Rainbow Cotton, a poorly remembered 3D offshoot of one of the definitive entries in the cutesy shooter canon, is somehow making a comeback in English 24 years after its original launch, and the devs have provided a helpful explainer on the differences between emulation, remakes, and remasters.
The catch is that they might've gotten it wrong. The Cotton series typically puts you aboard the broomstick of a young witch named Cotton, shooting down hordes of enemies in the style of a classic scrolling shoot-em-up like R-Type or Gradius.
Its cutesy visuals put it squarely in the "cute-em-up" subgenre shared with games like Fantasy Zone and Parodius. Cotton's early entries are well-regarded, though rare localizations meant that the series was largely always considered an import curiosity.
Less well-regarded is Rainbow Cotton, a fully 3D take on the series that launched exclusively in Japan for the Dreamcast back in 2000.
It was so poorly regarded that one of its original developers apparently apologized for it. But hey, I believe that the quality of a game should never be an impediment to its preservation, which is why I still think that it's very neat Rainbow Cotton is getting a proper remake in just a few days on May 9.