Cocoro no Cocoron, sugarsweet Animal Crossing?

As I mentioned in my Game of the Month blog, I had ordered a new Japanese game in December. A gaming friend had recommended the game that was presented as an Animal Crossing like game when it was released in 2011. Strangely enough the developers chose at the time to not release it for the 3DS, but to stay with the DS format for this one. It looked cute, and with AC comparisons in place, my interest was piqued. So I ordered the game and the guide to go with it in Hong Kong, at PlayAsia. They promptly sent it out, but by the time it reached me, mid-February, I’d almost forgotten that I had even ordered it!

The game I’m talking about is Cocoro no Cocoron, made by Namco Bandai. The overall goal of the game is to make friends with the residents of the planet Cocoron. It starts in a small area, where you meet 5 creatures. Unlike in Animal Crossing, these creatures aren’t animals, but they can be formed out of anything, like pudding, or a beetle, one of them resembles Animal from the Muppet Show. That should give you an idea. Helping them with various questions to give them things, or go talk to one of the other residents earn you friendship points. And while the creatures each have a relation to one or more of the others, they all evolve a friendship with you. Once that is complete, it unlocks a new area in the Cocoron world.

So far I have two area’s unlocked, and I think there are six in all. Every time you finish one area a special figure forms in your クラブ ( a sort of diagram showing the relations) and you get a special thing that’s needed to proceed. I got some kind of tool to repair the bridge to go to the second part. That’s when the game really took off, I got my own little house, and a special membership card to be able to buy stuff in a store that was situated in the second area of the world. It might just be that all I’ve done in the first area is doing the basic chores, just like Nook has you do in AC to get to know the gameplay. But to me with my very limited knowledge of Japanese, it felt much more like hard work.

The game isn’t easy to play, which somehow surprised me because it was such a cutesy game, aimed most probably at kids in Japan. Maybe that is part of the problem, I tend to overthink what I have to do for my fellow Cocoron. While most of the time it is as simple as giving them a flower or talking to a neighbor for them. But the other part is that the game isn’t all in Katakana or Hiragana, making it a tough job to translate. Somehow Google Translate is having a tough time with it too, it just can’t seem to read all of the letters on the screen. You could say I’ve made quite a study trying to get ahead in this game. I even took pains to try and translate the first pages in the guide. You can see the result here, and I’m sure you will see that this is quite an undertaking! If you are playing the game too or want to play it, feel free to message me, so I can share my notes with you. And of course, if you’re fluent in Japanese, all help is appreciated!

Anyway, when I’m in the mood for some hard work I’ll try to get ahead. Will keep you updated!