Cool Cool Jam review by Monkey

I bought Cool Cool Jam because everything just looked so cool. The box, the character art and the concept made CCJ look like a killer to me. The reports about the gameplay also sounded very appealing. I don't know one word of Japanese, so understanding the game was a bit of a problem. Just trying everything was a good way to play it though, and as always the S:NGP Forum helped out a lot (thanks Chad!).

In Cool Cool Jam, your object is to form a band. You can choose between a boy and a girl, and from there on you walk through town, jamming with innocent villagers and Men With Hats. If you do well, you get pieces of instruments (there are twelve instruments in the game). To jam, you first have to please people by clapping to a certain tune. Playing the instruments is very fun to do. Each instrument requires you to hold your NGP in a different position, and the controls are different for each instrument. To play the guitar, for example, you have to hold your NGP upside-down. The strings are controlled with the two buttons, and you pull them with the joystick. You have to pull the strings when the matching colour reaches the string's end.

The normal mode is called the Joinas mode, and there is also an option called the Session mode. You can play with the instruments you've unlocked in the normal game in Session mode, and you get points for how well you play.

Graphics
The graphics are okay. When you walk around in town, the graphics are very colourful and funky, a bit like CFC but less detailed. Expect a LOT of pink and yellow! While playing an instrument, the graphics are very clear and simple. The instruments look okay, but I don't like the hypnotizing background. Makes me dizzy... The people in the game have the same "walkie-walkie-when-standing-still" animations as in CFC, and the character art is awesome.

Sound
The sound is great! The music is really funky, catchy and of high quality. I found myself humming the tunes at school all day! There are a lot of musical styles, like rock, reggae and house. Each style requires a different instrument. There are virtually no sound effects, which I don't really mind.

Gameplay
The actual jamming is ace. You really get the feeling you're playing in a band because you take the solos in turns. All of the instruments play differently, and take some getting used to. Fortunately, the music actually matters while playing. The quest of forming a band is a bit more difficult. If you don't know any Japanese, like me, you have to simply talk with everybody and go everywhere, and finding people to jam with is not so easy. Finding people for your band is done by accident, and not really fun.

Presentation
The box and the manual are fantastic. The colours, logos and layout are awesome, and the manual is filled with great art of band members (imagine small green birds playing 6 feet trumpets and drumming skeleton dogs). The introduction is suitably quirky, and the menus and the art in the game are also very nice.

Importability
The jamming is easy to do without any knowledge of Japanese (the instructions are in English), so that won't be a problem. The rest of the game will be one, sadly. It's difficult to get new members for the band, although running around and talking to everybody kind of does the job. The game would've been a lot more fun in English, but it is still worth while in Japanese.

Overall
Cool Cool Jam is a very cool game, and a recommendation for all who like music games. The graphics and music are good, and it sure is the only NGP game to let you scratch with a six-limbed alien. The only downside is the Japanese text, because of which the game is a bit difficult to understand.

Overall: B+