Review:
Review - Cocoto Platform Jumper Wii

 An inexpensive but challenging little platformer that conjures the punishing gameplay of yesteryear.

Cutesy bug-eyed devil Cocoto has popped up in numerous low budget titles over the last few years, and his move to WiiWare has hardly set internet forums alight with anticipation. But despite the generic title, Cocoto Platform Jumper has benefited tremendously from the transition from PS2 bargain bins to a reasonably priced download. It’s not a particularly long game, but it is a reasonably difficult one, and is an affable enough experience that younger or casual gamers – like it or not, that’s the Wii’s primary demographic – will get a good deal for their 700 points.

Following on from Neko’s previous WiiWare entry, Cocoto Fishing Master, Cocoto Platform Jumper is reminiscent of old Taito arcade platformers such as Rainbow Islands and New Zealand Story, in that it offers straightforward gameplay mechanics and a singular level objective. But like those titles, Platform Jumper’s uncomplicated design doesn’t mean it’s by any means an easy game. Despite the 3D graphics players guide Cocoto along a 2D plane; fundamentally it plays like the old Commodore 64 classic Nebulus (also available on the Virtual Console) with your sole goal being to reach the top of each spiralling level. But Cocoto has a trick up his sleeve, in his ability to fire arches of lava. Though these walkways collapse if jumped upon, he can walk along them, producing new bridges to higher platforms. Though this concept is itself borrowed from Rainbow Islands, it actually helps distance the gameplay from the usual Mario ascendants, and provides for some interesting situations.

Be prepared to fall, and fall again, screaming profanities and furiously flailing your wiimote. Enemies do not respawn, making subsequent climbs easier, but adding urgency to your ascent is a time limit; when this is exhausted the level’s lava/water/swamp/chocolate custard will begin to rise. Okay, I made that last one up. The lack of respawns does clash somewhat with the game’s health system, which works similarly to Sonic the Hedgehog’s rings but with apples, with felled creatures leaving an apple behind – if Cocoto has at least one apple in his possession he can endure another hit. The problem occurs when most of a level’s enemies are gone, and without weaker enemies to collect apples from you find yourself scaling several floors only to be killed by a projectile inches from the top.