Game:

Pocky & Rocky (1992)

Duration: 46:42

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1

Played on SNES9X 1.60

This is actually a sequel to Taito's Arcade title KiKi KaiKai, featuring a cute little shrine maiden named Pocky (which is a stupid name for a girl, so I'll call her Sayo like they do in Japan) and the same multi-scrolling structure. You shoot, have a melee attack that is immensely useful for blocking most projectiles, screen clearing bombs and (new to this game) a slide to quickly get out of the way of danger. Something I didn't showcase (because I didn't know until now) is that by holding down the B button you'll perform a secret ability, Sayo spins and Rocky turns into an invincible statue.

The soundtrack is pretty charming and I really like the shadow effect in-game depending on where you are. Performance is surprisingly stable too, there was one occasion where the framerate went to the toilet and only because I skipped a big enemy that I wasn't supposed to, but hey, the game gave me the chance to do it so why not?

I decided to pick Rocky because raccoons are cool and he has the better bomb. Sayo moves slightly faster but I've 1CC'd as her too and never felt a difference, and I probably wouldn't even believe it if the manual didn't say so. You may notice I never bothered to pick the orange weapon during the entire run and that's because while very powerful, it's an extremely narrow and I find it awkward to use because of that. Taking damage too often will downgrade your weapon which can be annoying and the game is really arbitrary when it comes to how soon it happens, some enemies it may take 1-2 hits while others have to damage you like 6 times.

There are a bunch of secrets to help you out. If you melee the first boss' basket after he's defeated you get a extend, and hidden in (almost, I think) every stage are the Seven Lucky Gods (yes really) that will give you some goodies, it can be weapon pickups, bomb + shield and bomb + "mad dog" that makes you invincible. They're always in the same place but the reward order seems to be random.

As seen near the end, bosses can be cheesed quite badly with bombs however seeing as they're very scarce I only did it when it was 100% necessary and outside of that never used them. You need at least 1 bomb to fight the final boss properly (2 if you're playing as Sayo).

There's not that much difference between Normal and Hard difficulty. You start with 2 lives and no bombs instead of 3 lives and 1 bomb but past the third stage it's borderline the same, probably because this game is already pretty hard. It is a fair challenge though. The only section I consider 100% random is the one with the spike balls in stage 5, there's no pattern with how often they spawn so I just bruteforced my way through it.

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