Review: Pocky & Rocky Reshrined
It’s about damned time. Natsume had some great games that were overlooked on the SNES, at least here in the west. It’s amazing to me that they’ve not only taken the time to port games like Wild Guns and Ninja Warriors, but they’ve gone to the effort of giving them upgrades courtesy of Tengo Project. After seeing the success with those titles (at least from a critical perspective, I don’t know how they did sales-wise), I was hopeful that they’d revisit one of my favorites: Pocky & Rocky. I was afraid that the need to license from Taito would be a barrier, however.
Thankfully, we’ve now gotten exactly that, but while Wild Guns Reloaded and Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors were “enhanced remasters,” Pocky & Rocky Reshrined is more of a sequel. Sort of. Mostly.
Pocky & Rocky Reshrined (PS4, Nintendo Switch [Reviewed])Developer: Tengo ProjectPublisher: Natsume-AtariReleased: June 24, 2022MSRP: $29.99
It starts out in a pretty familiar way. In fact, the opening cutscene is practically a repeat of the opening to Pocky & Rocky. All the “Nopino Goblins” have gone berzerk again (Pocky & Rocky technically being the follow-up to the arcade game Kiki Kaikai), and Rocky the Raccoon (actually a Tanuki) asks shrine priestess Pocky to help figure out why.
It diverges after the second level, where the Black Mantle reveals itself, and then we get into some screwball plot about time travel. It feels like it shouldn’t be complicated, but I got tremendously lost somewhere along the way. It’s told like a child’s storybook, so it is definitely mocking me.
The point is that the first two levels may convince you that you’re playing a remake, as they feature many of the same beats and bosses, but after that, it’s mostly new.
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