![yokai pocky and rocky 2 enemies yokai pocky and rocky 2 enemies](https://pm1.narvii.com/6819/8f4c2d4644b4b4ba3d84283dd1005a8fa88ebf33v2_00.jpg)
And even if I saw it in a store, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to afford it because I was just a teen or college student with a limited income. But when this game first came out, it wasn’t at the video rental places, and I don’t remember seeing it in any stores either. I never played this one until I dabbled in emulation when it first came on the scene when I was in college. The sequel also came out on the SNES a couple of years later. I would make the connection a while later that games like this, Super Mario Land 2, and Kirby’s Dream Land 2 all had the same one-eyed, one footed umbrella monsters, but that’s about it. Back then, the Internet wasn’t really around so if you wanted to learn about Japanese myths, you had to go to the library and hope they had a book about that (the libraries in my town sure didn’t). I knew it had a Japanese setting because of the buildings and music, but I didn’t know that the monsters were all from Japanese myths or that Rocky was a tanuki. I never got very far because the game was still pretty hard. I rented this game a time or two back in the day. Did you know that Rocky was actually the final boss of the first game, but since then he’s now friends with Pocky the shrine maiden? The graphics were also greatly improved and the levels were more varied. He threw leaves instead of cards, and used his tail to swat away stuff. But the second player controlled Rocky, a tanuki.
![yokai pocky and rocky 2 enemies yokai pocky and rocky 2 enemies](https://i.pinimg.com/236x/f5/10/0d/f5100dc418eceb8c554dfd3cf6e3c045--monster-design-creature-concept.jpg)
The first player controlled Sayo-chan, now called Pocky in the US. The big thing this one brought to the table was two-player simultaneous play.
#YOKAI POCKY AND ROCKY 2 ENEMIES SERIES#
I actually didn’t know this was really the second game in the series until the Internet came along and I could learn more about arcade games I didn’t know about. The next game in the series was on the SNES, and it was brought to the US by Natsume. The game got some home ports in Japan, like on the Famicom and MSX, and I think some even added things to it, like a lot of arcade conversions did back then. And since it wasn’t the first game I played in the series, I wasn’t very impressed with the graphics either, even though I’m sure they were all right for 1985.
![yokai pocky and rocky 2 enemies yokai pocky and rocky 2 enemies](https://hardcore-gamer.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2021/03/pockyandrocky-570x236.jpg)
Like most arcade games, I found this one really hard. Because the game was so heavily steeped in Japanese culture, that’s probably why it never left that country in arcades. You fought in locations like Japanese temples and battled all manner of Yokai, which is another word for mythical Japanese monsters. You threw cards like bullets at enemies and could also wave a special rod to swat away bad guys and projectiles. In the game, you play as Sayo-chan, a Japanese Shinto shrine maiden. In fact the first time I think you could play it in the US was on one of the Taito Legends collections. The first game in the series was an arcade game by Taito and it never left Japan. Anyway, since the new game just came out, I thought I’d be your tour guide in this shrine featuring all the games in the series! So let’s begin! They’re really fun games, but also really hard! Or maybe I just suck at them, I dunno. The games have a Japanese myths and legends motif. You may not know about the Pocky and Rocky game series, but they’ve had four titles under their belt with a new one that just came out! They’re 2-D shooters, but they don’t auto-scroll (think Ikari Warriors or Commando), but it’s the theme that makes them stand out.