Post by soop on Jul 26, 2018 9:32:52 GMT
Cotton is certainly in the top 2 witch-based shooters on the system, but unlike Magical Chase, this one sticks to a more Halloween theme. It also plays slightly slower, making it feel more unique. In this game, your options, in fairy form, also serve as extra hit points, for better or worse. Power-ups come in the form of gems dropped by enemies, which provide you experience and magic. They also have the same mechanic as the bells in Twinbee, where you shoot them to make them bounce and change colour, which I always find gets a little distracting. When you finally die (meaning dying with no fairies) you lose all your power-ups, which is usually quite egregious, but especially when it takes so damn long to power up in the first place. This is not an easy game, with the main sprite being huge, and a LOT happening on screen. I think it's a shame, because there's a lot good about this game. The music is excellent, and the cut-scenes are charming, plus I like the theme.
I feel like a different power-up system would do this game a world of good. But the most unforgivable thing about the game is, it does a Ghouls and Ghosts, and upon completion, makes you play the whole game through again on an even harder difficulty. This is one of the laziest ways to try and extend a games playtime, and thankfully something that's a lot less common these days. You also don't get any bonus continues, so if you just barely make it, you're not going to last long. the last thing, is that magic is accessed via a button charge, so you have to choose between not using turbo switches, or basically manipulating the switch whenever you want to use magic.
Raiden is another coin op conversion, and the progenitor to a famous series. In a twist of fate, the arguably superior Super Raiden didn't make it, this is the HuCard version. But this is also the kind of arcade game I grew up around, when the home consoles at the time were very basic - think Atari 2600, and you can imagine the huge leap in graphical quality (this game was released in 1990, but it's very evocative of 1941, Twin Cobra etc). I'm watching a video while I write this, and I just want to say, the end of stage tune is the most Taito thing ever.
The gameplay is your standard upward scrolling, kill everything you can vibe, but is slightly unusual in that enemies are tankier than usual, taking more than one hit to die from your peashooter. Thankfully, you can upgrade to the extent that you're spewing bullets across the screen in an unavoidable swarm. The game doesn't do anything technically impressive, but it does just do everything well. The backgrounds are varied and pleasant to look at, and the colour choice is excellent, even as it somehow manages to feel slightly dated. The chiptunes I think are really quite good too, they definitely suit the game. It's pure nostalgia, of the kind that Kyukyoku Tiger offers. I'd say if you love either title, you're definitely going to like the other, although you could also argue if you have one, you probably don't need the other as they're very similar games.
I feel like a different power-up system would do this game a world of good. But the most unforgivable thing about the game is, it does a Ghouls and Ghosts, and upon completion, makes you play the whole game through again on an even harder difficulty. This is one of the laziest ways to try and extend a games playtime, and thankfully something that's a lot less common these days. You also don't get any bonus continues, so if you just barely make it, you're not going to last long. the last thing, is that magic is accessed via a button charge, so you have to choose between not using turbo switches, or basically manipulating the switch whenever you want to use magic.
Raiden is another coin op conversion, and the progenitor to a famous series. In a twist of fate, the arguably superior Super Raiden didn't make it, this is the HuCard version. But this is also the kind of arcade game I grew up around, when the home consoles at the time were very basic - think Atari 2600, and you can imagine the huge leap in graphical quality (this game was released in 1990, but it's very evocative of 1941, Twin Cobra etc). I'm watching a video while I write this, and I just want to say, the end of stage tune is the most Taito thing ever.
The gameplay is your standard upward scrolling, kill everything you can vibe, but is slightly unusual in that enemies are tankier than usual, taking more than one hit to die from your peashooter. Thankfully, you can upgrade to the extent that you're spewing bullets across the screen in an unavoidable swarm. The game doesn't do anything technically impressive, but it does just do everything well. The backgrounds are varied and pleasant to look at, and the colour choice is excellent, even as it somehow manages to feel slightly dated. The chiptunes I think are really quite good too, they definitely suit the game. It's pure nostalgia, of the kind that Kyukyoku Tiger offers. I'd say if you love either title, you're definitely going to like the other, although you could also argue if you have one, you probably don't need the other as they're very similar games.