Cocoron

At a Glance: The internet game police have visited my house often, lifting high their nerf battle axes in their glorious anger, shouting, "how dare you make fun of that game!" It seems almost every game has some sort of noble defender out there, forced to love the game since early childhood by beatings that only stopped when their mothers had to change their diapers. Or, more likely, having no girls around to desperately trying to impress with their collection of humorous pictures collected from the internet or their "secret stash" of family guy episodes on their hard drive, they turn their anger on a few harsh words on the internet instead of the girl currently holding a international dryhumping contest with their younger brother in the next room. Now I'm going to turn the tables on you, readers! This week I'm reviewing a game called Cocoron, a fun game that is so completely bizarre and creepy I had to review it. It's fun, but has all the elements of a repressed molestation fueled nightmare. Translation: ATTENTION ASSBAGS: I KNOW THIS GAME DOESN'T SUCK. SHUT UP. Thank you.

Platform: NES (Download Emulator here - 192k)

Download: Download ROM here - 64k

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Game Plot: Snug like a slug in a thug, you're curled up in bed ready for some happy nappy time to take you away from a long day of school and that homeless guy you mugged. You shut your eyes, your brain slowly drifts into the lovely embrace of R.E.M. (not the band, the thing I talk about all the time since I watched Waking Life). There's either too much sugar in your diet or there's dream magic in the air tonight because your brain bulls straight into Crazytime Station. Dreaming of arriving naked at school for a test you didn't study for about your parent's death that you were never told about is a normal dream. You? You're special, because you dream about a fat blue tapir dressed in a clown suit, drifting down in front of you holding on a tiny parasol. Let the magic begin.

You have been chosen from thousands of children to rescue a princess named Rua from the clutches of "evil forces". If you're keeping tally with your McGruff "don't get raped, little kid" crime kit, you have now surpassed the necessary points to use the "get the hell out of there" option. Or commit to your possible mental and emotional destruction. You're no sissy, so you forge ahead.

The most interesting feature of the game is the character selection that immediately follows your descent into madness. When you start you have the option of choosing your own special head, body, and a weapon from many, many options from the character buffet. Options include all the classics: alien head, jetpack body, robot head, ninja head, a question mark. This gives everyone the ability to create their very own alien head with a tank body, or a ninja head boat. Ninjaheadboat was actually my first internet forum nickname.

That's a lie. It was AlienNinjaHeroRoboGhost. Man I was so cool back then. What happened? Where did the magic go?

Enemies: Let me get straight to the joke, then work my way back to it: DANCING COWS.

I've had plenty of sad, disturbing dreams in my time. Once I had a dream that a man in a chicken suit was pounding away at my crotch with boxing gloves in the ring. I woke up to find my groin firmly wedged between my water bed and the bed frame, which explained the crotch pain but didn't quite cover the chicken man.

Enemies in Cocorun follow a very similar format: bizarre in creation and painful to the genitals in execution.

Exactly like Batman, the most common enemy in your dreams is the armadillo, followed closely by the penguin. Every ten pixels you will probably run into two flying penguins, an armadillo on a dunebuggy, and a penguin calling your mother to taddle on you. Do the right thing and shove a pencil in their eye. Or perhaps you should use it on your own eyes when you move on to the other enemies. Deer heads? Bears on flying beach balls? People have a habit of seeing something overly imaginative and pulling out the "they did drugs" card. No, there's no way something this completely bizarre is the product of drugs. When you move your little robo-ghost guy through a stage and come face to face with a cow in a tutu, you know there is nothing else behind it besides stupidity or concentrated, deliberate evil.

Weapons: Your weapon choices are as follows: parasols, boomerangs, shurikens, balls, pencils, crystals, flowers, and music notes. Each weapon can be upgraded five times, each upgrade achievable by collecting five weapon upgrades. Important question: Why does this sleeping child see these items as weapons? Did you get beat with boomerangs when you did poorly on your "pencil only" essay about the effects of crystal throwing stars (but you wish you could be playing baseball with your dad who is secretly gay).

I don't think I could spend more than five minutes next to a ten year old boy without being chopped with an imaginary sword, killed and brought back to life with a laser gun, and then have my soul captured in his toy box. Why did none of these weapons appear in this game? Is there a ban on firearms and edged weapons in dreamland?

Bonus: shooting these weapons makes your character look like he's passing it through his left ventricle. And for heaven's gate don't pick melody. I can still hear the shrill, blippy deathcry in my head and I want to dig it out with my Spider-man spoon.

Each level comes complete not only with a layout probably swiped from a stall at Chuckie Cheese, you get a heaping handful of rehashed Megaman music for you to enjoy as you trudge through this mind-bending experience.

Bosses:This game finally addresses the issues and existence of milk pirates. Commonly mistaken for pirates who steal milk, these scurvy soldiers of diary actually sail the seas of cowjuice in search of ships to plunder. As expected, they are very lonely and will try to drown their sorrows in 2%. Please contribute to the Society to Help Improve Those Flagellated by Unadultered Cowjuicing as Kids or SHITFUCK. When you see a wandering soul, cold and alone on the street, chugging a galloon of skim milk, think SHITFUCK.

Moving on.

Defining Moment: Finally realizing why Day Dreaming Davey and Little Nemo can never sleep anymore.

Each category in the rating system is based out of a possible -10 score (-10 being the worst). The overall score is based out of a possible -50 score (-50 being the worst).

– Kevin "The Goblin" Wilson