![]() ![]() Both Pocky and Rocky retain their differing bomb and charged melee attacks and play a little bit differently, with Pocky moving faster, Rocky sliding further, and now there is also the addition of Attack Augmentations that you can use by pressing the fire button instead of holding it down. And the characters all play differently - Pocky & Rocky has never been about palette swaps. ![]() On the other hand, just let player two be Rocky, narrative be damned, I’m here to pew pew youkai with a pal.Īgain, though, once you do complete the story, co-op unlocks in “Free Mode,” which lets you choose any character to play any stage. Sometimes, Pocky’s spirit is in a completely different part of the timeline than Rocky’s physical body, inhabiting another playable character. Now, there is a reason for this (at least, for the co-op part), and it’s up to your own mind to determine whether the reason is justifiable or not: Reshrined’s story is told in such a way that you play as specific characters in specific levels, with Pocky and Rocky never actually together at any point. ![]() The game’s easy mode is also locked behind a door, though, you need just 3,000 coins to unlock that, against co-op’s 10,000 coin key. You either have to complete the game in single-player before co-op is available, or play so much of the game that you earn enough coins that it seems basically impossible that you wouldn’t have beaten the game by then, anyway. We might as well get those out of the way now: co-op, which is part of what makes Pocky & Rocky so good in the first place, is locked behind two doors. There are a few complaints that make it a little more annoying than the SNES classic, but, for the most part, those complaints are also temporary ones that, once resolved, will never bother you again. Reshrined, mercifully, is a return to form that does everything the original did well, only more of it. So it was partly by default but also because it ruled that the first Pocky & Rocky was held in such high esteem. The first Pocky & Rocky game was long believed to be the best one - its sequel made some changes for the better and some for the worse, while Game Boy Advance release Pocky & Rocky with Becky was handled by Altron, not Natsume, and feels more like a sequel to the original, co-op-less arcade game. Taito licensed out the Kiki Kaikai license to Natsume in 1992, it was given a co-op mode in addition to all of the above changes, and renamed Pocky & Rocky for its international release. If that was all new from Natsume’s developers, you can imagine how relatively simple the gameplay for 1986’s Taito entry was. You could now slide out of the way of enemies and their attacks, your shots could be upgraded, your melee attack would reflect enemy projectiles and could be charged into a more powerful move, and, as became more of a norm in shooters of all types between the 1986 start of this franchise and 1992’s SNES and international debut, a limited screen-clearing bomb became available. It’s just very basic: all of the innovations that made Natsume’s Pocky & Rocky work so well came in that game, not from Kiki Kaikai. The original, Kiki Kaikai, was a Taito arcade game and Japan exclusive, and it’s… fine. I hope that clears things up.Ī quick history lesson aside: Pocky & Rocky itself is actually a sequel. Cute? Yes! Confusing? Also yes.īasically, if you were looking for Pocky & Rocky, you might be disappointed, but if you were looking for Pocky & Rocky, then this is just what you wanted. All of this in spite of its remaster-implying name, too. Though, it picks up inside of the first Pocky & Rocky, and uses that game’s mechanics for its foundation instead of those of its sequels. You’ll see protagonists, foes, and environments that you recognize, but also new ones on all three counts: unlike the more straight enhanced remasters of Natsume’s Super Nintendo games that have released this generation, for Wild Guns and The Ninja Warriors, Pocky & Rocky Reshrined serves as a brand new entry. ![]() Pocky & Rocky was never a particularly prolific series, but still, vanishing for over 20 years before reemerging in 2022 with a game that’s part remake, part reboot, part sequel is all a little much. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link. This column is “Past meets present,” the aim of which is to look back at game franchises and games that are in the news and topical again thanks to a sequel, a remaster, a re-release, and so on. ![]()
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