REVIEW : Cotton Reboot! (PS4)
Cotton Reboot! is a remake of the popular cult shooter Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams, as the title suggests. The original was a horizontally scrolling shoot them up created by Success in Japan. On the other hand, this reboot is the work of a development team known as Beep, who have done a lot with the source material.
Cotton, originally a coin-op, gained a console audience in the early 1990s, but the Sharp X68000 version was regarded as the best, and it is this version. It is chosen as the basis for this remake. But before we get into that, you should understand what Cotton is all about. Join the group of those who have no idea what an X68000 is. Sharp was better known for their shirt sponsorship of football teams at the time. Hence it was a Japan-only console.
Cotton is the character you play as. A teenage witch is on a mission to collect candies while also defeating evil. The gameplay appears easy at first: you fly to the right of the screen as you progress through the game’s seven stages, shooting anything that gets in your way, including creatures, monsters, demons, and enormous bosses. Everything is extremely familiar, especially if you’ve played Trouble Witches or Deathsmiles before. However, there are several intricacies in the game that you must consider.
There’s a lot to think about here, from Silk, your drone-like friend, to a scoring system including stones that cycle through colours. You also get various magic-based strikes, each with an upgradeable attack level, a ‘fever mode’ assault that fills the screen with score multiplier images, and an overall XP meter. It’s all a bit of a jumble at first. The in-game instruction does a good job of explaining it, but it’s not evident until you do it. The coloured crystal system impacts weapon/magic power, deflect your primary assault and helps you get the most out of each level. This is perhaps the most important feature of the game, although it’s not very intuitive.
There are three main modes in the game. The first is Arrange Mode, a modernized version of the classic game. This takes the aesthetics to new heights by adding a tonne of detail, colour, and a tonne of visual excitement. It overhauls the HUD, making it better but not much clearer in terms of the information it provides. However, the main value of this Mode is how it takes the original game’s level layouts and refines them, making them just a little smoother and more pleasurable to play.
You also get the X68000 version which definitely looks dated in comparison but is still a fine-looking example of an early ’90s shooter. They strangely left off the arcade version, but the X68000 version is usually considered superior, so that decision is reasonable. This version is more visually appealing, with fewer brightly coloured objects and smaller sprites, making skilled play simpler.
Last but not least, there’s the Time Attack option, which lets you choose between two and five-minute time constraints. This is based on the Arrange Mode version’s aesthetics and engine. Still, it is set in a single dedicated arena level (see image above) and is only two (or five) minutes of shooting them up insanity. It becomes fairly tough and crazy here, but you only have to worry about scoring rather than surviving.
Overall, there’s some terrific shooting action here, and the game’s intricate score system means there’s plenty of incentive to keep replaying it to improve on your earlier efforts. However, it becomes increasingly difficult as the game progresses, and you’ll be more concerned with surviving for a long time. Even though we’re not convinced, this is recognized as one of the simplest shoot them ups. Maybe we only need to improve our skills, but the game’s endless continues mean that no matter what your skill level is, you’ll be able to witness the game’s conclusion.
But it’s not all good news. While the Arrange Mode option is wonderful, the sights might sometimes get a little overwhelming, resulting in some cheap kills for the gamers. Enemies may also come behind you during some areas, which you aren’t necessarily prepared to cope with. As a result, it may appear to be a touch inexpensive. Then there are the bosses, who have some nasty moves that aren’t particularly telegraphed and will deprive you of life for quite some time before you memorize them. We prefer our shoot them ups to be more about reaction than memorization. Therefore this will always irritate us.
