Cocoron is a strange departure for the creator of Mega Man

destructoid.com:

One of the holy grails of the NES library is a game called Little Samson. While it’s a pretty solid game, it commands the highest value for an official NES game (yes, Stadium Events is more expensive, but it’s just a different title screen for World Class Track Meet). It was developed by Takeru, and if you’re unfamiliar with the name, that’s because North America only got one of their games, and it was Little Samson. So, that’s not very helpful.

They made one other game for the Famicom, and that was Cocoron. Let me show you its pedigree: Cocoron was designed by Akira Kitamura. Have you heard of him? He created Mega Man. He was the designer of Mega Man and Mega Man 2. Excited yet? Maybe cool those jets.

Mega Man, this is not, but it certainly tries. Cocoron is definitely an action platformer, but its focus is more on fusion. You start off by creating a character by choosing a head, body, and projectile. Depending on what you put together, you’ll get something with completely different firepower, jump height, and speed. While you start off with this character, as you progress, you start building a stable of freakish monstrosities to choose from.

But that’s not all! The level progression, like Mega Man, has you simply pick where you want to go next. However, the stage you’re presented with is a combination of the one you’re currently at and the one you’ve chosen with a boss at the end of it. Stages change depending on what sequence you pick, so, technically, there are a lot of unique places to visit.

Unfortunately, that’s the main problem you’ll bump into. Because the stages are all stitched together, their design is positively posterior. Each segment has its own obstacles, but none are as interesting as something you’d