If you're interested in other monster catching games with spiritual themes the Megami Tensei franchise and its spinoffs are full of them. Was there anything about Jade Cocoon specifically that influenced your plans for Beast Signer?
I've been aware of (Shin) Megami Tensei for ages - and the Persona series, which seem to be spin-offs or something? - but I've never played any of them because the franchise seems vast and impenetrable to someone with zero experience with it. Where would I even start? I'd probably feel this way about Final Fantasy, too, if I hadn't grown up with it and tried to get into it now. They also seem more overtly Japanese/anime in ways that don't personally appeal to me? But maybe that's a mistaken impression; I don't know much about them at all (other than that they were the first monster catcher games, predating Pokemon, or something?)
Probably much of Beast Signer was inspired by Jade Cocoon! Combined with Digimon (virtual pets), I suppose. I haven't played Beast Signer in years though so I can't remember much about it. I think having your trainer as a battle participant was probably inspired by Jade Cocoon. Did Beast Signer have merging? I can't remember!
Megami Tensei is similar to Final Fantasy where most games have a unique cast of characters, but recurring "monster" designs, and there's a few explicit sequels. They aren't all unrelated universes like FF, but *most* of them are still designed for you to be able to jump in.
I'd personally recommend trying either Digital Devil Saga or SMT IV first. IV is the better game but is very difficult at the beginning, Digital Devil Saga is a pretty easy entry point by SMT standards and still a great game.
Megami Tensei is a very Japanese series in the sense that there's a lot of references to Shintoism, traditional Japanese clothing, samurai, etc. A lot of the more "anime-ey" stuff you may be more familiar with like romance options are mostly in Persona, but I suppose you could describe the art style of most of the games as "anime," and in *some* of them you play as a high schooler. Definitely stay away from Persona for now if you're worried about this.
Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei for the Famicom is the game you're thinking of. Technically the Megami Tensei "series" began as a book, also called "Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei," and its sequel "Digital Devil Story 2: Warrior of the Demon City." After the second book released, the author Aya Nishitani made a deal with Atlus for them to develop a video game based on the first two books, and it's commonly considered the first monster catcher game. Atlus then made a Megami Tensei 2 that went in a different direction from the books, and then an alternate universe game where they weren't limited by the book's story, Shin Megami Tensei, and the rest was history (I have no idea how any of the rights to this work). As far as I'm aware, the monster catching mechanic in Pokemon has never been directly attributed to Megami Tensei specifically, and it's very likely that Dragon Quest V was a middleman. Satoshi Tajiri has never spoken about the Megaten franchise as far as I can find, but he's talked about how wanting a friend's item in DQII inspired him to add trading to Pokemon, and DQV sold more copies in Japan on the SFC (2.8 million) than every single Megaten game up to Pokemon's release year combined, even including spin-offs and ports.
Beast Signer did have merging! When two beasts were merged you got an egg, so kind of a mix between Jade Cocoon merging and Digimon rebirth I suppose (I haven't played either). Interesting to see where you got the idea from, I remember spending so much time on the old Alpha for the game.
Oh also, if even the non-Persona games are a little too Japanese for your tastes, Atlus released Metaphor ReFantazio last year, which has a lot of design ideas from Persona and mainline SMT, but takes place in a medieval world you travel around and is very Europe-inspired, with direct influences from Hieronymus Bosch and Sir Thomas More, I really enjoyed it!
My father gifted me this gem before my teenage years, it was no doubt a favorite in my mind, and always remained even though I've never finished it (I know of the second one but never got to play it)
I liked to take note of the elements the merging process was changing and slowly figuring out what kind of monsters increased which aspects of their body.
In the land of seemingly unknown but lovely games I'll always remember from the ps1 era, there was JadeCocoon, Tombi (1&2), Galerians (horror this one), Dino Crisis (1&2) and... I think it's called Alundra?
Ofc there are many more, but they stood out enough to be in my mind after so long.
As for the name Jade Cocoon I always thought it could refer to the whole "forest" aspect if the game, like a forest cocoon idea or something or to some trapping device made out of jade and nicknamed that way since we capture critters.
After a quick checking though, the name would actually mean "jade egg" and it does imply that the "pokeball" is made of jade in the process.
Interesting! I got the impression Jade Cocoon was really obscure, so I'm surprised you played and enjoyed it too.
If you put 玉繭 (tamamayu, which I copied and pasted from the game's Japanese title on Wikipedia) into Google translate, it gives the English 'jade cocoon', so 'tama' must mean both 'egg' and 'cocoon' or something (which makes sense as they're similar). I hadn't thought of how it could mean the forest, or the cocoons you capture with! I always assumed it was related to how the character Koris is called the 'Blue Cocoon Master', and maybe your character, Levant, would be called the 'Jade Cocoon Master', but that never actually came up in the story.
I also played the first Tombi on a demo disk and watched a longplay of that recently!
I used to play a lot of Jade Cocoon on emulators, and though I'm not exactly proud of doing so, I have fond memories of the game.
I remember the game feeling quite unbalanced when I was younger, because I struggled a lot with it and didn't understand the system! Interesting to hear how bad magic attacks are... I didn't know back then.
As for Final Fantasy, it never really had the same kind of influence on me than it did on others. I didn't like the whole 'ATB' system and tended to stick to more traditional JRPGs like Breath of Fire 3 and 4, Wild Arms 1 and 2, and Suikoden 1 and 2! I wish I'd given it more of a chance now that I'm older, but children can be so stubborn!
Looking back, I was similar about things like Pokemon vs. Yugi-Oh in that I chose my 'side' and refused to acknowledge the other, refusing to experience it because it was a 'rip off'. What you miss when you close your mind to things is quite unfortunate indeed!
If you're interested in other monster catching games with spiritual themes the Megami Tensei franchise and its spinoffs are full of them. Was there anything about Jade Cocoon specifically that influenced your plans for Beast Signer?
I've been aware of (Shin) Megami Tensei for ages - and the Persona series, which seem to be spin-offs or something? - but I've never played any of them because the franchise seems vast and impenetrable to someone with zero experience with it. Where would I even start? I'd probably feel this way about Final Fantasy, too, if I hadn't grown up with it and tried to get into it now. They also seem more overtly Japanese/anime in ways that don't personally appeal to me? But maybe that's a mistaken impression; I don't know much about them at all (other than that they were the first monster catcher games, predating Pokemon, or something?)
Probably much of Beast Signer was inspired by Jade Cocoon! Combined with Digimon (virtual pets), I suppose. I haven't played Beast Signer in years though so I can't remember much about it. I think having your trainer as a battle participant was probably inspired by Jade Cocoon. Did Beast Signer have merging? I can't remember!
Megami Tensei is similar to Final Fantasy where most games have a unique cast of characters, but recurring "monster" designs, and there's a few explicit sequels. They aren't all unrelated universes like FF, but *most* of them are still designed for you to be able to jump in.
I'd personally recommend trying either Digital Devil Saga or SMT IV first. IV is the better game but is very difficult at the beginning, Digital Devil Saga is a pretty easy entry point by SMT standards and still a great game.
Megami Tensei is a very Japanese series in the sense that there's a lot of references to Shintoism, traditional Japanese clothing, samurai, etc. A lot of the more "anime-ey" stuff you may be more familiar with like romance options are mostly in Persona, but I suppose you could describe the art style of most of the games as "anime," and in *some* of them you play as a high schooler. Definitely stay away from Persona for now if you're worried about this.
Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei for the Famicom is the game you're thinking of. Technically the Megami Tensei "series" began as a book, also called "Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei," and its sequel "Digital Devil Story 2: Warrior of the Demon City." After the second book released, the author Aya Nishitani made a deal with Atlus for them to develop a video game based on the first two books, and it's commonly considered the first monster catcher game. Atlus then made a Megami Tensei 2 that went in a different direction from the books, and then an alternate universe game where they weren't limited by the book's story, Shin Megami Tensei, and the rest was history (I have no idea how any of the rights to this work). As far as I'm aware, the monster catching mechanic in Pokemon has never been directly attributed to Megami Tensei specifically, and it's very likely that Dragon Quest V was a middleman. Satoshi Tajiri has never spoken about the Megaten franchise as far as I can find, but he's talked about how wanting a friend's item in DQII inspired him to add trading to Pokemon, and DQV sold more copies in Japan on the SFC (2.8 million) than every single Megaten game up to Pokemon's release year combined, even including spin-offs and ports.
Beast Signer did have merging! When two beasts were merged you got an egg, so kind of a mix between Jade Cocoon merging and Digimon rebirth I suppose (I haven't played either). Interesting to see where you got the idea from, I remember spending so much time on the old Alpha for the game.
Oh also, if even the non-Persona games are a little too Japanese for your tastes, Atlus released Metaphor ReFantazio last year, which has a lot of design ideas from Persona and mainline SMT, but takes place in a medieval world you travel around and is very Europe-inspired, with direct influences from Hieronymus Bosch and Sir Thomas More, I really enjoyed it!
My father gifted me this gem before my teenage years, it was no doubt a favorite in my mind, and always remained even though I've never finished it (I know of the second one but never got to play it)
I liked to take note of the elements the merging process was changing and slowly figuring out what kind of monsters increased which aspects of their body.
In the land of seemingly unknown but lovely games I'll always remember from the ps1 era, there was JadeCocoon, Tombi (1&2), Galerians (horror this one), Dino Crisis (1&2) and... I think it's called Alundra?
Ofc there are many more, but they stood out enough to be in my mind after so long.
As for the name Jade Cocoon I always thought it could refer to the whole "forest" aspect if the game, like a forest cocoon idea or something or to some trapping device made out of jade and nicknamed that way since we capture critters.
After a quick checking though, the name would actually mean "jade egg" and it does imply that the "pokeball" is made of jade in the process.
Interesting! I got the impression Jade Cocoon was really obscure, so I'm surprised you played and enjoyed it too.
If you put 玉繭 (tamamayu, which I copied and pasted from the game's Japanese title on Wikipedia) into Google translate, it gives the English 'jade cocoon', so 'tama' must mean both 'egg' and 'cocoon' or something (which makes sense as they're similar). I hadn't thought of how it could mean the forest, or the cocoons you capture with! I always assumed it was related to how the character Koris is called the 'Blue Cocoon Master', and maybe your character, Levant, would be called the 'Jade Cocoon Master', but that never actually came up in the story.
I also played the first Tombi on a demo disk and watched a longplay of that recently!
I used to play a lot of Jade Cocoon on emulators, and though I'm not exactly proud of doing so, I have fond memories of the game.
I remember the game feeling quite unbalanced when I was younger, because I struggled a lot with it and didn't understand the system! Interesting to hear how bad magic attacks are... I didn't know back then.
As for Final Fantasy, it never really had the same kind of influence on me than it did on others. I didn't like the whole 'ATB' system and tended to stick to more traditional JRPGs like Breath of Fire 3 and 4, Wild Arms 1 and 2, and Suikoden 1 and 2! I wish I'd given it more of a chance now that I'm older, but children can be so stubborn!
Looking back, I was similar about things like Pokemon vs. Yugi-Oh in that I chose my 'side' and refused to acknowledge the other, refusing to experience it because it was a 'rip off'. What you miss when you close your mind to things is quite unfortunate indeed!