Cotton on to this cute’em’up classic
(PEGI 7) PS4, Switch ★★★✩✩
EVEN as a gamer of a certain age, it’s hard to believe that parts of the 1990s were 30 years ago.
It’s a measure of time that now makes titles from that decade ‘retro’, and even worse, original gaming discs/cartridges are now ‘vintage’.
It’s lucky then that so many of these classics are enjoying a new lease of life, polished up for a new generation of consoles and gamers to enjoy. Panorama Cotton is still a few years off hitting 30, but it’s the latest title from the Cotton series to be revived for modern gaming.
The series began life as Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams in Japanese arcades in 1991, with players assuming the role of a young witch who battles a succession of monsters to get her hands on her favourite candy.
There were several follow-ups and sequels of varying quality, including 1994’s Panorama Cotton, a Japanese exclusive on the Mega Drive that never got an arcade release.
Unlike its side-scrolling predecessors, Panorama was a pseudo3d, rail shooter, following young witch Nata de Cotton on her broomstick as she blasts her way through levels, her trusty fairy companion Silk by her side.
It was a major departure for the franchise, a concerted effort to move the series more into the vein of hits like Space Harrier and Star Fox.
Cotton’s more melancholy undertones were stripped out and replaced with a more anime-style psychedelia.
What hadn’t changed though was the insanely-paced, kooky action.
Fast forward to 2021 and Panorama Cotton finally gets an official release outside of Japan.
The plot is typically odd, with Silk’s sister explaining that the Fairy Queen has been eating burnt candy (called ‘willows’ in the game) and as a result has gone a bit mad.
Convinced the world is about to end, the Queen has ventured off in the misguided belief that she’s the only one who can save it.
But it turns out that monsters have been purposely burning the willows, so Cotton and Silk venture off to bring an end to it all.
It’s delightfully bonkers stuff, made all the more adorable by the stunning fantasy anime graphics that earned the game the label “cute’em’up”.
Graphically, for a 16-bit game, it looks stunning, the landscapes actually looking like realised environments rather than vast plateaus of wasteland. Coloured crystals still hold the key to success here, with Cotton collecting them to unlock or unleash various magic attacks. Defeating the boss at the end of a level triggers ‘tea time’, which sees bonuses flying towards you.
They are deceptively hard to collect, and I found I’d often miss the ‘cup’ I was aiming for.
You can also choose what speed you want the level to run at, slowing down the action if you want to try and actually hit any of the oncoming baddies.
As much fun as I had with this, it’s a little baffling as to why it’s been released as a standalone game.
To me it would have made much more sense to wrap it into one of the other Cotton anniversary collections that are out this year.
That being said, it’s wonderful that a whole new generation of gamers will finally get to play this groundbreaking game, and hopefully fall in love with the series.
■ Buy it: Price £12.99 from nintendo.co.uk or get the collector’s edition for £54.99 from store. strictlylimitedgames.com/