it's about 3 stages deep into P&R when I was second guessing how much I really wanted to keep playing it. I decided I'm too tough of a Gamer to consider giving it up. built differently. perhaps incorrectly.

either way, seeing P&R through to the end was pretty damn cathartic. successfully diving to safety 25% of the time, then into a hazard/wall or entirely off the stage the other 75%. forgetting to deflect while trying to shoot everything before everything kills me. accidentally picking up the wrong power-up and having my weapon reset to level 1 near the end of the stage. manically tapping the d-pad to perfectly position myself to attack before realizing the boss had already started making its move.

after coming down from the high of finishing it, I think I'd actually say it's almost equal parts fun and frustrating. love the presentation. it's cute. I'm a sucker for yokai stuff. that difficulty left me mollywhopped though. good game.

Cute But Unforgiving

Pocky & Rocky is that typical cute run 'n gun game trap. Where the graphics, while not hugely outstanding, are nevertheless charming, with the environment designs are well crafted, there's a nice variation of enemy designs and there is nice use of colours to give it a cute feel. But beneath its seemingly dorky smile is a game that is tough.

Even normal is a big challenge and you can forget about Hard mode until you’re able to memorize the game to the point of second nature and have cat-like reflexes.

A lot of this boils down to the issues the game has. The stages have cheap gimmicks, from the the enemies, bosses and, from stage 2 onwards, environments themselves. Hitbox detection is wonky so just as you think you’ve avoided a hit, you’ve lost health (or a life). And your invincibility window when hit is so small, you might as well see it as losing a life in certain events. The fact that after taking two hits you depower, so in later stages, this is all but near-certain death and while the controls are solid and you have some nifty defence and offence options, the lack of being able to lock a direction and fire while moving does add to the difficulty.

All these add to make a challenging game become cheap at the later levels. There may only be six stages and in theory this game lasts an hour but good luck progressing far into the game for a good many hours.

It's worth giving Pocky & Rocky a go, just to see the quirky nature of the game and loose story. But one can't ignore that the difficulty creep will become too much for everyone but the really determined.

Rating: 6/10

Um projeto impecável no que diz respeito a entretenimento. Divertido, justo e muito bem feito! Eis uma experiência com videogame que recompensa o esforço e o aprendizado, com mecânicas e truques que podem ser assimilados em algumas horas de jogo sem que o jogador tenha de se preocupar muito com isso. A arte, a trama e a jogabilidade simpáticas nos envolvem de uma forma que mais uma tentativa não é uma tortura como em muitos outros jogos do gênero. E por falar em jogabilidade, destaco a intuitividade como o seu maior ponto forte. Por ser simples e sucinto, o jogo nos permite testar sem sermos punidos, aprender sem ter dor de cabeça, fazendo com que zera-lo seja um processo divertido e convidativo a uma próxima jogatina.

Porém, nem tudo são flores..
Ao contrário da magnifica experiência em 1-player, o co op desse jogo é bem esquisito. Por punir os jogadores que usam um recurso básico e indispensável do jogo, o sliding. Colisão em co op é uma abominação dentro de um jogo. É punitivo e elimina as possibilidades de se divertir na presença de um amigo ou parente.

I don't like Pocky & Rocky - it's just not my thing and it's kinda really obnoxious.

I like most action game aesthetics but the 'trouble-making youkai' setup is something I don't vibe with. Nothing really appealing to me about the whole 'ugly, disfigured demons but quirky and chibified' thing. It's like the Japanese equivalent of the anglosaxon 'lovable scrunko' setting. I'd rather have these spiritual/horror elements played straight than try to Sanrio-ify them.

I don't like how this plays either. If you're not moving purposefully slow and maxing out your weapons, you're gonna get your ass handed to you by enemies coming at you way too fast. Your move speed's too slow, and both defensive tools you have feel bad because they incapacitate some part of your movement. Your dash also snags onto walls really easily - something that made the final boss a total shitshow. I think the only point during the game where I was 'liking' the gameplay was around stage 5 when I hit a roadblock and had to start forcing myself to learn the deep tech, but it didn't make the experience more 'fun'; just more feasible.

I guess in positives, it's really pretty for '92. Also kinda funny how the plot is traditionally European/medieval monsters capturing youkai to drain their energy ((I WONDER WHAT THIS MEANS))

Uma melhora e tanto se comparado ao antecessor de arcade lá de 1986. A originalidade da premissa se mantém e é complementada por uma ótima variedade de inimigos, níveis e chefes. Confesso que depois do terceiro estágio apelei pra save states e rewind, mas foi mais por falta de paciência do que por ser um jogo injusto ou impossível de dominar: mesmo jogando solo, depois de algumas tentativas dá para entender os macetes dos níveis e aprender os padrões dos inimigos e chefes sem muitos problemas. Claro, com um amiguinho do lado deve ser uma experiência ainda mais suave e divertida, mas não tive a oportunidade de testar isso. Mas mesmo sozinho é um jogo que vale a pena.

Luckily I realized halfway through that this game is spiking it difficulty pretty fast, because I restarted on easy after two stages and it was definitely the right decision. The game was still fairly challenging and getting to know the levels feels important to get through the higher ones. Especially since you lose your power-ups after a few hits.

The game looks amazing, the OST is very nice and it has a coop mode which I couldn't try. It doesn't have much variety in terms of power-ups and both characters play exactly the same, but the challenge makes up for it. Might go back and try to beat in on normal sometime.

Although it had a severe case of arcade syndrome that I could not overcome, the “pilot episode” of this series, KiKi KaiKai, was a good time from what I had experienced. It was pretty unique for the most part, controlling pretty differently from many other shmups at the time, allowing for a lot more versatility and assistance, as well as having a pretty unique theme for the genre as well, revolving all around Japanese locations and mythology. It was also pretty successful at the time, but despite this, it did stay as a one-off for 6 whole years, until the year 1992, where Natsume, who were previously known for Power Blade and… um… Spanky’s Quest (you know, everyone’s FAVORITE cult classic), would take over development for not just the next title in the series, but for all other titles in the series following. So, moving the series from the arcades to the SNES, the series would be brought back as Pocky & Rocky.

Despite not having played the previous title before the time I decided to review it, I actually do have some experience with Pocky & Rocky, with me owning physical copies of both this game and Pocky & Rocky 2 for the SNES. I had played both of them previously for a good amount, and I remember enjoying my time with them, despite not having anyone to play with, so I was excited to revisit the game after a long time. Now, after finally replaying the game, I can say that I glad that I did, because this game is pretty great. Sure, it isn’t perfect, but is a fantastic improvement over what we got with KiKi KaiKai, and I would go as far to say that it is a hidden gem for the SNES, despite it being more commonly known then other titles on the system.

The story basically just involves evil coming back once again, even if it has a little more depth then your typical old school title, which I can get behind, the graphics are pretty great, looking much more detailed and appealing then that of the previous game, and having plenty of personality when it comes to the design of the characters, enemies, and bosses, the music is great, providing plenty of memorable and appropriate tunes for the various settings of the game, and I can still recall a good amount of the tracks that I heard after a while, which given my small brain, that is pretty impressive, the control is solid all around, feeling about the same as the previous game, but it does feel much better to play, being pretty smooth overall, and the gameplay is also very similar to that of the original game, but improved in just about every way, as well as managing to improve on the issues that the original game had.

The game is a scrolling shmup, where you take control of either Pocky (no relation to the candy) or Rocky (no relation to the boxer), take on a set of levels, each of them unique from one another, take out many different enemies inspired by Japanese mythology in whatever way helps you out the most, gather plenty of powerups, health items, and different weapons to use to your advantage, and fight plenty of tough bosses that will put your reflexes and skills to the test. In a lot of ways, it is very similar to the original game, but anyone who has played the original game and then this one can agree when I say that it is improved upon greatly, with there being more powerups to use, as well as less instances of bullshit enemy spawning.

New to this game, obviously, is the fact that now you can play it with a friend, where another player can take control of either Pocky or Rocky depending on who you choose, and this, my friends, is the true way to properly experience this game. While I myself wasn’t able to play this game with a friend, I have seen plenty of footage of co-op gameplay online, and it looks like so much fun, because not only do you have a distinct advantage with twice the firepower and skill, but also there are moments where, when you slide around, you can knock into each other and send them flying across the screen to deal damage to enemies. It’s the small little things like that that actually make it feel like a true co-op experience, y’know? Not to mention, there are clear differences between Pocky and Rocky in terms of their speed and range of attacks, so it is nice to see that one isn’t a clone of the other. And finally, you also get new maneuvers that weren’t present in the original game, such as the previously mentioned slide and a special attack that can deal LOTS of damage when used effectively, making things all the more fun and satisfying.

With all that great stuff in mind, however, it isn’t perfect by any means. There were still some instances of bullshit to be found within some of the level design and the hazards that you would face, such as in the case of Stage 5, where there are these spiked balls that are rolling towards you in multiple corridors, and I swear, it is up to complete random chance that determines when the balls will spawn, and how many will spawn at a time, making it almost impossible to know for sure when it was safe to move ahead before getting out of the way again. Trust me, I died plenty of times in this section because of that, and it did get pretty annoying. Aside from that though, there isn’t really that much else I can say that the game does wrong, except for maybe how it doesn’t do too much different then the original game, which in my opinion isn’t a bad thing at all. Not only does this game manage to do everything that game did but better, but managed to add much more variety while adding multiplayer, so it definitely eclipses that game by a mile.

Overall, despite having some bullshit moments here and there, Pocky & Rocky is a fantastic sequel, and, if you want my opinion, is the true start of this underrated series, definitely being a hidden gem among the SNES library. I would definitely recommend it for those who are familiar with other titles in the Pocky & Rocky series, as well as those who just want a quick game to play with a friend, because this game will definitely be the perfect fit for you and then some. Although, good luck finding a copy of the game that won’t cost you over $100 for it. Then again, you could just emulate it, like plenty of others have probably done. Don’t lie, we all are true pirates on the inside.

Game #356

Very cute game, reminds me of Touhou which is always nice. Not as good as Natsume's other output on the SNES but a very solid time nonetheless. Seems like it would be better with a friend, though.

There's an issue I have with the weapons system, though. There are two types that gradually upgrade as you pick them up more, but should you grab the weapon you're not using, you'll be reverted to its base level and have to upgrade that one all over again. If you do this and then go back to the previous one, it will also be back at base level. It's really annoying because you're definitely going to want whatever you have to be maxed out as often as possible, and I found myself sticking to one weapon because of this when I would've preferred to switch around now and then.

No other major complaints really, except the final boss has a pretty loathsome lightning attack that you have to slide around constantly to just narrowly avoid. That one could just be me being bad at games, however. All in all, this is quite nice. I'd definitely recommend Wild Guns or Ninja Warriors first, though.