
Sure enough, however, by 1994 the Western box art for Pocky & Rocky 2 has the characters looking less cute and much angrier.

#Pocky and rocky 2 japanese snes box art series#
The latter was closer in appearance in the early games of her series created by ZUN, who worked for Taito before becoming indie later (he derived his name from Taito's in-house music team Zuntata) and was a fan of Darius Gaiden. Pocky was also an inspiration for various characters in medias, notably Sayo Yuuki from Castle of Shikigami and Reimu Hakurei from Touhou Project. She appears as a boss in the NES port of Rainbow Islands, as the designated Miko for any of the Taito-made Jinsei Game ports, a whole Pocky & Rocky-themed level set with a Pocky-form Rocky included in Bubble Symphony, as a selectable character in Pop N Pop and Space Invaders '95 and as a DLC character for Elevator Action Deluxe. Pocky/Sayo herself appears in many other Taito games.
#Pocky and rocky 2 japanese snes box art license#
The series also have a Spiritual Successor with Heavenly Guardian, which is the result of the developers losing the license after Taito was bought out by Square Enix. A direct sequel to the SNES Pocky & Rocky, produced by Tengo Project, the same team in Natsume that developed the SNES games.Pocky & Rocky Reshrined (Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Steam, 2022).Miki is renamed to Becky to keep the naming scheme. Developed by Altron, but still published by Natsume in the US. Despite similarly titled name, this installment goes back to the roots by re-introducing the systems of the first game.This game features changeable sidekicks instead of two equal characters.This game was developed and published by Natsume. First game released in the west and first Co-op game of the series.First game to feature Becky (Miki in Japan), a green version of Pocky.

A Reformulated Game of the arcade game, this remake introduces some open world, non-linear gameplay systems like In-Universe Game Clock.Kiki Kaikai: Dotouhen (Famicom Disk System, 1987).It was re-released in Taito Legends 2 (all versions). The first installment in the series, this game was only released in Japan.

The series consists of the following games: Due to its feudal Japan setting, Pocky doesn't use usual projectiles like typical run-and-gun protagonists and is instead equipped with rapid-fire Ofuda and a Gohei. Joined by her fellow tanuki Rocky (Manuke), she must fight Everything Trying to Kill You in her way, most of which consist of various odd Youkai. The series features various adventures of a young Miko named Pocky (Sayo in Japan), who usually has to save the Seven Lucky Gods and the boat they were in. The game started with Kiki Kaikai for arcade, but the first game that received official international release was the SNES installment Pocky & Rocky, whose name has stuck since. Pocky & Rocky (Japanese: 奇々怪界, Kiki Kaikai, "Strange and Mysterious World") is a series of run-and-gun video games originally created by Taito.
