Cocoron Famicom Friday

Cocoron is a strange departure for the creator of Mega Man

Break out the rohos for this Famicom Friday

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One of the holy grails of the NES library is a game called Little Samson. While itā€™s a pretty solid game, it commands the highest value for an official NES game (yes, Stadium Events is more expensive, but itā€™s just a different title screen for World Class Track Meet). It was developed by Takeru, and if youā€™re unfamiliar with the name, thatā€™s because North America only got one of their games, and it was Little Samson. So, thatā€™s not very helpful.

They made one other game for the Famicom, and that was Cocoron. Let me show you its pedigree: Cocoron was designed by Akira Kitamura. Have you heard of him? He created Mega Man. He was the designer of Mega Man and Mega Man 2. Excited yet? Maybe cool those jets.

Cocoron Versus Pirates

Mega Man, this is not, but it certainly tries. Cocoron is definitely an action platformer, but its focus is more on fusion. You start off by creating a character by choosing a head, body, and projectile. Depending on what you put together, youā€™ll get something with completely different firepower, jump height, and speed. While you start off with this character, as you progress, you start building a stable of freakish monstrosities to choose from.

But thatā€™s not all! The level progression, like Mega Man, has you simply pick where you want to go next. However, the stage youā€™re presented with is a combination of the one youā€™re currently at and the one youā€™ve chosen with a boss at the end of it. Stages change depending on what sequence you pick, so, technically, there are a lot of unique places to visit.

Cocoron Penguin Skull Mountain

Unfortunately, thatā€™s the main problem youā€™ll bump into. Because the stages are all stitched together, their design is positively posterior. Each segment has its own obstacles, but none are as interesting as something youā€™d find in, say, Mega Man. Even in different environments, some of the sections seem a little too similar.

Thereā€™s a big finale after youā€™ve defeated the main bosses and rescued the princess, which, once again, is just like Mega Man. The big difference is that youā€™re tasked with reclaiming all your constructed heroes who have been captured. It hits when itā€™s needed and is a nice change of pace.

There are also a lot of options for your character, but certain ones like the boat body donā€™t make a whole lot of sense to me. Yeah, it can make certain segments of a level easier, but it seems more practical to create a general use character that works for most situations. You can have a stockpile of characters, but they each level up individually, so it makes more sense to use only one or two. You can only choose a new one at the beginning of each level, so itā€™s not like you can just swap to the most optimal one for each obstacle.

Cocoron Map

Itā€™s kind of unfortunate because the platforming is as tight as youā€™d expect from the creator of Mega Man. The graphics also show a lot of love and detail. Characters who stand on a slope, for example, will change posture to fit the slope. It kind of makes Cocoron feel extremely tech first; one of those games that is trying to see how much it could squeeze from Nintendoā€™s 8-bit powerhouse but sort of forgets to place its chips where it counts.

Thatā€™s not to say that Cocoron isnā€™t fun; itā€™s just a whole heap of wasted potential. The variety that is such a focus is wasted because the design doesnā€™t necessitate its use enough. The result is a game that doesnā€™t even provide a convincing argument against Mega Manā€™s imitators like Bucky Oā€™Hare.

Eclaires and math

Cocoron is still worth checking out, but more as a curio or tech demo. You wonā€™t find anything quite like it on the Famicom. It feels more like a ā€œcan we do itā€ sort of game rather than a ā€œwill it be funā€ approach.

Thereā€™s a decent amount of Japanese text, but you can mostly ignore it. Itā€™s most helpful to know the language when building your character since itā€™s the only way to know what projectile youā€™re saddling them with. However, for those English monolinguists among us, there is a fan translation available.

Speaking of the language, thereā€™s one strange quirk with Cocoron: I could never figure out how to add a tenten or maru mark when entering a name. To explain briefly, these marks change the consonant sound in Japanese syllables. Without them, I couldnā€™t spell, for example, robo. It can only be spelled as roho. Itā€™s a strange oversight considering the dialogue has these marks. Maybe Iā€™m just missing something, but I donā€™t know where you hide a function on a Famicom controller. The second player controllerā€™s microphone?

Check out previous Famicom Fridays right here.


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Image of Zoey Handley
Zoey Handley
Staff Writer
Staff Writer - Zoey is a gaming gadabout. She got her start blogging with the community in 2018 and hit the front page soon after. Normally found exploring indie experiments and retro libraries, she does her best to remain chronically uncool.