700 Points

Cocoto Platform Jumper by Nek Entertainment tells the story of Cocoto and his little devil friends who live peacefully in the depth of the Abyss. This is, until Zaron, God of Lightning, whisks them away to a far away place. Cocoto therefore sets off to rescue his friends before it is too late. You need to hurry to help him free them though, as Zaron has left many traps in the way!

This is personally my first experience of both a WiiWare game, and buying anything off the Wii Shop Channel. I must say, I’m impressed! It was quick and easy to use. Not quite as easy to navigate and understand as the likes of Xbox Live Marketplace, however it will only improve with time, so this is definitely one to keep an eye on. The way it has been designed to cope with the Wii-Remote controls however is very impressive .

Anyway, I digress, back on with the game review.

So, Cocoto Platform Jumper is the latest release from Neko Entertainment. Once downloaded, you’re playing within minutes with no real need to read the instructions as it is all pretty intuitive. You require both the Wii-Remote and the Nunchuk which it does tell you when you purchase the game. You control the movement of Cocoto with the analogue stick on the Nunchuk and fire an arrow with the Z button, shaking the Nunchuk to create a lava bridge. The Wii-Remote is used to jump, using the A button, and also create a lava bridge with the B button (I found this much easier than shaking your wrist as you need to use it loads!), shaking the Remote makes Cocoto tail whip your enemy!

It was originally designed and made for the Playstation 2 and Gamecube, upon my first go it does appear to be a straight off port from the consoles based on graphics alone. Not much has changed. It is the controls however that make this a truly interesting and horribly addictive game to play, rather than the quality of the graphics. Don’t think its all bad though, as the graphics are smooth and doesn’t stutter or jolt. As you run around the level the camera follows you, but don’t worry about getting dizzy, it’s not at all like that.

So you begin your journey at the bottom of the level, which is a circle platform, and the idea is to make your way to the top by jumping onto various platforms. There are 3 types, wooden, ice (which makes Cocoto slip and slide) and fire (to be avoided, this one kills or injures Cocoto)). This is all without being hit by any of the amazingly wild creatures that may fly, jump, crawl, bounce, drop or hop into your way. If you fall off the platforms, you don’t die, you just keep falling until you reach the bottom. Unless you hit a fire platform of course. Either way this can become annoying at times as starting from the bottom basically means just rushing back up to where you were, as there is nothing left to kill as you will have already dispose of them the first time round.

Your life-force as you make your way through the levels are ‘Golden Apples’ which you pick up after killing enemies. Think Crash Bandicoot and Sonic the Hedgehog in terms of these, if you have them, you get a free hit from an enemy, if you don’t, it’s one hit death I’m afraid. However, what makes this better is if you collect 10 apples, you get an extra life. Result! This is the easiest way to get extra lives as you go about your travels, as in terms of points, they are not rewarded until you have 100,000 points. Which takes some time when you’re hopping about in the game. If you happen to take the dive and lose a life you start from either the half way point (an angel marker will let you know where it is) or the very bottom of the level.

Luckily, any creatures you happened to turn to ash on the way, will stay well and truly flame grilled even after a fatal blow. If you lose all your lives it’s game over, but you can continue from your last save point (which will be that level as it automatically saves every time you complete one), but you start from the very bottom of the course and not the checkpoint. You will also only have as many lives as you had when you started that level. So if you start a level on your last life and die, you can continue, but will still only have that one life.

There are 3 game difficulties, Easy, Normal and Hard. They offer all ends of the spectrum, with easy being well…. easy. There is no time limit, and the bad guys can seem slightly, foolish. In Normal the game is a challenge and is the best of both worlds, the timer is turned on but gives you plenty of time to reach your goal. However, fall off once too many times and you’ll soon realise the timer says 0:00 and then the race begins. When you are out of time the water (or lava) will begin to edge its way higher up the course. Obviously, should you decide to take a step too far and see if Cocoto can fly, you’ll end up being a life down You will also find this is the case if the water catches up with you! Which in between dodging flying creatures and falling objects you’ll notice doesn’t take long. Especially in Hard mode, which you probably will never out-race. The main difference in Hard mode is less time and of course, faster rising liquid.

You need to figure out when and which of Cocoto’s specials to use to complete the levels. The lava bridge can be used to attack or trap an enemy and even a platform to walk on. Jump on it however and the platform will collapse. If you’re lucky enough to trap an enemy underneath, jumping on it will give you double points.

The other special is firing a arrow which is the most effective way to kill flying creatures. You can use them in the air and they fly about just under a quarter of the way round the circle. Some enemies can only be killed using this. The last attack is the tail whip which is more of a panic button really. Kills most enemies that are around you and allows you to make a swift get away.

Making your way through 4 stages and you will reach the boss level. The bosses start off rather simple, and then growing in both difficulty and the skill needed to figure out their weakness. Each boss has one, and trying to figure out the latter can take a life or two. On a side note though, is that Donkey Kong making a special appearance? The world will never know.

All in all, there are 25 crazy levels to complete. Spanning across 5 unique worlds with 5 levels in each (4 normal levels with the 5th being the boss level). At the end of each level your kills, gems and time remaining gets added to your score along with a bonus countdown. When this reaches zero, you’ve earned enough to get yourself onto one of the 5 bonus levels throughout the game. These are there purely to increase your score and give you some much needed extra lives.

To accompany the single player mode are 2 multiplayer mode game types. Battle and Race mode:

Battle
This mode is a two player head to head based around the same level styles as you see in the single player campaign. It’s a quick combat-based mode, with the one who gets the weapon having the obvious advantage. You can play as any one of the characters from the game which means you don’t get lost in the ‘Which Cocoto was I again?’ dilemma which you would of had.

Race
This is a four player sprint which involves racing your comrades to the top. You have 3 lives, fall behind (as in off the screen) you lose a life You can also be shoved off the edge by your mates, again, kissing goodbye to a life. If you’re the last one standing you get the added element of the water rising to give you that extra challenge. It doesn’t rise slowly either, expect to have your wits cut out to beat it to the top, if you fail (or drown), you also lose a life.

Overall, the game is a good blend of skill and luck. With simple to use controls giving an extra niceness about the game. The game to me is quite addictive, especially when you incorporate your friends into the mix, the childish cartoons makes it even more enjoyable as you realise that this game shouldn’t be taken at all seriously in terms of graphics. Instead, it should just be enjoyed as the bit of fun it is! Plus in Hard mode, it really is no longer a children’s game, I’m still struggling to get through it!

+ Quick to get into, Jumping in no time!
+ Hard mode is a good challenge.
+ Quite addictive and enjoyable!

- Music and sound affects can get annoying after time.
- Story lacks any real depth at all. It’s pretty much “save your friends”.
- Some people will find it repetitive, make sure this game style is for you!
- No real replay value once completed.

Score - 6/10