A COSMIC TROUBLESOME GANG
More of the company that says "Fun for All into the Future". Yeah, the "Namco Month" on Hamster's Arcade Archives keeps going, and this time Namco decided to bring a shooter considered a cult classic.
This time is no other than Cosmo Gang The Video.
Galaxian Kawaii Edition
At first, the gameplay of Cosmo Gang The Video is basically the same as Galaxian and Galaga as we are only allowed to move left or right and having a fire rate of two bullets on screen. But that's only the mere surface of the game. While basic shooting seems to be the whole game, as soon as the items begin to drop from the defeated enemies, you'll notice that catching score multipliers are the key factor in this game, since you can pick up "P" items that are the multiplier up of the game rather than the power up as we're used to refer in shmup as the "P" item. You can get up to a multiplier total of x16. Power ups are at the player's disposal, being the most common the Twin Shot which is held by the "Leader" UFO. Taking this item requires some skills. Once the UFO is destroyed, the alien will try to leave the screen unless you shoot him down. The best strategy when the UFO appears is to have the path clear for a quick two bullet shot capable of taking down both the UFO and the alien before it makes his retreat. Once you get the item, you will be able to fire twin shots with the same rate as the default ones, slighty increasing the width of your traditional firing, speaking of width, when you're on the edge of the screen, you can "squeeze" the ship making it narrow in order to avoid a potential hit. There's also additional weapons like the temporary enemy freezing, the slow-but-powerful bomb shots, and the best one is the Tornado which makes a whirlwind that throws away all the enemies that get in its way. Along with the features, the most interesting part of the game is how the enemy formations appear. While nodding Galaga, Galaxian, Gaplus and Galaga '88, the patter always differ from the previous stages, adding a surprise element to the game, from formations to large eggs where they emerge and even armored aliens that shoot beams of energy and take multiple hits before running away. There's a few times where enemies are worth 660 points multiplied by the amount of multipliers you've got. Fortuntately, these are kept after losing a life, adding more fun to the score frenzy (and that was 7 years before Blazing Star). One final detail the fact that the exploding crates that will later appear in the game can be used against you and against your enemies. If they explode before you can destroy them, the 4 bullet spray can kill you, but if you shoot it first, the bullets will hit the enemies.
Keep the thieves away from the energy.
While most shmups relay on boss fights, Cosmo Gang The Video replaces that with Challenging Stages where the objective is to keep the aliens away from the energy batteries by shooting them, forcing them back when they take a hit. While the first Challenging Stage is simply going down trying to rob your energy, in the later levels that concept will be turned upside down as the aliens will swap positions and in the last Challenging Stage will be even faster. Losing in the final bonus will be inevitable unless you're playing with a second player. The idea is that the further they're from the energy and the closer to you the batteries are when time runs out the bonus reward will vary. Being 30 points the lowest and 1000000 the highest.
Something that I really hate is how cruel the game could be with the respawning. If there's an item or an enemy carrying the double shot, the game will let those items disappear and then respawn your ship, effectively rendering your ship powerless. Downright cruel with the respawning rule, but still fun to play regardless if you're gonna play it in 1 or 2 players. On 2 players, the second player is on a higher position in order to be able to move in the same range as player 1. When the game is played in co-op, there's two exclusive items. The first one is the Supernova which is a special shot powered when Player 1 fires behind Player 2 kinda like the special shot in Raiden. The second and last one is the "Change" which swaps the player's positions. It is interesting the fact that the surviving player can pick the power up left by the dead player (the twin shot for example) and give him an advantage, improving the concept of cooperative play a little more. The only problem is that both players share the single "ship stock" instead of having their own, making a Game Over much easier like the continue problem in Battletoads (Game Over? That's Game Over for you, not for me! like the AVGN said to Kyle Justin) While most games reset your score after continuing, Cosmo Gang The Video allows you to keep your score until you ran out of credits or finish the game. Curiously, the ranking tracks the total count of credits you've burnt in the game as "CRE.", so the additional challenge of the game is to complete it with the less number of credits used. An unexpected move but quite interesting.
The game had only one port and that was the Super Nintendo/Super Famicom, making it a wise decision since it proved to be one of the most successful "Pre-Street Fighter II" conversions on the SNES along with Area 88/U.N. Squadron, Gradius III, Super R-Type and Super E.D.F.: Earth Defense Force. For a SNES port, and coin-up conversion from 1991, it was a very close port to the arcade game. Graphically it was 95% identical to its arcade counterpart, except of course for minimal graphic effects and colors along with the slightly muffled voice samples, proving that Nintendo's Mode-7 could be a close second to Namco System II's sprite scaling effects. But the most important aspect of all was that such a solid conversion was a full testimony of the arcade potential the Super Nintendo had, and with the pass of time it made the console into the arcade powerhouse that both shmuppers and fighting fans remember.
After its debut on the SNES/SFC, Japanese gamers would had to wait until 2009 when the game got its release on the Japanese Wii Virtual Console, the rest of the world would had to wait until April 20th of 2023 when the game got a well deserved re-release as part of Hamster's Arcade Archives series, where as the name implies, features the original gameplay, graphics and sounds from the System II hardware, giving us a definitive home conversion. Like Phelios, this game was extremely requested by fans when a Namco release was announced. Well, all those fans got their wish granted.
Thrilling Beach Battles!
As a Namco System II game, we will be treated with fancy, vibrant colors and visual effects that rival and sometimes surpass the visual quality of the then-recent Neo-Geo. Unlike Assault or Ordyne, Cosmo Gang relies on fast color displays and vibrant scenery rather than pixel rotation or constant zooming effects, being the balloon-like UFO's one of the few times where scaling effects are used. For a shmup that is based on kawaiiness and silly humour, there's some serious levels like the Sci-Fi/Cybertronian cities from the first levels and the volcanic landscapes of Stages 7 and 8. There is some System II visual effects like the multi-layered cloud background of Stage 28, the pulsating spider web and whirlwind special weapons. But the best aspect is how the sprites look like cartoons as they have black borders around them as if they're drawings, giving the impression of being an interactive cartoon. Looks like Namco invented that concept and everyone else followed the example.
The sound on the other side is more of a cheerful, happy beat that works better on a platformer but manages to fit the comedy theme of the characters. The sound hardware helps a lot with the clarity and "less chiptune-ish" quality, along with the voice samples there. Along with the Galaxian/Galaga-esque sound effects from defeated enemies, there's humorous sounds like the stuffed teddy squeeze sound and the yelling of the aliens when they're defeated, that also includes voice samples like "I'm so sorry", "I give up" and "Oh, no! We will win next time!"
COSMO GANG: THE CURIOSITIES
- The game is based on Namco's redemption game Cosmo Gangs.
- Cosmo Gangs was released in the US by Data East.
- The Challenging Stages are actually based on that game and the transition to videogame form was very faithful.
- The first Challenging Stage is the one which resembles the original game while the rest have unique themes.
- Cosmo Gang: The Video had a sequel, Cosmo Gang The Puzzle which ditched the shmup mechanic for a Puyo-Puyo clone.
- Namco released Cosmo Gang The Puzzle as the reworked Pac-Man themed Pac-Attack.
- The moon stage of Dig Dug Rearrangement features characters from the Cosmo Gang series.
- Along with Phelios and Burning Force, Cosmo Gang The Video was among the most requested Namco games on social media.
Just getting rid of the unexpected visitors.
Looks like this "Namco Month" didn't disappointed after the weak start with Dig Dug II. Of all the possibilities from the company, they've brought us a pleasant surprise with this game. Cosmo Gang The Video is basically the Parodius of Galaxian, a humorous mix of comedy with the shmup elements of Galaxian, making this a shmup ideal for the family.
Now that Namco decided to take another step forward into the 90's arcade era, we can only expect Arcade Archives: NebulasRay and Arcade Archives: Fighter and Attacker sooner or later.
The Lea Scale is once again in the positive numbers.
Another step back into the 80's.
Hoping for an Arcade Archives release of NebulasRay would have to wait EVEN MORE. Namco decided to take another step back to the 80's with Galaga '88 as the next week's release. Well, at least we will have the chance of playing the original Galaga '88 and say goodbye to the PC Engine port. But like I said on my Navarone review, I hate when Namco takes leaps back and forth on their Arcade Archives releases.