Cotton Fantasy (Switch) Review

I’ll be up front here, folks. Cotton Fantasy isn’t doing anything wildly new in the shoot-em-up genre. You will know if you’re interested from the first time you see a screenshot of the red-head witch flying towards the right. The key word here is “interested”, however, as the best part of Cotton Fantasy is its accessibility for newcomers, giving folks who have never shmup’d the ability to get their feet wet with a cute and goofy game without getting completely decimated at first blush.

Cotton Fantasy is the latest in the Cotton series, which you’d be forgiven for having never heard of. The franchise started in 1991 with Fantastic Night Dreams, and releases kept strong until 2000, when the Dreamcast entry Rainbow Cotton put a pause on new titles for two decades, most likely due to a lapse in shmup interest. Thanks to a general revitalization of these kinds of games as well as a remake of the original in 2021, there was a new new era for Cotton, with Fantasy following the Reboot up with a new game for the new season of the witch.

The Cotton games were known for being a more adorable version of the side-scrolling shoot-em-up genre in the past. The “cute-em-up” genre, shmups that put aesthetics over difficulty, are a bit more welcome today, where a lot of games still focus on spaceships over anything else. There’s a ton of really amazing shooters being released these days, like my favorites Blue Revolver and Drainus, but they’re also pretty challenging. Much like fighting games, shmups are a genre that struggle with creating and maintaining a new audience, but Cotton Fantasy acts as a great entry point to newcomers.  There are a good amount of options to keep the screen readable and the gameplay reasonable, as well as optional modes that can take things up a notch. One neat aspect is that you can splinter off from the main route to play some more difficult levels to raise your score, which varies repeat plays. You can tell the developers wanted to keep players interested as they memorize the levels and hone their runs to a fine sheen, and that’s great to see. There are also a few stages where instead of flying sideways, you’re flying forward, but those are all bonus stages and aren’t really about shooting.

As Cotton, your goal is to find out who is stealing the precious Willow candy she loves so much. The story is basic, with a tinge of comedy, and some really great art throughout. Cotton is a reaction image machine, with every cutscene showcasing some absolutely hilarious faces. Outside of these cutscenes, the presentation is just okay, with some pretty bland enemy design and stages that don’t inspire much whimsy. It’s mostly in favor of gameplay since yeah, this is a cute shooter, but most of the adorable flavor is in the cutscenes and the design of the playable characters.

There are a variety of non-Cotton characters to play as, and each of them have their own mechanics. One character, Ria, has a Touhou-esque grazing ability rewarding dangerous play. Robot girl Fine doesn’t have health, instead running on a timer and losing time with each bit of damage. Umihara Kawase shows up as a cameo playable character, able to reel in foes with her fishing rod. These alternate characters provide different levels of challenge, with their bombs and power-ups bringing the most difference. The stages stay the same, route splinters included, so the situation becomes more about how you prefer to run through things rather than adapting to each individual moveset. On top of that, the cutscenes don’t change, which is a shame since it would’ve been nice to have some variety. Execution-heavy games like this often need further aesthetics to push them forward and apply to a wider audience, and while I think it starts to head towards that destination, I don’t think it has enough meat on that particular bone.

Did I walk away from Cotton Fantasy any better at shmups? I couldn’t tell you for sure. I’m not a beginner, but I’m nowhere near an expert. I do think the game’ll give absolute beginners a good step ladder into more difficult games. If you’ve already put a few titles under your belt, Cotton will still be a solid time but you won’t walk away from it feeling like you learned something. Really, Cotton Fantasy is for two types of people. Extremely hardcore fans who want to play every shmup, and those completely new to the genre. If you aren’t one of those extremes, it might not be for you. Sure, I enjoyed it, and I bet other folks in my skill range would too, but this is less of an easy recommendation if you’re not fresh-faced or an absolute die-hard. There are plenty of other fantastic games releasing these days in the shmup genre, so Cotton had its work cut out for it. I can’t blame it for getting a bit overshadowed, but it’s still good nonetheless. Many of the current big shmups are very mecha or space-heavy, and it’s refreshing to see a game like this try to do something relatively lacking in the format again. I just wish they did more with it aesthetically. It’s supposed to be cute, dangit, make everything cuter, not just the characters!