Maker - Success   Catalogue No. - T-9901M

Type - 3D Shooting

The cult series is back in what is possibly the worst game in the series.  Cotton has spanned over many different consoles in her time such as the PC Engine, Super Famicom, Mega Drive, Saturn and now for the Dreamcast.  It's so ironic that the Dreamcast is the 2nd 3D outing for Cotton on the most powerful system that she's appeared on but yet the 3D Mega Drive game Panorama Cotton is a million times better.  "But why?" I hear you say.  Well read on and you'll find out.

Rainbow Cotton looks great.  There's nothing wrong with the visuals at all.  Especially some of the later stages look very beautiful indeed and run at 60fps.  There are even anime cut scenes for each level complete with voice acting.  The music is great too.  Nothing special but if you've played a Cotton game before then you'll know what to expect.  So what is the problem that makes Rainbow Cotton so bad?  It's the control system !!  Success thought it would be a great idea to maneuver Cotton with the analog pad plus the same pad would also control her shooting direction.  What this leads to is you shooting through an entire stage wondering if you had actually shot anything at all.  I mean, actually aiming for a target is almost impossible.  Then there's another problem.  Cotton auto centers herself if you don't move the analog stick making it impossible to see on-comming enemies in the distance.  At times it's like playing blind because you can't see what is comming at you and when you do finally get to see it, it's far to late to shoot it (-_-;)

If Rainbow Cotton wasn't plagued with such a stupid control system then it may have actually been the best Cotton game ever.  But as it stands it's only the best Cotton game as far as looks go.  I'd much rather play the Mega Drive's 3D Panorama Cotton or the Saturn's Cotton games than this Dreamcast one.  Maybe this is one for the fans only.  That must be why I picked it up (^0^)