
Even something as simple as collecting items is harder than it should be and you need them to power-up. That is on top of Cotton blocking the screen. Even when you do the non-existent sound effects and death animation are so weak you will not realize they are dead. The cross-hairs are useless at helping you hit enemies. You have to fight the game to move around the screen and it is frustrating.īut it gets even worse. The game constantly tries to reorient the character to the center of the screen. You control both Cotton and the targeting cursor at the same time and it simply does not work. I am honestly shocked that no one on the development team though to change this as it affects the entire game. Dodging attacks, aiming, and collecting items is harder than it should be because of this. Cotton herself is far too large obscures a good portion of your view. Trying to hit anything with them or in general is an exercise in frustration.Īlmost immediately you can see the flaws in Rainbow Cotton. Cotton can hold four spells in reserve and each is powerful in theory. Genie statues appear frequently throughout each level and hitting them enough times drops a color crystal that grants a magic spell. Like previous titles you can power up Cotton’s default shot multiple times, this time by collecting colored orbs found in crates. Both use the same third person perspective and fairy support system.

Rainbow Cotton is more or less a direct sequel to Panorama Cotton in terms of gameplay. I looked forward to this one for years and did not come away disappointed. I cannot say enough good things about the game’s presentation. Performance is flawless at 30 fps and the soundtrack is fantastic. It truly is astounding how closely the art matches the 2d games but with polygons. The many villages, undersea palaces, and windswept valleys are bursting with life and color that is still impressive today. The series has always had fantastic art direction in its 2d installments and the developers have continued that in 3d.

Let’s get it out of the way now Rainbow Cotton is a gorgeous game. What should have been an easy hit is instead a complete mess of a game that is beautiful to watch but dreadful to play. But there is one title in the series that no one speaks of and that is Rainbow Cotton. They continued the success on the Genesis, SNES, and Saturn with subsequent entries that are among the top shooters on each platform. Developers Success released hit after hit in the series and inadvertently created one of the most sought after Turbo Grafx-16 CD games in the original. Developer: Success Publisher: Success Released: JanuGenre: ShooterĪh Cotton, one of the most infamous series of shooters that most have never heard of.
