You play as Levant, a young boy following in his missing father's footsteps to become the villages Cocoon Master. If you're depressed because you've already finished Legend of Legaia and anxious because Final Fantasy VIII has yet to be released, perk up! Jade Cocoon is here to fill your RPG void with dazzling graphics, a challenging epic quest, and a two-player Arena mode. It feels like they ran out of money two-thirds through the game. Unfortunately, there are dungeons late in the game that get recycled with a new color palette. Finding the right monster combinations will be an acquired discipline. The monster breeding aspect of the game however, is complex and the possibilities seem endless. This wouldn't be so humdrum if your creatures weren't so dull to play.

Since you're a one-man party, you'll need to rely on summoning your monsters to do most of the fighting for you. The only way to upgrade your stats is to find potions or items.

Rather than rewarding you with stats and numbers, your boy in Jade Cocoon can only level-up his monster 'capture' ability. As an RPG, there's a dire lack of character growth. Unfortunately, somewhere between concept and execution, the game fell terribly short. As you proceed through each of the 'chapters' in the game, the story unfolds via beautiful hieroglyphic panoramas and quality voice-overs. The theme itself is universal an imbalance of power between man and nature has brought suffering to the people of Parel. Plus, the story really appeals to me it manages to be both allegorical and ambiguous.

For starters, the character designs were done by Katsuya Kondo of Studio Ghibli (Laputa, Kiki's Delivery Service, Mononoke Hime). Jade Cocoon was an RPG I wanted to fall in love with.

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