MVI Pocky and Rocky (series)

This page is about all Kiki KaiKai series, also known as POCKY AND ROCKY. Due to notable differences between each game, be sure to specify which one you're addressing.

User 1's Notes
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Dejiko's Notes
KiKi KaiKai or "Mysterious Ghost World" is about... Yeah, no. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you everything about the background of these games or what they're about, partly because I'm not 100% sure myself and because Wikipedia does a better job of it than I could: so check here and here then come back here. I will say this though, they're cute, funny, and a lot less fucking disturbing than games like Yokai Dochuki, which actually bothers me more than any horror game I've ever played for some dumb reason I'm not too sure of. Back on track, having played the original KiKi KaiKai, it's pretty damn basic, but you can definitely see the origins of the series in full force: from the playful representations of Japanese mythology in the enemies and bosses, along with the methods of attack (the ofuda scroll talismans (aka MAGIC CARDS) and the ohari Gohei wand (aka MAGIC STICK), the latter of which sadly doesn't reflect projectiles yet). There's also upgrade and bomb-type items (the latter of which don't work on bosses in the first two games). Keys to open boss doors is pretty stupid since they're in plain sight and typically near the boss doors anyways (at the very most about halfways). One thing that irritates the fuck out of me (and is the primary reason why I don't like the first game) is the fact that when you get killed, you respawn backwards. This is somewhat justified in Gradius (I can't say I care for it much there either) where you can re-earn power ups, but in this sort of game, this shit does not fucking fly (sure you can re-earn power-ups here too, but like Gradius, it's not nearly enough, and sometimes there are none). Yeah, I know it was a staple of games back in the day to do this, but that doesn't mean it was necessarily a good one, especially since other Commando-esque games would respawn you on the spot. Especially when stages get pretty big, all on top of the fact that Sayo (Pocky) moves pretty slow (at least compared to enemies who hop around like crazy hyperactive bastards who just drank Sonic's blood) somewhat justifies my classification of this as a dick move, especially when you die in boss fights (Boss doors stay open once unlocked). Level design is pretty monotonous and after a while repeating the processes just gets tedious. I wouldn't call it a shitty game, and though it borders on being "bad", it isn't (quite). It's just unfairly cheap and pretty hard for such a cute and simple game. Even if you might like it, I don't recommend playing it and I wouldn't put it on the Wiki either. If you're really curious about it, go here and watch this. The TG16 port is pretty much the same. The MSX version is weaker and has choppy scrolling. So don't think they touched it up.

KiKi KaiKai: Dotou Hen or "Mysterious Ghost World: Surging Waves Edition" (or alternatively "The Story of the Angry Waves") is conceptually pretty much the same thing. The execution is different though. For starters, you have a life meter. You can replenish it with riceball items for a maximum of 6 hits before dying (which you only have one life, so lose all hits and you game over). That's already better than the arcade's backtrack deaths. Actually, there aren't even stages anymore. Instead, you go through a somewhat big ass map that's more complicated than it should be and go through dungeons to fight bosses. You can also have player 2 switch in as Miki (later known as Becky overseas), and she has her own separate inventory and shit. In theory, this is the most ambitious game in the series. However, in practice, it's pretty lame and full of more stupid bullshit than the original arcade release. For starters, the map isn't really that big, and just full of warp points everywhere. However, this makes it seem very confusing since these the transition is seemless and it's hard to tell if you've been somewhere before, since the map's design is fairly monotonous. If they were going for a going for a Zelda-style world (makes sense, given that it came out in 1986 and this in 1987), going straight-forward would have been better instead of making the entire world a fucking Lost Woods ordeal. There's a day-night system as well, but it doesn't do anything to affect the game other than change the colors. More importantly is a calendar system, since you start off at January 8th and must complete the game before December 31st or "the game ends" (presumably perma-game over or bad end). I don't know how fast time goes, since I haven't directly played the game, but I can see how it would be a problem with the confusing overworld. Probably the stupidest idea is the limited ammo on your talisman cards. At first you think "Well, lots of games have limited ammo, so if anything it gives you more challenge, right?" and then you realize IT ALSO WORKS AS MONEY IN SHOPS. "Well, okay, that's not TOO bad, since Zelda 1 did the same thing." is what you may also think, but NO. You're fucking wrong again, since you have to hit a certain enemy to open up shops to begin with. Also, you also have to spend 50 cards to enter a dungeon, then you also have to fight the boss. Trust me, your shitty little wand isn't good enough to carry you through the game, especially given how aggressively enemies attack and it still doesn't reflect projectiles. Yeah, there's bomb-items (crystals) and an upgrade ITEM (which isn't as good as it could be and you lose it from a single hit, which is dumb) and even a semi-effective barrier item, but here's where things get really stupid: You must BUY EVERYTHING. That's right, fucking nothing except cards drop from enemies, and not even all enemies drop cards and most drop 1 and only a few drop 5. Through a trick you can get one enemy to drop 30, and another to drop 50, but the latter requires that you had spent 40 to buy the upgrade that can kill him in the first place plus another 6 to actually kill him. Oh, and to save? You have to spend 10 cards at the shop. Then the game ends and you restart back at the starting spot (with the bosses you killed staying dead and presumably with your stats and supplies at the time of saving, but I don't know about the latter). There are post-boss bonus areas where you can earn extra cards and if you're one of those strategy guide types, you can find secret cards in certain spots, and even get some riceballs from waving your wand on certain statues, but there's no hints or indication that you could do that in the first place. Doing well in this game requires nothing short of perfect play in the first place, and given that the scrolling and movement are worse than the arcade version, that's expecting quite a lot. The three lamest things though, despite the card bullshit are: 1) Poison. Yes you can get poisoned by certain enemies and your life gauge decreases. There's no antidote item either, you must wave your wand on certain statues (which again, the game doesn't give an indication of). 2) Every fucking boss dungeon is the same damn structure. I shit you not. Every last one. 3) There's insta-death. Certain things kill you on the spot, such as falling in water. Given the whole one life only factor, this is just plain idiotic. All in all, this was a nice idea, but the execution was just plain horrible. The only good thing that came out of this is that completely adorable cover art. Hell, I could go on about how two of the bosses are just copy-pasta versions of two others and that even the new final bosses aren't that interesting, but this shit is getting boring and I'd like to ask 3 things to nobody in particular before I move onto the last 3 games: 1) How can a bunch of GODS get kidnapped by some lame 1-hit-and-blarg-imded enemies? I mean, shit, they have fucking Bishamonten on their side for one. Even if you don't know who that is, just look at that sword and tell me it makes sense how he didn't put up a fight. 2) Is Manuke (Rocky) a guy or a girl? Supposedly it's a guy, but Taito calls it a girl (at least in Bubble Symphony). 3) Where the fuck is Orochi? The games apparently describe him as being the force behind all this bullshit, but in the first game, the last boss is Manuke and in the remix, it's the 3 gods of poverty. Did this honky fly the coop or something? I guess that the devs ran out of time or money, but if that's the case why even mention him? Well, with that said, I'm sick of this fucking game and you probably are too. If not, you can watch a little bit of it here and read about it here. Needless to say, I won't ever add it to the wiki, and if YOU do, I'll hunt down a copy of this game, find you, and slap you in the face with it. Actually, I won't, but I will be very sad and disappointed with you.

Some brilliant fucking genius at Taito called up Natsume and got them to make the next two KiKi KaiKai games. I don't know who it was, but I am thankful. Things went back to the style of the first game. Except everything took a serious kick in the ass and became one of the best cute 'em ups of all time. Fucking EVERYTHING is better. Characters move faster, the life bar is improved AND you have lives and infinite continues, the wand now reflects projectiles (which do damage to enemies hit), you can fire off cards like the miko of the north star, you can slide to quickly move about, power-ups are more plentiful, there's different options of card upgrades, bombs work on bosses, 2-player mode is SIMULTANEOUS... oh man, the list goes on. And that's just gameplay. In addition, while each character plays similarly, Sayo, who I will now call Pocky, is a bit more offense-centric, while Manuke, here known as Rocky, is more defensive. This is evident in Pocky's wand-charge, which has her do a whirling spin-attack, useful for minor offense, but more importantly re/de-flecting projeciles back at enemies, and her bombs are a focused cross-shot of fire. Rocky on the other hand, has a wand-charge that turns the player into an invincible statue for a short while and his (technically a guy in the overseas) bombs scatter in a screen-wide ring formation. I'm guessing this is so Rocky can be more of a beginner-type or support-role, since he's the designated player 2, and despite the game giving you the choice between characters, more skilled players would probably stick with Pocky. My minor beef with the wand-charges is that Pocky's has a weird hit box when used as a melee-type offense (which can lead to her getting hurt almost unexpectedly) and that Rocky's isn't exactly clear on when you change back (it's about 4 seconds). Like you don't start blinking and you CANNOT revert at will either. This can lead to trouble when you suddenly pop back to normal when an enemy is right on you and you get hurt. Pocky has the advantage here since she can wand strike and slide out of her spin-attack (thus why more skilled players would use her, as beginners wouldn't quite catch onto this). There's also a slide combo move in co-op, which sends the impactee flying about the screen at the cost of some of their health. Unless things are desperate, you shouldn't use it, unless you're a jerk. My biggest complaint about this game and part of the reason why its rather difficult, is that several normal enemies have way too much health. Even with rapid-fire, some take too long to kill, and when you have other shit flying your way to worry about, it's hard to juggle everything while taking little-to-no damage and progressing through the stage. It reaches its peak of difficulty when you're fighting a boss, especially when said boss can have a tough pattern to dodge (now even more so since bosses have more attacks and patterns than the first two games). It's all possible, but it's pretty tough, and you can see why people prefer to have at least someone helping them in co-op. At least it's not as bullshit as the first 2 games could get. One other issue is that you can't quite "mix" power-ups. Getting a different power-up type weakens the attack of the one you had. So while you CAN stack one and switch to another and get a combo effect, it's never as good as just going one way or the other. Kind of a shame. One thing this game deserves a complement on is aesthetics. The first two games, while having the ideas down, just ended up feeling repetitive and boring. Here, everything is lively, exciting, and different between stages. Things even change mid-stage, like a rainstorm in the middle of a sunny day or going from a forest to a river trip on a raft. The latter of which actually mixes up gameplay, since you have enemies aggressively pop up out of the water and try to grab, drag, and drown you, while the former just helps to keep things interesting on a visual level. The sound is really nice too, having several unique sound effects that I can't really attribute to any other game off the top of my head (not even other Natsume games) and the music is just cool. One somewhat subtle, but effective, factor in the soundtrack is an electric bass, which in addition to the rather traditional folk-sounding instruments, keeps things lively, in addition to the very active melodies, especially compared to the slow, dull, and sullen music of the first two games. All in all, a great, though not perfect, experience, that everyone should try at least once, and an excellent jump from its predecessors while building upon them immensely.

Pocky and Rocky 2... It's a step back as much as it is a step forward. It's definitely more inspired by the Famicom game than the arcade, but thankfully not for the worse. Well, for starters, you don't have a life bar any more. Instead, you have "hits". On the one hand, you can take any sort of damage per hit (as far as I know this game lacks insta-death attacks), instead of some attacks taking off more life than others, but on the other hand, the most you can take is 4 per life, and that's when fully maxed out (you only start and respawn with 2). There's also a wee bit more invulnerability after taking damage, which is a plus. There's only one type of card power-up, which essentially combines the two from P&R1 to full effectiveness, the highest level giving you giant yet powerful cards. Sliding has sadly been removed, however, you seem to move a smidgen faster AND enemy attack patterns are built around this removal, so that's cool. The wand-charge is sadly gone, though you can still use your stick normally (and it seems to have a little more prominence now as well, partly due to no slide). In addition, both are more effective on normal enemies, a majority of which fall in a few hits versus that from P&R1 who could take a good deal more. While it isn't quite a "replacement" for the slide charge, instead you have the "Magic" system. This brought quite a bit of extra depth to gameplay, but is also the specific reason why I consider P&R2 something of a mixed advancement. From the top, you always have a partner accompanying you now, be it through AI or a second player. The initial benefit to this is the fact that you get a bit of extra firepower, since you have a second attacker (though the AI-control doesn't always attack super-aggressively), really helping to speed things up, and further helping clear out the groups of enemies. The second factor, not immediately obvious, is the fact that you have a sort of "shield" in your partner. Enemies and bosses will always target Pocky, but if you move carefully, you can use your partner to take some damage in your stead. This isn't always a smart idea or always effective, depending on the enemy and attack they're using, but it can be handy in a pinch situation. However, while partners are "immortal" they aren't invincible, and will get knocked out after about 3 hits, and need to respawn. Thus, this is sort of a last resort kind of thing, mostly if you're down to your last hit or life. The last "obvious" factor, is that each ally tends to have a different method of attack (for the most part), such as Bomber Bob's tossing of his balls (ahem) versus the curving boomerang-sickles of the Scarecrow. Now, we get into the main factor of the Magic system, specifically possession ("Magic!"). This is one of the two biggest factors of the system, as each and every partner has their own little gimmick when possessed (and, IIRC, when used in 2-player). Rocky can find hidden loot, Bob can lift heavy boulders to open up paths and sometimes find hidden loot, Little Ninja can open locked chests (and only chests, not doors) without using any keys that you or may not have, etc. What's neat is that with a found/dropped item, you can switch partners mid-stage (and awkwardly, it's the only way to use partners past the initial 3), which is great if you see a gimmick that a character needs, but you have the wrong partner out, yet that switch item is in view. It's kind of a shame as well, since if that item ISN'T around, but a gimmick is, then tough nuts. The second big factor here is that your partner doubles as the bomb replacement from P&R1. You toss them into an enemy and they explode into an effect. The area of damage is generally the same per character, but some are different, such as Tengy, who's bomb effect spirals around, giving it less concentration (technically), but lets it cover more ground, making it harder for foes, especially bosses, to not get injured. Additionally, Pocky can move and attack while this effect is in place, letting her deal additional damage on top of the bomb's, but also being able to dodge enemy attacks as well. One tiny thing of note about Magic (and in a much smaller window of opportunity, the toss animation of the bomb effect before it goes off) is that while the animation plays (the partner is swirled then bonked on Pocky's head), you are invulnerable to damage. While it's hard to use this effectively, you might find it handy for longer series of attack patterns by some bosses, and even a few enemies. There's a second window in the separation animation, but it's very small and much harder to take advantage off. All of this is all well and good for single player, but second player is less independent as a result and unless controlled by someone skilled, gets the shit end of things, as you can cause a bit more damage over time with partner-bombs (at least compared to the somewhat lax AI control) and the abuse of the Magic trick means they won't get as smooth a play experience as player 1 or that from P&R1. To be continued

One other thing too is that the mobs of enemies aren't constantly popping up like P&R1 would do in areas. This helps keep the stress down and lets you concentrate your focus easier.