Ubi Soft has had a strong run of RPGs on the PS2 this winter. They're even offering a promotion to go along with it where if you buy two of the RPGs, you get the third one free. The titles are Grandia II, The Legend of Alon D'ar, and Jade Cocoon 2. Not a bad deal considering at least two of those are worth owning and coupled with the fact that I'm always eager to try new role-playing games. Jade Cocoon 2 doesn't exactly fit into a traditional role-playing mold, but it stands out as a visually appealing and highly addictive game on its own merits.

In Jade Cocoon 2, you play as Kahu, a young boy out looking for adventure and striving to become a beast master. Something strange happens to him in the beginning of the game, and he is forced to develop his skills quickly in order to accomplish goals that will eventually save his life as well as free the forest from darkness. Like I said, this isn't a traditional RPG, and you'll find that the story does little more than create a foundation for your adventure. This adventure consists of traveling through forests fighting, collecting, and raising wild creatures (yes, sort of like Pokemon).

Somebody forgot to tell the production staff that the story wasn't very important or, for that matter, appealing because they went all out with voices and cutscenes to bring it to life. I have to commend them on the production values though because there is full voice throughout the game, and it's not too shabbily done. It's a little too Nickelodeon for my tastes, but on that level it's quite good. The game starts with a little movie with the cutest fairy introducing you to the game world. There are other small moments of FMV thrown in, most impressive of which is right before every boss encounter.

The graphics continue right along with these same lines. Smart decisions were made in style and artistry. I wouldn't say that the game is particularly moving around a ton of polys or burning your retinas with spell effects like Final Fantasy X, but in a style much like Grandia II on the Dreamcast, Jade Cocoon 2 comes off as one of the better looking games on the PS2. The character creations were even done by the anime artist who worked on Princess Mononoke. Although all text is spoken, the developers chose to stick with character portraits and text boxes to accompany it. You'll spend more time looking at the portraits during the conversations because it's the only place you'll find any emotional expression as the on screen characters have the same blank look throughout and lack lip synching. Once you get moving, you'll notice that the animation is top-notch, especially while walking where it actually makes the control feel tighter.

Although you control Kahu in the game, it's not actual the boy itself that you use for battles. All conflicts are handled by using monsters that you've captured/found/created and raised. The story has Kahu equipped with a bracer on his arm that holds as many monsters as his level is allowed (this eventually rises to eight). In the beginning you'll be working with one or two monsters in your group, and they handle all your attacking and defense. Kahu just doles out the orders. What's surprising is the amount of depth involved in not only raising these fighting machines but also where to place them and use them in actual battle.

Let's shoot for a quick and dirty explanation. There are eight potential slots to place a monster on a ring around you, one on the middle of each of your sides and one on every corner. Only one side (3 monsters - 2 corners and 1 middle) is ever facing your enemy at one time. Before you take your turn you get to choose one of these sides to activate (each represents monsters of either fire, water, earth, or wind). There's not much more to the action then that, just pick a side and press X. Where the strategy comes in is with what the monsters can do for you. Each monster can only perform one action on a given side, like a fire monster has only a fire punch (until you try to cross breed them later in the game). So if this fire creature is alone on the active side and you press X, he will run over and fire punch the enemy. Next turn you may switch to the water side where you have a lone blue creature who can cast a healing spell.

In the beginning, that will be all you have, just a couple of monsters. There isn't too much to think about other than which two to carry with you. Do you take one attack creature and one healing creature? Maybe you take one attack and one that can cast a defensive wall? Perhaps you take two on the same side allowing both to attack every turn, like a wind creature that can attack and cause blindness along with one that causes sleep? There are too many combinations to think about, and that's only with two creatures. Later on you have the chance to take performance tests that will allow you to carry more creatures into battle effectively melting your brain trying to think up a battle group with six slots and 25 monsters to fill them with.

You can literally spend hours coming up with a combination of creatures that you think you'll be successful with out in the forests, and this is without even considering the evolution process of the creatures themselves. You start with eggs that can be hatched into a larva form of a monster. From there you take them out to level them up quickly. When they reach a certain point, they evolve into a different form, and when they hit 15 you can merge them with the seed of another beast. You can merge a fire beast with a wind beast that would, when place on the fire/wind corner; allow them to perform an action from two different sides. Or you could continue their development along their own species, which accelerates development of stats and skills but limits them to actions on only one side during battle.

One pretty major problem I have is with regards to taking action in battle. You see every turn you take, mana points (MP) are used for that action. Monsters on inactive sides during that turn gain a tiny bit of MP back. If you run out of MP then you are stuck with a low damage physical attack instead of the ability that the creature would normally use. It's quite easy to run out of MP while making your way through the forest before you reach a boss or sub boss fight, but that's not actually where I have the problem. There is no way to choose that low level physical attack over using an ability when fighting the CPU, which means there is no way to conserve MP. This still wouldn't be that big of a deal if it weren't for the fact that the CPU does it to me all the time!! They'll sit there with a full MP gauge and launch a series of regular attacks on me while I'm wasting my MP on a fire punch that will do 100 hit points of damage more than I need. People talk about the computer "cheating". Well this is one of those cases where I agree; the CPU should have to adhere to the same rules, simple as that.

Overall, Jade Cocoon is a solid game that's highly addictive. The environments can get repetitive much in the same way as constantly going through the same worlds in Phantasy Star Online. In the end, that's what keeps it from being a must have game, but still one that I think many gamers could enjoy for a good period of time. There are millions of monsters that you can hatch, create, and raise for battle, and just trying to get them to their most evolved form could keep one occupied for days on end. Even though it doesn't fall into a traditional RPG mold, Jade Cocoon 2 is easily among the top ranks of monster breeding by way of its deep battle system alone.