COTTON COLLECTION

Welcome to the COTTON COLLECTION! You've got the original games right here in the palm of your hands on 3DS, so it's the perfect little handheld to experience this whole wild ride! We're talking about the cute witch who started the whole cute 'em up craze, dragging her fairy friend through candy fueled adventures across sidescrolling stages and even some pseudo 3D chaos that'll make your eyes pop. So grab your broom and get ready to blast through some of the most vibrant, challenging and utterly endearing shooters the 16-bit era ever cooked up.

COTTON COLLECTION

COTTON: FANTASTIC NIGHT DREAMS

COTTON: FANTASTIC NIGHT DREAMS is this weird mix of adorable witch girls blasting stuff through gothic horror landscapes that somehow just works. You play as Cotton, this candy obsessed little witch flying on her broom, collecting colored crystals to power up your magic while a fairy follows you around and shoot stuff, and the spell enhancing system makes you think about which power ups you grab instead of just mindlessly collecting everything. The difficulty is no joke either, since you die in one hit and enemies swarm you from everywhere but there's something satisfying about mastering those patterns and watching your spells level up. The PC Engine version is the one everyone loses their minds over because it's got those gorgeous animated cutscenes and that incredible redbook audio that slaps, and someone made it even better with a fanmade remaster that's got all the audio cleaned up and these wild mashups mixing the arcade music with the CD version and even some Neo Geo Pocket sounds, making it the most complete experience to play this classic.

Pixel Perfect

 

Widescreen

MÄRCHEN ADVENTURE: COTTON 100%

MÄRCHEN ADVENTURE: COTTON 100% cranks up everything with brighter colors and this gorgeous storybook aesthetic that makes everything pop. You're still playing as this candy obsessed witch dragging her fairy friend Silk through magical worlds, collecting crystals to enhance your attacks, but they simplified the weapons into this Gradius-style menu where you pick your setup before starting. The fairy buddies act as options you can launch at enemies which is satisfying and the anime cutscenes are still hilarious due to Cotton's overreactions. The music is cool but the final boss theme slaps with major Studio Ghibli vibes and the visuals are pretty with detailed backgrounds like wavy underwater caves and purple skies. It's tough tho, one hit still kills you and drops your power but at least continues let you respawn right where you died instead of checkpoints.

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PANORAMA COTTON

PANORAMA COTTON is the series' left turn into pseudo 3D and it's one of the most technically impressive games on the Genesis. Instead of sidescrolling, you're flying through these gorgeous fantasy landscapes, zipping over rivers that zigzag with pastel glows, diving into waterfalls and weaving through corridors while everything scrolls toward you at speeds that sometimes chug when too many enemies appear but honestly it's still mindblowing they pulled this off on Genesis hardware. The story's still about Cotton hunting down her precious candies but now someone's burning them and the fairy queen's gone loopy, so you've got five long stages split into multiple areas with branching paths and bosses. Gameplay keeps the crystal collecting magic system from the originals where you shoot gems to pick your spells, plus you can adjust your speed on the fly which actually affects how fast the level scrolls and there's an experience meter that powers up your attacks as you rack up kills. The music matches the warm fuzzy aesthetic perfectly, Cotton yelps when she gets hit and you've even got a life bar instead of one hit kills which makes the chaos slightly more manageable.

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