Cocoto Magic Circus
:: SUPERIOR SHOOTERPrice: $0.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0
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Admittedly, I’ve never played one of the Cocoto series games before this one. The Cocoto series currently features Cocoto Kart Racing Online, Cocoto Kit for Kids, and this newest title, Cocoto Magic Circus. The storyline elements in the Cocoto series seem a bit hard to follow within the game, but from the game I can tell that there is a fairy princess that gets kidnapped by a clown, and it’s up to Cocoto and his friends to shoot their way through the various levels of the magic circus to save the fairy princess. The developer offers a more detailed explanation of the storyline in the App Store if you would like to know more.
Cocoto Magic Circus is a solid tap to shoot arcade style game that is filled with various mini-games. All of these mini-games lead you to the one ultimate goal, saving the fairy princess. Cocoto Magic Circus’s premise is fairly straight forward, if not cliché at this point, and the controls are extremely simplistic. It takes a little bit of hand eye coordination, but I found my play through was not overly difficult, and in total I had to replay two levels.
There are three difficulty settings in Arcade Mode. I was a master of easy, imagine that, but got significantly rocked in hard mode. Anyone looking for a good challenge will find Cocoto Magic Circus’s hard mode to provide that challenge. At the end of every level, your score is compared to the overall high score of the world as well. I can only hope it was because I was on easy, that my scores seemed to fall so far under the rest of the worlds. It couldn’t have anything to do with my lack of serious shooting skills. That would never be the case.
Regardless of my shooting prowess, this most recent installment in the Cocoto series provides a great experience, and while not being extremely long, it is in fact a lot of fun. The games vary from shooting creatures as they move towards the fairy princess, a matching style game where you race the clock to shoot as many matched cards as you can in the time limit, and a whole slew of other unique games that help to limit the overall repetitiveness of the game. Just about the time I was beginning to get restless, the final battle was fought, and the fairy princess saved.
Graphically, Cocoto Magic Circus is easy on the eyes. It provides an excellent medium to deliver the fun and simplistic game play that this title has to offer. It comes complete with opening and game completion cut scenes. The clown pops up before each match, which depending on the age you first saw Steven King’s "It", might be terrifying. I’m no fan of clowns, but the small size of the iPod allowed me to muster the courage to carry on.
Cocoto provides a lot enjoyment during play through, and is a great title for those interested in using their finger as a virtual gun. In certain levels, it felt that there were some issues with where I shot versus where the game had registered my shot, but that could be a simple calibration. That aside, the game felt well polished, and I didn’t feel that the game mechanics held me back from enjoyment in anyway.
Magic Circus does provide a multiplayer mode. At the time of review, however, I was unable to find people online to interact with. It wasn’t prime game playing time, however, so it’s quite possible that you’ll be able to find people online at certain times of day.
You can check Cocoto Magic Circus out in the app store for $0.99.