Cotton (Japanese: コットン, Hepburn: Cotton) is a collection of shoots em up video games created by Success. The series debuted with Cotton: Fantastic Evening Desires in 1991 and also has spanned a history of releases in arcades and also on consoles. The Cotton video games helped establish the charming em up subgenre. Rather of battleships as well as field of battles common of a lot of shoot em ups, Cotton video games place players in control of a witch riding on a broom and jobs them with battling with magical haunted kingdoms. 7 video games were released in between 1991 and 2003. Complying with an 18-year space, the series was reestablished with Cotton Reboot! And Cotton Fantasy: Outstanding Night Dreams (entitled Cotton Rock n Roll: Outstanding Night Dreams in Japan) in 2021.
What is that? Youve never played any games before Cotton? Even if they are part of a franchise that has 30 years led to the massive popularity of the subgenre of shooter cute em ups ! ? Yes, I am aware that the only North American version was the original game in 1993 for the TurboGrafx-16. And that this version was not a very good arcade port. And nobody had a TurboGrafx-16. And no other game franchise is released outside Japan thereafter. Well, let me tell you a story…
There was once a hardware developer of Japanese video game called Sega. They created amazing arcade games in the 1980s and introduced to the world popular Sega Master System consoles and Sega Genesis. Then they over saturated the market with two unsuccessful ONS for the Genesis (Sega CD and Sega 32X), a console that was not supported by the software outside Japan (Sega Saturn) and a console that no final because they had lost all confidence in the company and gave their money to the Sega Sony PlayStation. Sega still exists today as a developer of third-party games that merely successful franchises like Sonic the Hedgehog and Yakuza.
Cotton is one of game franchises that Sega does not really output outside Japan. The original was an arcade game that had many bad ports, and the second was an exclusive Super AMISOM (aka SNES) called Cotton 100%, which was more or less the same. The third was an exclusive Sega Genesis Space Harrier style called Panorama Cotton, and the fourth was originally an arcade suite called Cotton 2: Magical Night Dreams (it was finally dealt Sega Saturn, republished in the arcades under the name of Cotton Boomerang, and again focused on the Sega Saturn). The fifth was a rail-shooter 3D for Sega Dream cast called Rainbow Cotton. Its 21 years since Rainbow Cotton was released only in Japanese, and finally there is another game in the franchise! Well, it is a remake of the original, but it is a very good!
And now we get this remake in North America! Restarting the cotton! Is a fantastic new edition of Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams. And it is a remake of the x68000 version, which was the best port of the arcade version and added bosses, enemies remixed and updated graphics. One of my favorite aspects of Cotton Reboot! Is that it gives the player the opportunity to play the X68000 version, or the new mode Arrangement. The Arrangement mode HD graphics newer / more net, some quality of life improvements such as the ability to hold down the fire button, and is much more frenetic and fast. Although I preferred the fixed mode in all, it can become more difficult and the screen can sometimes be filled with so many explosions, enemies and items that indicators can be difficult to tell what happens. Its great to look at but frustrating to play.
Cotton shoots and drops bombs, while his friend the Silk fairy provides additional heat. Up to 6 fairy in total can be collected. Shoot bombs increase their power and shoot crystals that change the shooting, diverge and become more powerful. The spells are cast with X instead of square and increase individually by collecting consecutive crystals of the same color. Magic type each have a second effect that can be used by loading and releasing X. The controls allow Cotton Reboot! Easy to learn and to play, and, like all great shootem ups, deceptively difficult to master.
This is a pretty basic gameplay, but what defines Cotton Reboot! Apart from other horizontal shootem-up (Radius, R-Type, Risk System), or even other pretty em-ups (Fantasy Zone, Twin bee, Parodies) are superior graphics and artistic style. There are many scenes stories anime silly, which are all easily stables, superb modern quality pixel graphics and original graphics for those who want an authentic experience of the early 90s music and effects sound exactly what I hope to come stereotypical colorful Japanese arcades.
In addition to choosing between the arrangement and x68000 game modes, there are also 2 and 5 minute time attack levels, which differ from 7 campaign levels. These allow the player to see how far he can go / how many points he can accumulate in the time allotted. There are also detailed rankings and statistics, online rankings, the ability to choose the number of lives of players and change difficulty settings. Restarting cotton! Is all about rejoicing and collecting points. Even anyway, $40 is a high price for a game so short.
Cotton Reboot is one of my favorite horizontal shootem up, alongside Kay Flying Squadron, Harmful Park, CHO Anika and Zombie Nation. What everyone has in common is that they are strange and unique in their presentation. They all have a solid gameplay but do not reinvent the wheel with something other than style. Occasional shooter fans can not be wrong with Cotton Reboot!. It has an interesting presentation, tight controls and an evolutionary difficulty. This will not challenge Bullet Hells enthusiasts, but they probably want their ships to be vertical.