Cotton Guardian Force Saturn Tribute (Switch) Review


This trio of retro models, Cotton 2, Cotton Boomerang, and Guardian Force, was released under the umbrella of the “Saturn Tribute” (included in a physical cartridge in Japan that was recently announced for the West, or available individually through your local eShop at time of writing) and offer more than just a respectful nod to Sega’s beloved underdog. These are real Saturn games, emulated on Switch. In fact they are so The emulated cotton 2 keeps flashing with the same message “EXT— RAM FOUND!” on the title screen, it indicates the (virtual) presence of a Saturn 1MB RAM expansion cartridge.

Not the first instance of the Emulation of Saturn on Switch (that honor seems to go to the phenomenal roguelike dungeon tracker Baroque) but it’s a trend we’re more than happy to see continuing, especially as the ‘cheap’ Saturn copies of any of the three games here cost at least £ 150 on a good day, making the Saturn Tribute look on the go. Surface like an absolute bargain.

The emulation settings for all three games are identical and are accessed by pressing the minus key at any time. There are two language settings available, English and Japanese; however, this only affects the options menu text; the games themselves remain completely untranslated.

What difference does it make not being able to understand the story in a shmup? A lot, in fact. For both Cottons, it takes away a whole layer of charm, the charm that is supposed to be there and is supposed to be part of the player’s game experience, and it also takes away a reason to interact with them beyond scoring. / perfection, which makes it more difficult for players. newcomers to find a friendlier way in the wonderful world of shmups. It also means that English players can’t read the context-sensitive help (sometimes tactical assistance, sometimes just encouraging you) that appears in the Cotton 2 continuation screens or even the names of Guardian Force bosses.

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All buttons are fully rebindgable (directional inputs are limited to the analog stick / D-pad, however), with the default settings mapping Saturn’s’ A ‘,’ B ‘and’ C ‘to the’ B ‘,’ A ‘and’ ZR ‘. It makes sense when it comes to transferring the physical layout of the controller from one console to the other (the leftmost button is’ A ‘, the rightmost button is’ C’) but it means that in game you usually use ‘ B ‘on the Joy-Con to confirm actions, a fact only made worse by the emulation settings menu still using standard Switch labeling. Do you need to restart the game using the emulator menu? It’s as easy as opening it in settings and then hitting ‘A’. That’s A ‘A’ – Joy-Con ‘A’ – not B ‘A’, which is the in game ‘A’.

Confused? This is how these games work (not quite). Smoothing is another option that technically does[n’t do] what it’s supposed to do, covering the screen with a light fluff and … actually that’s it. There are no scan line options, and no possibility of converting the meshes that were sometimes used more than 20 years ago to simulate transparent colors into true transparencies, a feature that some Saturn emulators have offered for years. As for screen sizes, there are original, maximum (thankfully, keeping the correct aspect ratio instead of stretching the image) and absolutely nothing else.

On a more positive note, the presence of fast save / load (one slot only), as well as a short rewind function and slow motion mode, make it easy to practice in a tricky place or just drop games and take a break, y A short game guide can be opened for each game at any time, showing some pages of basic information about controls, chaining, etc. Unfortunately, this is the closest thing to any kind of manual you can get with these games, and the controls page is so basic that it doesn’t even list what each button does (Boomerang, for example, only lists the default trigger / trigger assignments). catch / switch, completely not to mention that the other five The free buttons on this virtual Saturn keyboard can be used as shortcuts for many of the slightly awkward command input jacks). So unless you already know otherwise or take the time to experiment, these games can seem a lot more superficial than they really are.

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The good news sadly ends there, as the frame lag is equally high across all three games (which isn’t a real surprise considering that, as far as we can tell, it’s all Saturn titles placed in the same emulation wrapper. generic) and although it is not impossible to play. , there is a clear lag between input and action in the genre where you are most likely to need fast and accurate inputs, almost as if pressures only register when Let it go of a button instead of pressing down. There are also no extras beyond what is already included in the original Saturn releases, mostly unlocked by default where available, which is when it comes to playing games. This is a huge disappointment and an obvious hole in the games that are supposed to be part of a 30th anniversary celebration reissue of the Cotton series.

Overall, the emulation falls uncomfortably somewhere between useful and poor, so it’s nice that the quality of the games themselves is enough to forcefully elevate this package above its mediocre frame. All three titles possess unique mechanics, from multi-directional scrolling combined with 360 ° turret rotation to selecting a team of characters to switch between changes in between, that stand out not only from each other, but from others as well. cool games in both your new and old houses. as well as.

Cotton Boomerang may look unpleasantly similar to Cotton 2 in screenshots, but they both shoot in vastly different directions before you’ve gotten to the start of stage one, and in better emulation circumstances, it’s well worth the time for either. . All three are more accessible than many more modern “bullet hell” type shmups (like Espgaluda II) simply by virtue of the fact that they don’t constantly try to cover the screen with bullets or offer half a dozen different modes to play that require knowledge of three different scoring systems to truly appreciate. It’s a shame that the long-awaited and welcome re-releases have been treated with such little care.

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conclusion

Cotton 2, Cotton Boomerang and Guardian Force are a lot of fun and disappointed not by their age but by the quality of these Switch ports. What should have been a completely obvious purchase for anyone looking for more arcade action now is something to consider carefully first and possibly wait for a sale or a patch. There are plenty of other shmups (retro, arcade, and new) on Switch that are more deserving of your hard-earned money.




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