The voice talents are well done and convincing. You can also choose the just press a button and skip through the voice and text if you so choose, but it's a nice touch and adds some depth to the story. The graphics actually surprised me quite a bit in this game. The backgrounds are all beautifully pre-rendered and give a nice lifelike feel to the game. Of course the quality isn't up to Final Fantasy VII or VIII standards and unfortunately some of the paths in the forests are rather difficult to see but the overall effect is pleasing to the eye.
Characters are large and consist of a pretty high polygon count with detailed and colorful textures.
Animation is pretty fluid although I think a few more frames could have been added during a battle sequence. Special effects are decent but nothing to write home about with the occasional spiffy effect when using spells, but otherwise things are quite unspectacular. Jade Cocoon certainly starts out as your typical run of the mill RPG with the lead character able to roam the town, talk to it's people and buy supplies, armor, weapons and accessories. It's not until you actually leave the town that you begin to notice that in addition to a regular RPG, Jade Cocoon has also thrown in some monster breeding elements ala Monster Ranger or Pokemon. Traveling in town is a relative breeze as you only need to select the location you want to travel to, press a button and you are there.