Shoot em ups have always been a unique genre for me; I’ve played a few in the past, including arcade titles and Vampire Survivors. Aside from a few other games that have slipped my mind, it’s a blind spot for me. When I was given the chance to play Cotton Reboot!, I was interested to see if the game would spark any interest in the genre. After playing through it, I really enjoyed what it had to offer, but it did little to spark any real interest.
Cotton Reboot! was a game I went into knowing very little about but quickly found myself enjoying. Being a remake of an arcade game from the early 90s, it was interesting to see what would be changed, with the biggest being the new art style. The game moved from the original’s pixel art to a hand-drawn art style, with both the art and music being a highlight of the whole game. While I like how the cutscenes and the menu look, especially since they’re hand-drawn, I would’ve preferred it if they also made some for the unlockable characters instead of just skipping them entirely whenever they clear a stage.
While it does have a story, it isn’t necessarily important; Cotton wants to eat candy known as willows and is told that defeating seven monsters will give her a huge one. It feels more like a reason to have some nice moments with Cotton and for the game to advance from one level to another, which is understandable, but for a remake I would’ve preferred if they tried a bit more. However, considering this is trying to be a more faithful remake, I didn’t mind it too much.
Speaking of which, having one version of the original game as an option is a really neat choice, letting players experience both versions and see how the series has changed. With the original also being more difficult, I liked both versions overall, with the original slightly beating out the remake due to how less cluttered the screen becomes during moments of intense action. I was also surprised by how customizable the game is to my preferences, from how difficult it was to the amount of lives I could have. Which is great for those who want to play with no continues, but since the game lets you immediately jump back in with all lives restocked, I didn’t really find a reason to change it from the max amount of lives other than to stop seeing the continue screen every few minutes.
The gameplay at first seems to be a normal shoot em up with two bosses per stage, with enemies constantly firing towards the player unless they defeat them with their basic shooting, which starts weak but can be improved by picking up more crystals. Collecting enough also unlocks the fever bar, which, when triggered, makes shots a lot faster and more powerful, as well as multiplies the overall score of an attack. Leveling up the bar is a real risk-and-reward system, as whenever a player loses a life, the bar goes down by one; it was a lot of fun trying to see how much chaos can be done with the fever bar, but after a while I started to only use it during boss fights, as the score multiplier stays on screen for a few seconds whenever I killed an enemy, making for a clogged screen which quickly got overwhelming.
This risk-and-reward system was what made the game really fun, as I had to choose which was the best time to risk grabbing crystals and which was the best time to use one of the game’s other mechanics with the crystal system. Whenever an enemy drops a gem, it can be used in a wide variety of ways. While you can pick it up in its basic form to gain experience to level up the power of your shots, shooting it can eventually cause it to change color, granting the player a mini ability. For example, picking up a blue crystal grants a lightning shock that can zap enemies, which in turn can be leveled up to practically screen-wipe certain areas.
Overall, I really liked Cotton Reboot!; it was a fun shoot-em-up that had some interesting mechanics to keep gameplay from getting too stale. I liked how the game let you play both the remake and original. However, I did find it to be a bit lacking, as most stages felt uninteresting and the game lacked any real difficulty for me to latch onto. I don’t see myself replaying it anytime soon.
Cotton Reboot! was a decent enough shoot-em-up I enjoyed my time with; it had some really solid gameplay as well as some fantastic music. At the same time, it just didn’t click for me. If you’re a fan of shoot-em-ups, I think you’ll find enjoyment in this title. But for someone like me who has very little experience in the genre, it didn’t get me interested in playing more. Maybe in the future another shoot-em-up will change my mind and help me appreciate the time I spent here, but for now I’m shutting the lid on this candy jar.
Disclaimer: Clear River Games provided a Nintendo Switch 2 copy of Cotton Reboot! for review purposes.
