replaying each level a few times, because monsters are stronger the deeper you go, and are impossible to defeat without grinding through level a few times.

Almost all dialogues are dubbed, not that it matters much, but at the age when this game was released it probably was a selling point.

Monster design is mediocre, they are all ugly and mostly insect like. Their names I can't even pronounce. When you mix them, they can change color and appearance, but still look blend.

Jade Cocoon for PS1 could've been something more if developers had larger budget, or cut expenses on voice acting to improve gameplay. It's a fun game, until it gets repetative.