Year: 1999/2024
Platform: PlayStation 4
Genre: Rail shooter
Review Date: 3/1/26
Rating: **

Lasha Castle and the surrounding towns are under attack by monsters who want to take all of their willow candy for themselves. The fairy Silk reluctantly suggests asking the witch Cotton for help, who also wants all of the willow candy. Having been tricked by Silk before, Cotton is naturally suspicious, but finally gives in to her greed and desire. Before reaching the "legendary willow" at Lasha Castle, she has to defeat four boss monsters at nearby towns who have conveniently already eaten all of the candy and become superpowered.

The "Cotton" series originated as a 2D side-scrolling shooter, and like many franchises in the 90s, it attempted to make the switch to 3D. More often than not, these transitions lost all of the charm and artistic flair of the 2D games, and 3D character models in the 90s were crude and unattractive. "Rainbow Cotton" was originally released on the Sega Dreamcast in 1999, and got remastered in 2024 for modern consoles. It's a 3D rail shooter that offers limited branching options, and you have a basic attack and a magic attack. I was never able to figure out the magic attack, so I just stuck with the basic attack. You can also use Silk and any other fairies you collect for offense and defense, but I never figured out how to do that, either. The game offers no in-game instructions, and the printed manual does a very poor job of explaining anything. On top of that, the controls are frustrating and aiming is difficult. An inherent problem with any rail shooter is that your character obscures the enemies and projectiles that are coming towards you, and Cotton's avatar is pretty large. Perspective is also a challenge, because you never know how close things are to hitting you.

With the previous "Cotton" games, I could finish them through brute force and unlimited continues. Unfortunately, with this game, you only get five continues, and they send you all the way back to the beginning of the last level, so I was never able to make it past level 3. But by then, I was already tired of the game and feeling a little queasy.

Presentation-wise, it's a bright and colorful game with a cheerful and energetic soundtrack. The graphics give away its age, and the geometry and textures are simple and crude. That said, everything has a cute, round, and squishy aspect to it, making it look and feel very child-friendly. The animated cutscenes are hilarious and the fairies are always taking advantage of Cotton's aggression, immaturity, gullibility, greed, and stupidity. Unfortunately, the animation is rough and overly compressed, which is a disappointment. The fairies are also constantly chattering during battle, which isn't subtitled. Even if it were, I wouldn't be able to pay attention to it and I would probably find it very distracting. It's presumably just random chit-chat, and there's even an option to turn it off in the game settings, so it's not critical to the game.

While I applaud the developers for trying something different with the IP, it's simply no fun to play. Perhaps back when it originally came out I might have thought differently, but evidently it wasn't well-received back then, either.