Cocona World is a storybook-styled fantasy adventure game that is superficially similar to The Legend of Zelda and the other top-down action-adventure games that were inspired by it. The player controls a young witch exploring a fantasy land filled with creatures both friendly and hostile. The game contains far less action than others of its ilk, emphasizing exploration and puzzle solving instead. There are also minigames to be found across Cocona World as well.

Cocona World was the first Famicom game to be developed by Japanese software creators SOFEL. They would continue producing games for Nintendo consoles until the mid-90s.