{"id":22392,"date":"2022-06-29T00:01:06","date_gmt":"2022-06-29T00:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=22392"},"modified":"2022-06-18T12:59:50","modified_gmt":"2022-06-18T12:59:50","slug":"welcome-to-the-pocky-and-rocky-shrine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/29\/welcome-to-the-pocky-and-rocky-shrine\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to the Pocky and Rocky Shrine!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>You may not know about the Pocky and Rocky game series, but they\u2019ve had four titles under their belt with a new one that just came out!\u00a0 They\u2019re 2-D shooters, but they don\u2019t auto-scroll (think Ikari Warriors or Commando), but it\u2019s the theme that makes them stand out.\u00a0 The games have a Japanese myths and legends motif.\u00a0 They\u2019re really fun games, but also really hard!\u00a0 Or maybe I just suck at them, I dunno.\u00a0 Anyway, since the new game just came out, I thought I\u2019d be your tour guide in this shrine featuring all the games in the series!\u00a0 So let\u2019s begin!<\/p>\n

KiKi KaiKai (Arcade)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first game in the series was an arcade game by Taito and it never left Japan.\u00a0 In fact the first time I think you could play it in the US was on one of the Taito Legends collections.\u00a0 In the game, you play as Sayo-chan, a Japanese Shinto shrine maiden.\u00a0 You threw cards like bullets at enemies and could also wave a special rod to swat away bad guys and projectiles.\u00a0 You fought in locations like Japanese temples and battled all manner of Yokai, which is another word for mythical Japanese monsters.\u00a0 Because the game was so heavily steeped in Japanese culture, that\u2019s probably why it never left that country in arcades.\u00a0 Like most arcade games, I found this one really hard.\u00a0 And since it wasn\u2019t the first game I played in the series, I wasn\u2019t very impressed with the graphics either, even though I\u2019m sure they were all right for 1985.\u00a0 The game got some home ports in Japan, like on the Famicom and MSX, and I think some even added things to it, like a lot of arcade conversions did back then.\u00a0 But they were mostly the same game.<\/p>\n

Pocky & Rocky (SNES)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The next game in the series was on the SNES, and it was brought to the US by Natsume.\u00a0 I actually didn\u2019t know this was really the second game in the series until the Internet came along and I could learn more about arcade games I didn\u2019t know about.\u00a0 The big thing this one brought to the table was two-player simultaneous play.\u00a0 The first player controlled Sayo-chan, now called Pocky in the US.\u00a0 But the second player controlled Rocky, a tanuki.\u00a0 He threw leaves instead of cards, and used his tail to swat away stuff.\u00a0 Did you know that Rocky was actually the final boss of the first game, but since then he\u2019s now friends with Pocky the shrine maiden?\u00a0 The graphics were also greatly improved and the levels were more varied.<\/p>\n

I rented this game a time or two back in the day.\u00a0 I never got very far because the game was still pretty hard.\u00a0 I knew it had a Japanese setting because of the buildings and music, but I didn\u2019t know that the monsters were all from Japanese myths or that Rocky was a tanuki.\u00a0 The game called him a raccoon.\u00a0 Back then, the Internet wasn\u2019t really around so if you wanted to learn about Japanese myths, you had to go to the library and hope they had a book about that (the libraries in my town sure didn\u2019t).\u00a0 I would make the connection a while later that games like this, Super Mario Land 2, and Kirby\u2019s Dream Land 2 all had the same one-eyed, one footed umbrella monsters, but that\u2019s about it.<\/p>\n

Pocky & Rocky 2 (SNES)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The sequel also came out on the SNES a couple of years later.\u00a0 I never played this one until I dabbled in emulation when it first came on the scene when I was in college.\u00a0 But when this game first came out, it wasn\u2019t at the video rental places, and I don\u2019t remember seeing it in any stores either.\u00a0 And even if I saw it in a store, I certainly wouldn\u2019t have been able to afford it because I was just a teen or college student with a limited income.\u00a0 I think it was even a super rare game back then!\u00a0 So I don\u2019t know much about this one.\u00a0 I know there was another playable character or two, there were some new moves, and the graphics were even better as it as a late 16-bit title.<\/p>\n

Pocky & Rocky With Becky (GBA)<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was first excited to play this one on the GBA, as I was hoping for a portable game that resembled the SNES titles.\u00a0 But it actually looked more like the original arcade game, so I was disappointed with that.\u00a0 You could play as Pocky, Rocky, or new character Becky, who was just another shrine maiden.\u00a0 Maybe a little younger than Pocky.\u00a0 I read she was also in the Famicom version of the first game.\u00a0 So yeah, overall I was kind of disappointed with this one.<\/p>\n

Pocky & Rocky Reshrined (Switch, PS4)<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the newest game that came out.\u00a0 It feels like a reboot at first since the levels and enemies seem the same, but it\u2019s a new game with more playable characters and levels.\u00a0 I won\u2019t go into it much here since my full review of it will be up in a couple of days.\u00a0 But it\u2019s still fun yet very hard.\u00a0 But it\u2019s the good kind of hard where you feel like you can go a little further each time.\u00a0 The sprite based pixel graphics are also beautiful.\u00a0 Sometimes I just want to pause and admire the visuals, like the fallen leaves on the pavement in the temple and such.\u00a0 Anyway, make sure to check out my review when it posts in a couple of days after this.\u00a0 I wish I would\u2019ve ordered the special edition of this game because it comes with an adorable Rocky plush!<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Cameos<\/strong><\/p>\n

I thought I\u2019d conclude this blog with a few Pocky and Rocky cameos and other bits and facts.\u00a0 Like Namco, Taito has been around for a long time and likes to put cameos of their classic characters in games.\u00a0 Pocky and Rocky is no exception.\u00a0 Pocky aka Sayo-chan has appeared in other Taito games like Space Invaders DX, Pop & Pop, and Arkanoid vs. Space Invaders.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure she\u2019s appeared in more than that, but I don\u2019t feel like listing them all.<\/p>\n

There was a shooter game series in arcades and on the Wii called Castle of Shikigami and it was published by Taito.\u00a0 One of the playable characters is a shrine maiden who throws cards.\u00a0 At first I thought it was the same character as Pocky but it\u2019s really not.\u00a0 The shrine maiden archetype is just more common in Japan.\u00a0 But who knows, maybe they meant for it to be at least a reference.\u00a0 Laika, aka Time Gal was a character in Castle of Shikigami 3, and Time Gal was an earlier laserdisc game from Taito, so it\u2019s entirely possible that was a reference, too.<\/p>\n

It’s true that the Wii had way too many mini-game collections.\u00a0 But some were actually kind of fun.\u00a0 One of them I liked was Furu Furu Park. \u00a0It was from Taito so some of the mini-games were references and cameos to their classic titles.\u00a0 They also had a DS companion game called \u201cTurn It Around,\u201d where you used the touch screen to rotate an imaginary dial.\u00a0 That one also had Taito classic game references.\u00a0 But in Furu Furu Park on the Wii, one of the mini-games was based on the gameplay and characters from Kiki KaiKai aka Pocky and Rocky.\u00a0 It played like a level from the game, just with 3-D graphics.\u00a0 It makes you wonder if they could\u2019ve done a Pocky and Rocky game on the Wii.\u00a0 But that never happened. Or did it\u2026?<\/p>\n

Heavenly Guardian<\/strong><\/p>\n

Back in the Wii days, a company I think called UFO was going to make a couple of games based on classic Taito properties.\u00a0 But that never happened.\u00a0 I heard two reasons behind this.\u00a0 One was that Taito wasn\u2019t happy with the quality of those games.\u00a0 The other reason I heard was that this was about the time that Square-Enix bought out Taito and they canned those projects.\u00a0 But UFO changed some things in those games and released them anyway.\u00a0 The first game they released was originally based on Chuka Taisen, or Cloud Master.\u00a0 It was a horizontally scrolling 2-D shooter featuring a monkey riding a cloud, so it was based on the Journey to the West story.\u00a0 And the enemies and backdrops looked like old Japanese art.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t have to change much with this game since it was based on a story that was in the public domain anyway.\u00a0 But the other game they released was originally based on Pocky and Rocky!\u00a0 They changed the name to Heavenly Guardian and it starred a young lady with ice powers named Sayuki.\u00a0 She shot out ice balls instead of cards and they changed some of the levels to fit the theme, like the first level being all snowy and such.\u00a0 Many people say this is the spiritual successor to Pocky and Rocky, and yeah I can kind of see that.<\/p>\n

Anyway, that\u2019s about all I know about Pocky and Rocky.\u00a0 Have you played any of the games in this series?\u00a0 Do you have a favorite?\u00a0 Let me know in the comments section, and make sure to read my full review of Pocky and Rocky Reshrined when it posts in a couple of days from now.\u00a0 Later!\u00a0 –Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may not know about the Pocky and Rocky game series, but they\u2019ve had four titles under their belt with a new one that just came out!\u00a0 They\u2019re 2-D shooters, but they don\u2019t auto-scroll (think Ikari Warriors or Commando), but it\u2019s the theme that makes them stand out.\u00a0 The games have a Japanese myths and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22392"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22394,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22392\/revisions\/22394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}