The Cotton series started life in an era where bullet hell wasn’t even really a thing, because back in 1991, even the state-of-the-art arcade technology could only throw so many pixels around. Since that date, there’s been a number of Cotton-related titles, including 2021’s Cotton Reboot, which took that original 1991 classic and reimagined it for PC, PS4 and Switch. It’s now available for the Switch 2 and PS5, alongside Cotton Reboot High Tension!, a sequel to that reboot title that takes some of its remixed game mechanics and iterates upon them.
To be clear upfront, these are two separate titles you can buy for your Switch 2 or PS5; they’re not (at least at launch) sold as a dual pack. However, they are similar enough that we’ve decided to cover them within the one review. If you’re not familiar with the series, they tell the story of Cotton, a young witch absolutely obsessed with a candy called Willow. It’s not a deep motivation, but it doesn’t really need to be.
What stands between her and simply stuffing her face with sugary Willow treats are an array of astonishingly bright and cute enemy creatures that get shot down in what amounts to an even cuter parody of horizontal shooter games such as Gradius and R-Type than even Parodius managed back in the day.
The running joke in the series is that despite fiercely shooting down legions of cute-but-dangerous woodland creatures, Cotton basically never gets to eat all the Willow she wants to, not that the plot is 100% something that you need to pay attention to.
Despite its cutesy veneer, both Cotton Reboot! and Cotton Reboot High Tension! are really all about the blasting action.
Cotton Reboot! contains a version of the X68000 version of the original Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams game, as well as a more modernised “Arrange” mode that mixes up gameplay elements… and even given it harks back to a 1991 title, it’s not especially “new” in this Switch 2/PS5 iteration, though it is a quite lovely title for those of us who enjoy a classic side scroller.
If you did play Cotton Reboot! back on the Switch, PS4 or PC, then you’ve played this game already. It’s nice to have it in a Switch 2 version, though I didn’t have access to the OG Switch version to see if there was much in the way of loading time or visual clarity improvements to speak of. Cotton Reboot! never delves that heavily into having lots of onscreen elements, but keeps the challenge solid enough and almost entirely focused on generating ever-higher scores, helped along with online rankings that rather quickly become addictive.
Cotton Reboot High Tension! is a different critter again, even though it too is a side-scrolling shoot-em-up with cute witchy paint on top. That’s because while Reboot! comes from a time of more sedate shooting fare, High Tension! knows all about bullet hell and score-chasing mechanisms.
Hands-down honesty time: I do somewhat like Bullet Hell shooters… but I’m absolutely rubbish at them.
I get that they’re some people’s absolute cup of tea, and that they’re never happier than when they’re dodging thousands of bullets and keeping to scoring mechanisms that make the heads of more everyday gamers spin as they rack up billions upon billions of both kills and in-game points. The issue I’ve long had with them is that the exact features that make them appealing to the hardcore shoot-em-up crowd are those that make them significantly less accessible to those of us who do enjoy a little horizontal or vertical pew-pew action. Putting in the time to, as they say, “get good” doesn’t always feel like the best use of my gaming time, even though there are other gaming genres where a really hard challenge gets my pulse truly racing.
Cotton Reboot High Tension! is also technically not a “new” title – it launched in Japan only last year – but it very much feels newer, both visually with a more modern line art style rather than pixel art, but also in the way it throws a lot more in the way of bullets, bonuses and above all else bright shiny effects all over the screen.
Seriously, if you’re someone who has an issue with flashing patterns, stay the hell away from Cotton Reboot High Tension!, because it could trigger a seizure within seconds. It’s the kind of game that even Jeff Minter might look at and think “Hmm… maybe that’s a little bit much.”
Where Cotton Reboot! uses a gem pickup mechanic to build up spell and frenzy power, High Tension! takes that system and adds additional elements for capturing enemies as well as going into an even higher-scoring over-tension mode that ramps up your firepower and spells, but also puts enemies into a frenzied mode that quickly resembles the very bullet hell shooters I’m not so much of a fan of… except that here it works, somehow.
At first, it’s bewildering, but once you get used to only looking out for Cotton’s heart icon (or any of the other characters, including unlockable extras), you’ll know where her hit box is, which makes dodging hundreds of shiny glowing projectiles that much easier.
Cotton Reboot High Tension! isn’t a terribly long game, and if all you want is to barrel through the plot to get to the end, that’ll take you around an hour or so if you spam the continue button. That’s very much not the point, however, because where the more satisfying gameplay loop sits is in chasing high scores with a single credit.
In the online rankings, your score counts no matter what, but the quantity of continues used is also displayed, putting that extra bit of pressure on for a proper one credit clear. Once you surrender yourself to the very old-school thinking of only having a single credit to play with, it becomes a much more interesting game as you learn enemy patterns, optimise your use of your Frenzy meter to up your scores and try to stay in overtension mode for as long as you can keep scores chaining and yourself alive.
Once that clicked, I went from some truly ordinary scores to some really quite pleasing ones, all with that classic “I’ll just have one more go” factor baked into the mix as well. I mean, I don’t want to boast too much, but at one point I was the number one player in the whole wide world on the Time Attack and Arcade modes for the Switch 2 version of Cotton Reboot High Tension!
Admittedly, that may have been because I had early press access and at the time I got the code, basically nobody on the planet was playing it, but who’s to say where the truth lies there, really? I’ve already had the celebratory T-shirts printed, so it’s too late to quibble about trivialities…
