Developer Success’s leading franchise since 1991. CottonThe mysterious world of Halloween and the adorable-artificial theme struck a chord with fans of the shoot-em-up genre. Its crazy premise of scrambling through the wasteland in search of delicious sweets, along with a magical mix of looting colored gems, weapon power-ups, flash bombings and chattering fairies, have been a staple of every installment since the beginning.
Aside from one deviation from pachinko, most Cotton games follow the same 2D horizontal shooting format, including 2021’s Cotton Fantasy: Superlative Night Dreams. But with Panorama Cotton, a 1994 Mega Drive exclusive and one of the system’s most technically impressive titles, Success moved the action into 3D perspective, shooting the camera behind Cotton’s back. It delivered Space Harrier-esque dynamics through stunningly colorful stages, occasionally with different tracks. Despite being a graphical showcase for the system, it was not as well received by critics as its predecessors, never appeared overseas (until 2021), and had a notoriously small print run.
Nevertheless, Success wanted another shot at the 3D rail-shooter format, conceptualizing a new game for Sega’s Dreamcast. The relatively new team worked around the clock for months before launching Rainbow Cotton in 2000. Now ININ Games has taken it from the old catalog and given it a full HD look. As colorful as ever and impressively sharp, it’s now optimized for widescreen and features several key gameplay improvements.
All animated cutscenes are now subtitled in English, but the in-game fairy chatter remains untranslated and is frankly a bit intrusive. Fortunately, it can be turned off in the options. Elsewhere, a two-player co-op mode has been added, although this is more of a novelty where the second player can control Cotton’s fairy option, Silk, by targeting different targets. The undisturbed original is also present, found under the ‘Retro Mode’ option – a nicely emulated bonus for enthusiasts.
When the Cotton series is at its peak, it’s a fun, wacky but well-thought-out affair that offers a ladder to upgrade weapons and an economy of magic attacks available by changing gem colors. Rainbow Cotton has the same charm and almost the same structure, but thanks to the shift in perspective, there is less clarity. This is a different kind of game, one that relies on action, settings and arcade chaos.
However, what Rainbow Cotton screams from the rooftops is an incredible amount of ambition. Success’s team, despite being mostly newcomers, put everything into creating a glittering affair full of fantastic spectacle and impressive boss encounters. While Panorama Cotton did a good job of scaling flat objects on the Mega Drive, Rainbow Cotton has the advantage of fully realized 3D worlds combined with the Dreamcast’s excellent polygon engine. And it positively stands out with its high resolution, wide screen. The night-lit, Christmas-themed opening stage, dotted with tiny houses and breakable barrels around a cobbled path, really hits the right atmospheric notes. The railway takes you above the endless pink ocean and below the water to a lost, sunken city. It emerges from humid lava-soaked caves into sun-drenched fields and villages.
There are only five stages and an extended final boss encounter, but those stages are long and full of interesting features and secrets. The boss fights are generally well designed and there are different paths to take as well, allowing the campaign to be played in several different ways. Arrows mark moments where you can go left or right, up or down, or shoot signs that send you down entirely new routes and against new mid-bosses. The branching path of the first stage takes place in the town square, where two shop fronts beckon you to the right or left: turn left and engage in a train attack over the railway bridge, whose transforming compartments are full of enemies armed with cannons; or head straight to the river for a tougher challenge against the giant pumpkin in the middle.
You have a limited amount of freedom to roam the screen, but while you can’t fully point the camera, you can change the action depending on the space available, as well as steer through certain gaps and under or over objects. You bounce off the scenery if you collide with it, and it doesn’t cost health. At best, it interrupts your line of flight momentarily, requiring you to move quickly. Your crosshair represents your line of fire, and you can hold the auto-fire button or tap it for a slightly faster, more damaging shot.
Your goal is to use the first stage for as much power as possible, which makes the bosses much easier. When floating golden jugs appear, easily identified by the face on their front, you can shoot them for bonuses. Some carry additional fairies, which round out the options you like and fly out to attack enemies on your behalf, as well as health items, points, or crit gems. Like all Cotton titles, the starting yellow gem boosts your punch and it’s imperative that you grab as many as you can, ideally giving up magic entirely in the first stage. By the way, gems change color when you hit them, allowing you to grab red, blue, or green for a variety of magic bomb attacks. Some of them create an electrical storm on the screen, others call for a meteor shower.
Taking advantage of bonus pitchers is an integral part of winning the game. You often have to train your fire on them while everything else is happening around you, which can be tricky in the later stages. If you don’t keep shooting the pitchers, they will eventually pass you, off screen and out of range. Luckily, one of the best new features in this HD remaster is the new lock-on ability, where holding the button lets you track a target on an enemy. Once done, your fairy options will focus on those specific targets. This means that when the jug appears, your fairies will keep it in play and hand out power-ups while you take care of everything else around you. It may seem like a simple accessory, but it is so practical, smart and needed add-on that instantly elevates this to the final version of the game. Note that locking and other new features, such as boss health bars, are missing in retro mode.
Rainbow Cotton was never considered Great game, but there is definitely a very good game here, it just takes a little dedication to pull it off. One of its primary problems is that Cotton obscures a fair amount of the screen. You can’t really see what’s right in front of you when you’re flying straight, and there’s a certain amount of guesswork involved. Space Harrier, for example, has the same problem, but that game has a lot less going on than Rainbow Cotton, where you’re dealing with several tasks at once. It’s not overly difficult to learn, and the new widescreen format makes things much easier to handle, but it will still take a few concerted efforts to adjust.
Conclusion
While there’s room for improvement in ININ’s presentation and it would be nice to get a few more unlockable bonuses, this is still the best version of Rainbow Cotton thanks to its silky smooth framerate, nice upscaling, widescreen formatting, and all-important gameplay improvements . It’s a fun, sometimes spectacular, new adventure in the Cotton universe, which can feel confusing and cluttered at times. Stick with it, though, and an enjoyable and genuinely charming rail shooter emerges.
