Collection essentials #238: Pocky & Rocky (SNES)

Japan dominated the video game industry in the ‘80s and ‘90s. But publishers generally didn’t want their games to come off as too Japanese in fear that it would come off as strange and not relatable to Western gamers. Sometimes slight changes were made to a game to remove “Japanese-ness” from it. Pocky & Rocky is a game that is extremely Japanese to its core, and there’s no way to make small simple alterations to the game to hide it. And so, it is pretty surprising that the game was released worldwide. In the following decade, it became clear that there’s quite an audience that finds Japanese stuff really cool, but the ‘90s were a much different time.

The first main character of the game is a Shinto shrine girl named Pocky, who is confronted by a tanuki named Rocky who tells her that his fellow “Nopino Goblins” have gone insane, and they have to find out who is behind it. And so the two team up to fight a whole bunch of monsters until they get to the bottom of the problem. They must fight a whole bunch of mythical Japanese creatures such as kappas and tengus.

Gameplay-wise, Pocky & Rocky is an overhead shooter. I kind of hate that definition because there are many types of “shooters” and that doesn’t give you a great grasp of what the game is actually like. It’s sort of similar to the overhead levels in the second Contra game, “Super C”, where you freely move and shoot in eight different directions. Like Contra, you can collect power-ups for better shots, though there’s only two types of shot upgrades to get for this game. You often have to defeat a series of enemies on the screen before you can move forward to the next part, but progression style varies a bit with each level. Pocky fights by throwing ofudas (a type of Japanese card) and swinging her gohei (a type of Japanese wand) while Rocky throws leaves and swings his tail. Swinging a wand or tail can deflect many enemy bullets! You can also do a quick slide maneuver to try and dodge, and there are bombs for tough situations that do damage to everything on the screen and render you briefly invulnerable. And best of all, the game has two-player co-op, as any game like this should.

In the future, many games like this employ a “twin stick” control scheme with two joysticks or control sticks, where you can move one direction with one stick and shoot in a completely different direction using the other stick. That wasn’t possible for this game because of the limitations of the SNES controller, so you can only shoot in the direction you’re facing, which makes things a little less smooth and a little more difficult than an actual twin stick game. It’s quite challenging, but is reasonable to complete on the easiest difficulty setting.

With a cool setting, quality gameplay that includes co-op multiplayer, and a nice soundtrack, Pocky & Rocky is definitely one of the finest action games on the console. I wasn’t aware of it back in the day, and I think I only became aware of the series when a sequel was made for a future portable Nintendo handheld. I didn’t sit down to play through the game until adulthood, but it did not disappoint. Pocky & Rocky is a must if you like arcade-style action games, period, or as I like to say, it’s an essential.