Ah! Yes, you're right, I think we had one board with Parchís on one side and Oca on the other so we never really named the Oca game (which we almost never played since it's more boring because it lacks player agency).
Oca could be improved by having to win with two or three tokens and placing 'attacking' items a la Mario Kart in the board. Less randomness for the game at least.
Because even a paper and pen racing game with vectors can be more fun than Oca without any special slots to fall into.
With Oca/Snakes and Ladders and such, the outcome it's the same with 0, 1 and N players. You just throw a dice and watch the events.