The Twelve Days of Wonky Roms - Cocoron
Dec. 28th, 2006 06:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yamamanamaEditors Note: Despite this being one of the best games of this year's Twelve Days of Wonky Roms, there was absolutely no discussion about it. I suppose when it was only available in Japan, you can sort of expect that. There was, however, some absolutely brilliant discussion about Batman. Batman can breathe in space. And various foreign Batmans. Filipino Batman is a musical before Batman: The Musical and Italian Batman is a porno. I'm not lying.
Also, I introduced this with "You know, this might just be the longest entry yet." It's probably true, if you only included Twelve Days of Wonky Roms entries or broke Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean down by chapters. -The Obligatory Title Screen. Hmm... reminds you of Katamari Damacy, doesn't it? Well, they weren't done by the same people. And all I can find on Takeru is that they're some kind of political party in Japan and the Wikipedia article does not refer to the makers of the game. Unless this is some kind of weird political propaganda and their platform is based around the legalization of hallucinogens. I don't expect them to make it very far if they don't use hatred of the rest of Asia, which is too bad.
(This is really out of date. Because Photobucket consigned a bunch of my screenshots to the aether, I'm going to reupload them and they're going to be the revised versions I wrote in 2008.)
This is a tapir with a night cap and an umbrella. His name is Tapir, because, really, what else would you name a cross between Max Rebo and an anteater? Mr. Shouty? Sorry, that's taken, and he isn't really shouty at all.
And he descends upon your hero's house!
Yay. Well, there's not much I can say on this, because we've already seen Tapir in all his glory (except without an umbrella.)
Name your character! You can also give him a body, a head, and a weapon. I chose hero-fighter-parasol, which doesn't work that well, as parasols fire a bit like Air Man's weapon. Like, I could imagine them being used for some special reasons, but not for all-purpose usage, and they're too damn awkward for fighting your everyday armadillo or lion (called Loin in the Gamefaqs guide, which reminds me of Adventure Island's sneils. Sorry, I'm getting Mega Man 5 vibes from the music. Anyway, the weapons include the goodness that are boomerangs and shurikens, and some other weapons that have special purposes that I didn't use because, again, they're awkward as hell. Like, I think the flowers work well against the final boss, but who cares?
You can also make fun things like aliens with the bodies of tanks, ghosts with dragon bodies, and other escapees from the Circus of Pathet Lao.
The World Map. Yes, that is a flying whale. I'm not sure what purpose those skulls serve. You walk through them for a grand total of maybe three screen lengths, and there are armadillos there, but nothing special, just a morbid reminder of a level that was. I thought it was the final level, but that's not made of skulls, and even if it was, it isn't on the map.
The home, complete with crayon drawings on random signs. Break open the eggs to get stuff! Except you won't be doing that with the parasol.
You know what, parasol and no jet sucks. Let's try again, this time with the incrediby useful boomerang.
Uhhh, I think they're hats.
Skunks do three things. Some kinds shoot stink at you. Other kinds use their tail like a helicopter. This game, by the way, was made in 1991, before Sega came up with Tails. You hear that, Tails? You're nothing but a ripoff of a skunk in an obscure video game. Someone said Rare had time travel and Sega ripped off Dixie Kong, but I think he's just covering up for Rare's utter inability to add anything new to the video game table in Donkey Kong Country. Other varieties attack by... um, walking into the pits. I guess their intention is to make you laugh really hard and get distracted, but that would work much better once the cacti are introduced much later in the game. Admittedly, I did try to walk on that pink stuff, just to see if I could.
Acronym's Note: The skunks stole flight from Snoopy, who could fly by spinning his ears.
My note: Actually, to be honest, the concept of a fox that flies by spinning its tails might actually be a reference to Japanese mythology ripping off Leonardo da Vinci. Guys, maybe you should have ripped off something else from the Italians, like hanging your fascists outside of a gas station.
Here are the skulls. And a penguin... HEY! Penguins don't fly! Ok, that doesn't matter, seeing how skunks spin their tails and fly and one of the characters is an umbrella-carrying blue tapir in a night cap.
Now, we are at Trump Castle. Obviously, they have a theme going. Playing cards, by the way, are not the first thing I associate with Trump.
See that card? Well, first, a bunch of clubs fly at you. Or maybe they were spades. I don't know. What matters is that you need to avoid them or throw boomerangs at them, and it takes a long time. Anyway, Immelman would love this.
Then kings and queens attack you. The damage meter doesn't change until...
...the Joker. It's this fish man .... thing... that rams into you.
Here is a letter from the Princess.
Milk Sea. There are turtles that cause glitchiness and stomp down on the ground. There's also milk. And I think the ground is made of Swiss cheese.
Yarr. You think he'd be floating in the milk, but hey, dreams are strange. So are hallucinogens.
Skeletons jump out. Just float there and shoot the skull as the skeletons march around on the floor and eventually start flickering. Touching the ship means instant death.
SMASH. Ok, let's go there.
It's just this empty milk carton sitting there. You'd think it would do something like pour milk into the sea, but no. And a few small lake and caves can hardly be considered a sea.
Caves that lead to the forest.
Are those bubble leaves? Oh, look, a skunk. He won't hurt you, though. He just falls down like a goomba, completely helpless.
Titania teleports around, shoots blue stuff at you, and is really easy to beat.
Beating her frees Cocorin... hey, wait a minute. No, Cocorin is not a mistake, as we've seen so many times (Saruman/Aruman in the Lord of the Rings cartoon, for one). Cocorin, as it turns out, is Cocoron's brother.
Here's a lion. I know there's some kind of meme involving lions, but I will not repeat it here. What's next after that, huh? Spreading rumors and stupid observational humor, such as, hey, have you ever wondered why there are TWO phone books? A yellow one and a white one? What's next, blue pages? Also, Hyde, your game sucks. I hope a bird poops on you and then the mushrooms on crack or gray thinky whales... NO, I REFUSE TO GIVE IN TO THE DARK SIDE, even though I sometimes think that having an edition of We Know All Of Your Secrets would get a lot of attention. Or maybe it's because of that.
Those are... um... I forget what they're called. But, hey, look, monkeys and Nazca lines and Relativity in the sky! We're taking a trip to the stars! It's just too bad we don't have geese to pull us there.
And more fun! This is Star Hill, by the way. It looks like Mars and what the hell does that say near the blue star? InDIo? Stars fall on you. They do craploads of damage and shoot off sparklies to the left and right, so don't get hit by them. And pandas fly around to distract you. Bastards. Or maybe they were flying albino elephants. There are both, but only one thing here.
He looks like he belongs on the cover of a Smashing Pumpkins album, doesn't he? The world scrolls. Like the pirate ship, he kills you instantly if you touch him. Unfortunately, he likes to teleport, phasing into existence wherever you happen to be standing. If you don't suffer death by mooning like the dinosaurs did, he surrounds himself with four stars and flings them at you.
It's too bad a rocket didn't crash into his eye. That would be a wonderful homage... hey, I don't need to explain myself every single time I make a damn reference, OK? In fact, I stuck Circus of Pathet Lao in there just because I could. Maybe I'll rename my friends page on Livejournal 'Circus of Pathet Lao' because it's fun to make references that a bunch of people who don't read it anyway won't understand. And I did. Uh, a long time ago.
So, once you're done talking to the escapee from Adore's liner notes... I think... Thanks a lot, Cocoron. Now I'm wondering what the hell I did with Adore after I ripped it to my hard drive. I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a moon. It also doesn't have a drummer. I don't have Gish or Pisces Iscariot. Using patented Chococorp technology*, I have discovered that Kupomog either likes Smashing Pumpkins or likes to smash pumpkins. Given that Kupomog is a moogle, I'm going to assume the latter. There's also a Laotian band called The Pumpkins. Moon found it when he determine that Laotian metal is something that needs to be heard.
33 minutes later - It does not have a moon. It has a goat. And D'arcy's breasts. And a CD that is clearly not Adore. Well, now that that's cleared up, we can move on.
Hey, have you ever wondered what mercury actually tastes like?
*mind you, said Chococorp technology is still in its infancy, and various searches can demonstrate the truth of this statement.
Ok, now that we're done, we encounter flying whales. They're just part of the background. Don't try to walk on them. Stick with the souffles or whatever the hell they're called. I don't know. All I know about souffles is that Daggett made his own that was an inflated chef's hat with some bread crusts pasted on. And they're big and fluffy. And the book is all in funny talk.
This is an inflated penguin. If you don't kill it in time, he explodes and spawns three little penguins (?!)
Santa's frozen. He asks for your help, and you know what that means.
Ice dagron. You knock off parts of it and then fight the dagron inside of it. After you beat him, Santa gives Rudolph (not mentioned by name) a break and forces him to pull the sled. I think he looks more like a snowman in that scene.
Penguin residences! Um, how are they supposed to get out, anyway? Maybe that's why they're attacking you. They're mad at the world because they can't get home and they're taking their anger out on random people, tankninjas, and Circus of Pathet Lao escapees.
In a twist that was incredibly obvious to the Japanese and anyone well versed in Japanese mythology and not obvious at all to Americans and Europeans, who never got this game anyway, it turns out Tapir is really Baku and is eating dreams, as if he was a slake moth. What a delicacy.
Go rescue your friends from skunks and birds. Or are they fish? I don't know. My brain hurts. Yes, you have friends. Every time you beat a boss, you get to make a new character, and I named them things like BOB and ROO and BILL and AAAA and BBBB because I never used them anyway.
These are the spiritual ancestors to Radiohead's bears. Also come in Siamese-twinned cactus form! Inquire within!
Hat... oh, yeah, don't touch the cacti. They hurt like crap. The part after this involves opening flowers that you can stand on, and skunks on plates that you have to flip over in order to get past the gap. It's very hard if you can fly and damn near impossible if you can't. Is that milk or did Tapir have... Jesus Q. Christ on a bicycle, I hope not.
You fight Tapir. He's exactly the same as when he appears, except you fight him and he shoots eggs at you. He's rather nasty, but you can beat him once you've mastered his pattern (read: save states every time he misses with an egg). Seriously. He's a pain in the ass and there were at least forty instances of profanity passing through my lips when I fought him and was hit by those freaking unpredictable eggs. They either bounce, arc, or fly straight at you. I think the programmers of Plok put him in. It shows Cocoron. I don't care. I managed to defeat the bastard and I'm not doing it again just so I can get a screenshot of something you've already seen at the intro screen.
Ok, this is officially the weirdest thing ever. Cheerleading mice. With god damn pom poms. You know what, ever since Pipsy from Diddy Kong Racing, I found anthropomorphic mice to be very, very, very unsettling. I don't know why. The clock manages to be worse. Maybe it's that smile. And the way their eyes sort of bug out. SomethingAwful and that guy who wrote the guide says they're cows. Both (cows cheerleading and mice cheerleading) are incredibly unsettling and I wish they would all burn in hell along with those snoods. The pandas aren't around, fortunately. I gues they're learning the branches of the government and even more important things like how they got the Aristocats to play the piano. The ground is fish, but that pales in comparison to the mice.
Cake! With strawberries and killer flames, sort of like our friend Hot Foot from Mario. After that, you have more mice and Tapir tries to get revenge. And more swearing. The ending, as is to be expected in an NES game, is not that impressive. Good music, though.
Also, I introduced this with "You know, this might just be the longest entry yet." It's probably true, if you only included Twelve Days of Wonky Roms entries or broke Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean down by chapters. -The Obligatory Title Screen. Hmm... reminds you of Katamari Damacy, doesn't it? Well, they weren't done by the same people. And all I can find on Takeru is that they're some kind of political party in Japan and the Wikipedia article does not refer to the makers of the game. Unless this is some kind of weird political propaganda and their platform is based around the legalization of hallucinogens. I don't expect them to make it very far if they don't use hatred of the rest of Asia, which is too bad.
(This is really out of date. Because Photobucket consigned a bunch of my screenshots to the aether, I'm going to reupload them and they're going to be the revised versions I wrote in 2008.)
This is a tapir with a night cap and an umbrella. His name is Tapir, because, really, what else would you name a cross between Max Rebo and an anteater? Mr. Shouty? Sorry, that's taken, and he isn't really shouty at all.
And he descends upon your hero's house!
Yay. Well, there's not much I can say on this, because we've already seen Tapir in all his glory (except without an umbrella.)
Name your character! You can also give him a body, a head, and a weapon. I chose hero-fighter-parasol, which doesn't work that well, as parasols fire a bit like Air Man's weapon. Like, I could imagine them being used for some special reasons, but not for all-purpose usage, and they're too damn awkward for fighting your everyday armadillo or lion (called Loin in the Gamefaqs guide, which reminds me of Adventure Island's sneils. Sorry, I'm getting Mega Man 5 vibes from the music. Anyway, the weapons include the goodness that are boomerangs and shurikens, and some other weapons that have special purposes that I didn't use because, again, they're awkward as hell. Like, I think the flowers work well against the final boss, but who cares?
You can also make fun things like aliens with the bodies of tanks, ghosts with dragon bodies, and other escapees from the Circus of Pathet Lao.
The World Map. Yes, that is a flying whale. I'm not sure what purpose those skulls serve. You walk through them for a grand total of maybe three screen lengths, and there are armadillos there, but nothing special, just a morbid reminder of a level that was. I thought it was the final level, but that's not made of skulls, and even if it was, it isn't on the map.
The home, complete with crayon drawings on random signs. Break open the eggs to get stuff! Except you won't be doing that with the parasol.
You know what, parasol and no jet sucks. Let's try again, this time with the incrediby useful boomerang.
Uhhh, I think they're hats.
Skunks do three things. Some kinds shoot stink at you. Other kinds use their tail like a helicopter. This game, by the way, was made in 1991, before Sega came up with Tails. You hear that, Tails? You're nothing but a ripoff of a skunk in an obscure video game. Someone said Rare had time travel and Sega ripped off Dixie Kong, but I think he's just covering up for Rare's utter inability to add anything new to the video game table in Donkey Kong Country. Other varieties attack by... um, walking into the pits. I guess their intention is to make you laugh really hard and get distracted, but that would work much better once the cacti are introduced much later in the game. Admittedly, I did try to walk on that pink stuff, just to see if I could.
Acronym's Note: The skunks stole flight from Snoopy, who could fly by spinning his ears.
My note: Actually, to be honest, the concept of a fox that flies by spinning its tails might actually be a reference to Japanese mythology ripping off Leonardo da Vinci. Guys, maybe you should have ripped off something else from the Italians, like hanging your fascists outside of a gas station.
Here are the skulls. And a penguin... HEY! Penguins don't fly! Ok, that doesn't matter, seeing how skunks spin their tails and fly and one of the characters is an umbrella-carrying blue tapir in a night cap.
Now, we are at Trump Castle. Obviously, they have a theme going. Playing cards, by the way, are not the first thing I associate with Trump.
See that card? Well, first, a bunch of clubs fly at you. Or maybe they were spades. I don't know. What matters is that you need to avoid them or throw boomerangs at them, and it takes a long time. Anyway, Immelman would love this.
Then kings and queens attack you. The damage meter doesn't change until...
...the Joker. It's this fish man .... thing... that rams into you.
Here is a letter from the Princess.
Milk Sea. There are turtles that cause glitchiness and stomp down on the ground. There's also milk. And I think the ground is made of Swiss cheese.
Yarr. You think he'd be floating in the milk, but hey, dreams are strange. So are hallucinogens.
Skeletons jump out. Just float there and shoot the skull as the skeletons march around on the floor and eventually start flickering. Touching the ship means instant death.
SMASH. Ok, let's go there.
It's just this empty milk carton sitting there. You'd think it would do something like pour milk into the sea, but no. And a few small lake and caves can hardly be considered a sea.
Caves that lead to the forest.
Are those bubble leaves? Oh, look, a skunk. He won't hurt you, though. He just falls down like a goomba, completely helpless.
Titania teleports around, shoots blue stuff at you, and is really easy to beat.
Beating her frees Cocorin... hey, wait a minute. No, Cocorin is not a mistake, as we've seen so many times (Saruman/Aruman in the Lord of the Rings cartoon, for one). Cocorin, as it turns out, is Cocoron's brother.
Here's a lion. I know there's some kind of meme involving lions, but I will not repeat it here. What's next after that, huh? Spreading rumors and stupid observational humor, such as, hey, have you ever wondered why there are TWO phone books? A yellow one and a white one? What's next, blue pages? Also, Hyde, your game sucks. I hope a bird poops on you and then the mushrooms on crack or gray thinky whales... NO, I REFUSE TO GIVE IN TO THE DARK SIDE, even though I sometimes think that having an edition of We Know All Of Your Secrets would get a lot of attention. Or maybe it's because of that.
Those are... um... I forget what they're called. But, hey, look, monkeys and Nazca lines and Relativity in the sky! We're taking a trip to the stars! It's just too bad we don't have geese to pull us there.
And more fun! This is Star Hill, by the way. It looks like Mars and what the hell does that say near the blue star? InDIo? Stars fall on you. They do craploads of damage and shoot off sparklies to the left and right, so don't get hit by them. And pandas fly around to distract you. Bastards. Or maybe they were flying albino elephants. There are both, but only one thing here.
He looks like he belongs on the cover of a Smashing Pumpkins album, doesn't he? The world scrolls. Like the pirate ship, he kills you instantly if you touch him. Unfortunately, he likes to teleport, phasing into existence wherever you happen to be standing. If you don't suffer death by mooning like the dinosaurs did, he surrounds himself with four stars and flings them at you.
It's too bad a rocket didn't crash into his eye. That would be a wonderful homage... hey, I don't need to explain myself every single time I make a damn reference, OK? In fact, I stuck Circus of Pathet Lao in there just because I could. Maybe I'll rename my friends page on Livejournal 'Circus of Pathet Lao' because it's fun to make references that a bunch of people who don't read it anyway won't understand. And I did. Uh, a long time ago.
So, once you're done talking to the escapee from Adore's liner notes... I think... Thanks a lot, Cocoron. Now I'm wondering what the hell I did with Adore after I ripped it to my hard drive. I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a moon. It also doesn't have a drummer. I don't have Gish or Pisces Iscariot. Using patented Chococorp technology*, I have discovered that Kupomog either likes Smashing Pumpkins or likes to smash pumpkins. Given that Kupomog is a moogle, I'm going to assume the latter. There's also a Laotian band called The Pumpkins. Moon found it when he determine that Laotian metal is something that needs to be heard.
33 minutes later - It does not have a moon. It has a goat. And D'arcy's breasts. And a CD that is clearly not Adore. Well, now that that's cleared up, we can move on.
Hey, have you ever wondered what mercury actually tastes like?
*mind you, said Chococorp technology is still in its infancy, and various searches can demonstrate the truth of this statement.
Ok, now that we're done, we encounter flying whales. They're just part of the background. Don't try to walk on them. Stick with the souffles or whatever the hell they're called. I don't know. All I know about souffles is that Daggett made his own that was an inflated chef's hat with some bread crusts pasted on. And they're big and fluffy. And the book is all in funny talk.
This is an inflated penguin. If you don't kill it in time, he explodes and spawns three little penguins (?!)
Santa's frozen. He asks for your help, and you know what that means.
Ice dagron. You knock off parts of it and then fight the dagron inside of it. After you beat him, Santa gives Rudolph (not mentioned by name) a break and forces him to pull the sled. I think he looks more like a snowman in that scene.
Penguin residences! Um, how are they supposed to get out, anyway? Maybe that's why they're attacking you. They're mad at the world because they can't get home and they're taking their anger out on random people, tankninjas, and Circus of Pathet Lao escapees.
In a twist that was incredibly obvious to the Japanese and anyone well versed in Japanese mythology and not obvious at all to Americans and Europeans, who never got this game anyway, it turns out Tapir is really Baku and is eating dreams, as if he was a slake moth. What a delicacy.
Go rescue your friends from skunks and birds. Or are they fish? I don't know. My brain hurts. Yes, you have friends. Every time you beat a boss, you get to make a new character, and I named them things like BOB and ROO and BILL and AAAA and BBBB because I never used them anyway.
These are the spiritual ancestors to Radiohead's bears. Also come in Siamese-twinned cactus form! Inquire within!
Hat... oh, yeah, don't touch the cacti. They hurt like crap. The part after this involves opening flowers that you can stand on, and skunks on plates that you have to flip over in order to get past the gap. It's very hard if you can fly and damn near impossible if you can't. Is that milk or did Tapir have... Jesus Q. Christ on a bicycle, I hope not.
You fight Tapir. He's exactly the same as when he appears, except you fight him and he shoots eggs at you. He's rather nasty, but you can beat him once you've mastered his pattern (read: save states every time he misses with an egg). Seriously. He's a pain in the ass and there were at least forty instances of profanity passing through my lips when I fought him and was hit by those freaking unpredictable eggs. They either bounce, arc, or fly straight at you. I think the programmers of Plok put him in. It shows Cocoron. I don't care. I managed to defeat the bastard and I'm not doing it again just so I can get a screenshot of something you've already seen at the intro screen.
Ok, this is officially the weirdest thing ever. Cheerleading mice. With god damn pom poms. You know what, ever since Pipsy from Diddy Kong Racing, I found anthropomorphic mice to be very, very, very unsettling. I don't know why. The clock manages to be worse. Maybe it's that smile. And the way their eyes sort of bug out. SomethingAwful and that guy who wrote the guide says they're cows. Both (cows cheerleading and mice cheerleading) are incredibly unsettling and I wish they would all burn in hell along with those snoods. The pandas aren't around, fortunately. I gues they're learning the branches of the government and even more important things like how they got the Aristocats to play the piano. The ground is fish, but that pales in comparison to the mice.
Cake! With strawberries and killer flames, sort of like our friend Hot Foot from Mario. After that, you have more mice and Tapir tries to get revenge. And more swearing. The ending, as is to be expected in an NES game, is not that impressive. Good music, though.
