Cosmic Fantasy series thread

[newtmonkey]

This is sort of seen as the "premier" PC Engine series of RPGs, alongside Tengai Makyo. The games are very typical 16-bit console RPGs, but I guess the appeal is the anime characters and situations. The games are often called "character games" by Japanese players, which means a game you play for the characters and situations, rather than because the game itself is any good.

The series consists of four core games:

• Cosmic Fantasy: Boken Shonen Yuu (1990)
• Cosmic Fantasy 2: Boken Shonen Van (1991)
• Cosmic Fantasy 3: Boken Shonen Ray (1992)
• Cosmic Fantasy 4: Ginga Shonen Densetsu (1994) (split into two games):
  • Cosmic Fantasy 4: Densetsu he no Prelude
  • Cosmic Fantasy 4: Hikari no Umi no Naka de

There were a few other releases:

• Cosmic Fantasy Visual Shu (1992) - A collection of cinema scenes from the first two games.
• Cosmic Fantasy Stories (1992) - A remake of the first two games, released on the Mega Drive CD.
• Cosmic Fantasy Collection (2022) - A Nintendo Switch collection of the first two PCE games.

Of these, only Cosmic Fantasy 2 was released outside of Japan, by the somewhat infamous Working Designs, so I'm sure they screwed around with the difficulty/balance somewhat and added a bunch of pop culture jokes.

 

[newtmonkey]

Cosmic Fantasy: Boken Shonen Yuu

I finished this last night.

I'll start with the good stuff. I liked Nyan, the cat merchant who's always trying to make a buck or two at your expense. You don't need to grind at all to complete the game. The dungeons are actually pretty good, not extremely complex or anything, but also not straight lines to the boss (you find a lot of really good equipment in these, as well). The best feature, though, is that your spells actually level up; for example, when you get Heal 2, it just replaces Heal 1 but still costs the same amount of MP to cast. I wish more games would do this.

Now, my complaints.

Combat is extremely simple. Your two characters always go first in every round and most enemies have no special attacks whatsoever. Once you get both characters, your "strategy" for literally every combat including bosses is to cast the defense spell, wail away on the enemies round after round, and then heal when you get low on HPs. During the last 75% of the game, you have a cheap healing spell that heals a character to max HP, and an inventory full of items that heal one (or even both!) characters to max HP/MP. It's ridiculous. Unless you are just not paying attention at all, and walk into combat with low HPs, no MPs, and no items, losing a battle is basically impossible.

Even worse, the game feels unfinished. It's is full of spells and items that have no effect whatsoever, including a "magic shield" spell (there is not a single enemy or boss capable of casting magic) and an "exit" spell (that doesn't work in most dungeons). This even extends to the RUN command in battle, which failed every single time I tried using it.

Hopefully the second game is better.

 

[abnaxus]

Some enemies do cast magic in CF1, but it is p. rare. I definitely noticed it with bosses. Funnily enough even got turned to stone at one point (right before a boss battle, had to backtrack through the dungeon because you can't carry around a million items).

In CF2 however not a single enemy casts magic, even enemies that look like stereotypical wizards. I played the Japanese version of CF2 until the introduction of the second main character when it turned out the rom was corrupt.

CF2 has a better story hook than CF1 but gameplay is even more soul-numbing than CF1.

 

[newtmonkey]

I actually gave CF2 a try last night, and I agree with everything you said. I thought CF1 was the worst trash combat ever, but CF2 is even worse in that regard.

The story and overall structure of CF2 seem quite a lot more interesting, though. For example, not every town has a problem you need to solve by killing a boss in the nearest cave/tower. It's a small thing, but it helps.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

This series needs a remake then (at least a full english translation … give some english voice actors a job). I like WD jokes. Many purists don’t.

One punch man japanese… (english subtitles) eh it’s ok
OPM english…. HILARIOUS!

 

[newtmonkey]

Cosmic Fantasy 2: Boken Shonen Van

It's a significant improvement over the borderline awful Cosmic Fantasy. The graphics and music are much improved over the first game, complete with sprites and tiles that begin to approach the quality of early Mega Drive or Super Famicom games, and some great CD audio tracks instead of PSG tunes. There are also frequent semi-animated cutscenes, which I found to be pretty cool even today in 2023... back in 1991 they must have been very impressive indeed.

The biggest problem I had with the first Cosmic Fantasy was how dull it was; the characters are boring, the story flat, and every scenario is exactly the same with you just solving each town's problem by slaying a monster or witch in the conveniently nearby tower or cave. Cosmic Fantasy 2 is thankfully a huge improvement. The characters are very likeable, the story is quite interesting with some fun twists and turns, and there's a lot of variety in the scenarios you encounter.

Having said all that, while Cosmic Fantasy 2 is much better than the first Cosmic Fantasy, it's still only a mediocre RPG. Sadly, combat is even worse and more broken here than it was in the first game. Every enemy in the game, including bosses, just hits a single character for damage every round. There is not a single enemy in the game that has any special attack, magic, or anything. There are no status ailments (poison, stone, etc.) at all. And yet, the game is full of items and spells to restore these non-existent status ailments, amulets that reduce non-existent element-based damage, and spells that block non-existent enemy spells. I suppose this game, like the previous one, was rushed to release.

Your party always goes first in battle (excepting situations where you get surprised the first round), and all throughout the game you have access to plentiful healing items and/or spells. You basically cannot lose this game unless you fall asleep on the controller. Due to how frequent random encounters are in this game, this means that you spend the majority of your time playing this game engaged in what is basically busywork. Even the last boss is a total joke, as the game loads you up with as many ampoules (items that restore full HP/MP when used) as you can carry only minutes before fighting him. Like every other enemy in the game, he simply attacks a single character once and has no special attacks or anything.

Still, I enjoyed playing through the game. I found myself looking forward to what crazy situation Van and Rim would get into next, and I really enjoyed the somewhat large and mazey dungeons full of nice treasure to find and gimmicks to figure out.