Cotton Fantasy

Cotton Fantasy is packed with quality content, tons of replay value, and is a damn fine shoot 'em up. It joins Cotton Reboot as essentials for any fan in the genre, and I hope we see more of Cotton in the future, because this release is only held back by minor issues.

Overall Cotton Fantasy may be a short game with average playthroughs lasting about 30-40 minutes. But with 7 characters to play as and added difficulty it definitely adds a lot of replayability and if this a taste of what the Cotton franchise will continue as then fans of this series have every right to be excited to see what comes next.

Cotton Fantasy is a fantastic addition to the franchise. It’s completely new, but feels more like a classic Cotton adventure with some nice added features. If you are a fan of “Bullet Hell” horizontal shooters, they you will be right at home here for as long as the experience lasts. It’s a little on the short side, and offers a challenge that is a bit over shadowed by an unlimited continue system, but it’s still absolutely fun to play. Even if you aren’t familiar with the Series, this is a great game that almost anyone can jump into and play.

Cotton Fantasy is a celebration of 30 years of the Cotton franchise that shows very well all the evolution and affection that the series has had over the years. Classic, challenging and affordable. Perfect for those who like to compete for high scores, challenge themselves or even just play casually.

Cotton Fantasy is a beautiful love-letter to the best parts of an iconic, decades-old shoot-em-up franchise. The characters are cuter than ever, the shooting is funner than ever, and the wide variety of play styles and bonus stages to master makes this a game worth returning to plenty of times over.

As a follow-up to Cotton Reboot and the first entirely new entry in a long time, Cotton Fantasy does everything it needs to. Play as Cotton, and you’ll get a new game that builds off Reboot’s revamped systems without reinventing the wheel—which, honestly, would have been enough. But Success and Studio Saizansen weren’t content with “enough”, and with a roster of such wildly different characters and their unique mechanics, Fantasy pushes the Cotton foundation in all sorts of new directions.

While I’m sure some players are suffering from a bit of Cotton burn out with so many releases in such a short span of time, but if you like shooters you’ll want to check out Cotton Fantasy. The game is very enjoyable from a design standpoint and it holds up quite well on the technical end, especially compared to a few of the less impressive Cotton ports we’ve seen on Switch. Those who are performance sensitive will find the game runs a lot better in docked mode, but I didn’t mind it in handheld either. I’m a bit torn as to whether or not this game is better than Cotton Reboot, but that’s good company to be keeping.

Cotton Fantasy nicely follows up on the reboot while also sticking too close to the formula, feeling like an extension of what the reboot was visually and in terms of gameplay. It does feature more variety with behind-the-back action, but it feels like a waste to have that relegated to bonus areas instead of integrating it into at least one action stage given that the prior entry in the series was behind-the-back fully and this feels like a tease. Other than that shortcoming, Cotton Fantasy is a tremendous experience and a ton of fun for anyone who enjoyed the series before or just got introduced to it via the reboot. It’s an excellent side-scrolling shooter and one with a lot of visual and audio variety.

While staying true to the series that it extends, Cotton Rock ‘n’ Roll / Fantasy brings so many different experiences in a single shmup that it may as well be a compilation release — and unlike the arcade versions, it is all presented in English language. The more time you give it, the more the replay value snowballs. The faults to be found are few and far between, while sharp level design and a joyful, even mischievous personality define Success’ latest. Simply put, Cotton Fantasy has a lot of fun to give.

Cotton Fantasy: Superlative Night Dreams is a bit pricey for the time it takes to get to the end. However, it’s a shoot-em-up. It’s not about getting through a story, it’s about shooting baddies and getting a high score. Fans of shmups (and of the recently revitalized Cotton in particular) will have some fun with this one.

Trying to shove so many different gameplay styles for all of these guest characters was definitely ambitious and I applaud the developers for trying, but next time around I’d much rather they focus on moving this series forward and making the best Cotton game they can.