Cotton Reboot! High Tension! review

For more than three decades, Nata de Cotton has demonstrated that saving the world is worth undertaking as long as there’s some candy involved. Success Corporation’s 1991 arcade shooter paired its temperamental young witch with the fairy Silk, sending them through a fantasy world where the merry mixed with macabre. In 2021, Cotton Reboot! (and recently arrived on Switch 2) revisited that adventure, bundling the Sharp X68000 version with a reworked Arrange Mode. Its colorful crystals, split shots, and elaborate scoring systems made the remake almost feel like a sequel. Now, Cotton Reboot! High Tension! delivers a new adventure that gets to build on some of the ideas.

Naturally, Cotton’s appetite for sweets hasn’t changed. But this time, her beloved Willow candy has developed a consciousness and develops a grudge against everyone who has been eating it. With these nefarious sweets threatening the world, Silk’s solution is to enlist someone capable of devouring the whole problem. Yes, it’s a ridiculous premise, but it’s an ideal set-up for our confectionery-obsessed, red-haired witch.

A Familiar Broom, a Different Ride

Initially, High Tension! will feel familiar; doubly so if you played Reboot! Cotton soars through horizontally scrolling stages, firing forward while dropping bombs on enemies beneath her. Defeated adversaries drop crystals, and shooting these pickups changes their colors. As before, those colors determine the rewards, with colored crystals stocking and strengthening your elemental magic. It’s an accessible system, although learning to manipulate your pickups while dodging incoming attacks demands a bit more concentration than your average shooter. Sure, you can play High Tension! by just holding the fire button down, but you’ll be forfeiting a key advantage.

Reboot! players will appreciate firing through crystals once more. Diffusing your shots means you won’t just be dodging projectiles. Instead, you might want to position the spunky witch to turn pickups into offense-amplifying opportunities. Shooting through crystals and striking enemies also builds toward Willow Fever. As such, the Cotton Reboot! games are the thinking player’s STG. While grabbing everything might be tempting, smart players know that leaving a crystal in a useful position is habitually a more useful tactic.

The Candy Fights Back

High Tension!’s biggest difference happens when Willow Fever simmers into Over Tension. Collect enough Willow during Fever and you’ll enter a heightened state that strengthens both Cotton and her foes. Yes, enemy attacks become stronger but your powerful hidden magic provides a way to send your score escalating. That kind of trade-off can make the game truly engaging for experienced players. Those just trying to survive can resist the candy collection, point totals be damned.

This dilemma is what gives High Tension! most of its distinction. Here, scoring and survival form a fast-moving, but graceful dance. Chasing a lucrative opportunity can put Cotton in danger, as she accepts a tougher fight for a potential spot on the leaderboards. Similarly, holding that position for too long can cost you a life when bullets fill the skies. Practice and you’ll soon shift from dodging to hot dogging, which keeps the game from growing stale too quickly.

Friends in Unfriendly Places

Enemy capture offers another useful add-on. Your fairy companions can now recruit opposing creatures, allowing you to turn the tables and use their attacks against the opposition. Captured enemies bring different kinds of offensive capabilities, requiring you to make quick decisions as formations fly toward you. Given that Cotton’s entourage has mostly contributed an additional stream of projectiles, the nod toward Gaiares makes a welcome inclusion.

New playable character Macaron is another commendable addition. Her talent with freeze magic brings another compelling option to the roster. Sure, Cotton is still the headliner, but having another heroine suits a game built around experimentation and gradual mastery. Collectively, the capture, altered magic, and Over Tension system are likely to change up your habits and it’s hard to not appreciate a sequel that pushes rather than pampers you. You might not notice it across the first few stages, but soon enough High Tension! makes good on its moniker.

The Right Amount of Eye Candy

Visually, High Tension! continues to evolve from its original arcade ancestry. Richer illustrations replace the pixelated spritework of old, giving characters and enemies more of a cartoonish look. Longtime Cotton fans will appreciate the excessive amount of on-screen activity, with magical attacks that are wonderfully extravagant.

Of course, not everyone will have an easy time tracking it all. Between the shots, crystals, scoring information, and effects, identifying the most immediate threat can be difficult at times. Sure, that’s all part of the appeal, but it means that anyone who found Reboot! visually overwhelming won’t find relief here. On the upside, the energetic soundtrack, with contributions from Hiroyuki Kawada and YMCK, complements the chaotic action.

Another Serving, Please!

Curiously, Tea Time gets adjusted. Earlier games offered a secret bonus for avoiding every falling teacup, turning the bonus round into a test of evasion and restraint. Now, collecting plenty of cups rewards you with a better bonus. It’s a small change but one that’s in line with High Tension!’s theme of excessive abundance. Meanwhile, Time Attack supplies another opportunity for chasing scores, while the main attraction is still about learning how to improve each run.

Cotton Reboot! High Tension! builds on Cotton Reboot!’s fundamentals while providing enough innovation to justify another outing. Enemy capture gives you new offensive possibilities, while Over Tension raises the stakes for score chasers. The visual commotion can be difficult to read if you’re not accustomed to the chaos that modern shooters cultivate. But that’s the kind of spectacle that makes modern shooters electrifying. Apparently, success is something you can mess with, as long as you bring enough Willow with you.

Cotton Reboot! High Tension! was played on Switch 2 with review code provided by the publisher.