{"id":21757,"date":"2021-11-11T00:01:15","date_gmt":"2021-11-11T00:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=21757"},"modified":"2021-11-06T11:50:34","modified_gmt":"2021-11-06T11:50:34","slug":"cotton-30th-anniversary-double-feature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2021\/11\/11\/cotton-30th-anniversary-double-feature\/","title":{"rendered":"Cotton 30th Anniversary Double Feature!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cCotton\u201d is a series of 2-D horizontally scrolling shooters that were very popular in the 90\u2019s during the 16- and 32-bit eras.\u00a0 They star a candy-obsessed witch girl named Cotton who flies on her broom as she shoots down foes in spooky yet silly settings. \u00a0It\u2019s an example of the \u201cCute \u2018Em Up\u201d subgenre of shooters similar to titles like Twinbee, Parodius, Fantasy Zone, or Ordyne.\u00a0 And now it\u2019s Cotton\u2019s 30th<\/sup> anniversary!\u00a0 Of course, this may not mean much to many gamers, as Cotton was never released outside Japan\u2026until now!\u00a0 Earlier this year we got Cotton Reboot!, which I reviewed a couple of months ago<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 And now we are getting two re-releases of classic 16-bit Cotton games: Cotton 100% and Panorama Cotton!\u00a0 They\u2019re available to download on PS4 and Switch, but reviewed on PS4 here.<\/p>\n

Cotton 100%<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was a Super Famicom (Japanese SNES) release.\u00a0 It\u2019s a standard 2-D side scrolling shooter, but it\u2019s not based on the arcade game or anything.\u00a0 It\u2019s its own thing.\u00a0 You move around with the left stick and shoot everything that moves.\u00a0 Hold down the fire button to shoot, and another button drops bombs and charges shots.\u00a0 You can also collect different colored crystals that give you a special magic shot for clearing out lots of enemies, and you can hold up to five of them.\u00a0 Defeat enemies in seven colorful levels and then go for the final boss!\u00a0 Totally something I would\u2019ve rented back in the day if it were on the SNES.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Panorama Cotton<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was a Mega Drive (Japanese SEGA Genesis) game and it\u2019s pretty mind blowing.\u00a0 Instead of being side scrolling, it\u2019s an over the shoulder shooter similar to something like Space Harrier.\u00a0 Except I think I like this game a little more than Space Harrier, and that\u2019s saying something!\u00a0 The 3-D effects they pulled off on this 16-bit system back then are amazing, and there are branching pathways, too! You have a fire button to mow down enemies, and another button switches speed.\u00a0 Although I usually just go on the slowest setting. \u00a0Like in other Cotton games, you collect crystals for magic spells you can use to defeat enemies in a pinch.\u00a0 You have a life bar in this one, which is nice.\u00a0 Again, the graphics and 3-D effects in this one are awesome!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In each game, you can choose a mode that lets you rewind, which is nice.\u00a0 Or you can choose a mode that doesn\u2019t let you do that, if you\u2019re a purist.\u00a0 Both modes have their own set of trophies.\u00a0 The problems I had with these games are very minor.\u00a0 In Cotton 100%, the graphics are almost TOO colorful and makes it hard to see enemies sometimes.\u00a0 And Panorama Cotton is too short at only five stages.\u00a0 And since both games were Japan only, you won\u2019t know what\u2019s going on in the story unless you can read Japanese.\u00a0 But if you want some cute 16-bit shooter goodness, you still can\u2019t go wrong with these two.<\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Both games are rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence and Suggestive Themes.\u00a0 You shoot cartoony enemies that explode in a puff of smoke when defeated, and if you get hit, you\u2019ll just fly off your broom, but that\u2019s about as violent as it gets.\u00a0 Cotton has a fairy friend named Silk who is rather underdressed in the games, so I guess that\u2019s where the suggestive themes come from.\u00a0 I grew up with these kinds of games and I turned out OK, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cCotton\u201d is a series of 2-D horizontally scrolling shooters that were very popular in the 90\u2019s during the 16- and 32-bit eras.\u00a0 They star a candy-obsessed witch girl named Cotton who flies on her broom as she shoots down foes in spooky yet silly settings. \u00a0It\u2019s an example of the \u201cCute \u2018Em Up\u201d subgenre of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21757"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21759,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21757\/revisions\/21759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}