Cotton Reboot! Reviews
If you like your older-school arcade shooting challenging, a bit on the cute side, and with an undeniable weird streak this refresh may catch your eye...
The nature of a game like Cotton Reboot! is one where its audience will know immediately if they want to pick it up, because as far as being a classic shooter game, it’s exactly what is to be expected. For those less knowledgeable, however, this game is for players who want to spend quite some time on what amounts to a very short game so that they can learn its ins and outs. It is also far more important than it probably should be to not be bothered by more than a little fanservice.
A fine remake, with new mechanics, flashier gameplay, reimagined visuals, and reworked sound. As a bonus, it includes a score attack mode, a port of the 1993 X68000 version of Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams, and online leaderboards.
You’ll still have a lot of fun with the shooting action here, even if I feel reboot mode goes into overdrive with the flashy effects, and cotton fans should absolutely pick this up, while scorechasing fans will find the mechanics in Time Attack mode to be an amazing dream come true. Still, considering how the import version got neutered for this translation, I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed with the quality of this localization effort, and how it absolutely wasn’t worth the five month wait for this level of text quality. Super great scorechaser, subpar localization effort.
My highest praise goes to the overall aesthetic. Fantastic Night Dreams is at once vibrant and somewhat gothic in its presentation, with the colorful sprites and characters flying freely through starlit nights and haunted caverns. These already looked nice in the original Cotton, helping it stand out even among other cute ‘em ups, but are even more pronounced in the arranged version. Paired with the excellent soundtrack for stages (which has also gotten completely rearranged, with the originals still available) the whole of a playthrough is a trick-or-treat for the eyes and ears.
Cotton Reboot! is one for the diehard shmup historian. The core experience is largely based on a dated shmup design, which will be noticeable to newcomers and genre veterans. It’s a welcomed preservation of a rare and oft-forgotten Japanese cult classic. Still, some of the choices in the visual presentation make the reboot experience far more uncomfortable than it needs to be. Nevertheless, better shooters are available and even better Cotton games are on the horizon, making Cotton Reboot! one for the connoisseurs and collectors.
Cotton Reboot! isn't just a new way to play a stellar old-school shoot 'em up; it's also essentially a modern sequel to this dormant shooter series thanks to the gorgeous new Arrange mode. Classic Cotton is cute and easy to pick up, but Arrange is a fast and wild experience that is definitely hard to master. There's some on-screen messiness in Arrange mode and the lack of gallery-style bonuses is a bummer, but this is still a must-play shoot 'em up for any fans of the genre.
Cotton Reboot! is a fantastic re-imagining of a classic side-scrolling shooter.
Cotton Reboot provides an incredible experience for shmup fans with its expertly-crafted arrange mode that modernizes the classic to new heights. In fact, it does such a good job with this that it could be used as a template for any shoot 'em up remake.
This game is less about being challenging and more about being cathartic and completely crazy. It’s not about testing your skills, it’s all about throwing as many things for you to shoot at, reaching a point you can barely tell what’s happening onscreen. Thankfully, I love chaotic games like this, so I had a great time with Cotton Reboot!, especially with its brand new “Arranged” mode.
Cotton Reboot! comes to the West with a remake of the Sharp X68000 version -the best version of the first installment, superior to the original Arcade- where in addition to the beautiful audiovisual section, it modernizes the gameplay. But it also includes the original version of Sharp's computer, so the experience is complete. A Time Attack mode and online rankings complete this ideal work for fans of Cotton and shoot 'em up.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Cotton Reboot! breaks out the witch’s magic and makes a thirty-year-old game feel fresh and new. While not every update lands perfectly, and some content is worthy of a warning, this is an adorable shooter that looks and plays great. Here’s hoping Cotton can return with even more magic soon.
Just like the name of the title suggests, this is a successful ‘Reboot’ of the classic rail shooter series, ‘Cotton’. Other than the fact that this is the latest iteration of the Cotton series, it’s a decent time-killing genre when you want to have a go at your bullet dodging reactions or it can be another level of challenge to those who want to be the next high-scorer within the extension of difficulties to choose from. This action packed rail shooter has variable modes to choose from and is affordably priced in comparison to those fully priced packaged games out there.
Review in Korean | Read full review
Bewitching in both incarnations, Cotton's Reboot! is a fanfare of zany ghouls and ghosts, inventive and inimitable bosses, and a superbly catchy soundtrack in both original and remixed forms. Never being released in the west and prohibitively expensive today, it's something of a blessing for retro gamers to be able to dip their toes in Cotton's enduringly impressive X68000 outing. Of all the "cute 'em ups" out there, it remains one of the best, while the new Arrange mode – with its impressive overhauls and remixed ideas – has cast a rare spell of resurrection.