Jade Cocoon is clearly an attempt at translating that Studio Ghibli feel into a video game. Compare it to Ni No Kuni in this regard. They both also have a monster/minion battle system and management as a core gameplay element.

Unfortunately, it stumbles in many ways that prevent it from being a cohesive and highly enjoyable game, and the charm of the story and setting can only save it so much. The game ends up being more fun to have experienced than to actually play. It’s something cool to have played and think back on, but the in the moment gameplay leaves a lot to be desired.

Pros:

-Combat system has you swap in monsters you control which makes for potential strategy elements and party management.

-Monsters can be fused and take on new appearances which is a fun and enticing feature to help you progress.

-NPCs have a lot of dialogue that help the world feel fleshed out and enriches the lore and setting further.

-combat does get more challenging and a little more interesting late game but many aspects are still frustrating and not well communicated to the player

Cons:

-Intro sequence is painfully drawn out, keeping the player from having control and starting the adventure for too long. It even includes two unwinnable battles before your actual tutorial battle.

-the voice acting is rough and slow, and would be better without it altogether

-combat is very slow and ends up being very simplistic in practice

-explorable areas are interesting looking but actually pretty small and quick to explore

-there’s large lore dump later on that soured a lot of what I was enjoying about the setting and lore