This is a game published by Imagineer. At first, I didn't like Imagineer. I
played some of their other stuff like Seifuku Densetsu Pretty Fighter and Super Wrestle Angels (Both Super Famicom). While they
weren't the worst games in the history of gaming, I thought they were mediocre and could have been better...though
I thought SDPF was better than most gave it credit. Later, I found better games like Sanrio Timenet (maybe a guilty pleasure?) and
G.O.D. (Growth or Devolution).
Anyway, you start the game talking to your commander. You are
a beginner and new to the International Space-Net Agency aka ISNA. Your mission? You are an agent traveling across
the "Rainbow" solar system to discover the life on the various planets within the solar system as well as take care of
any abnormalities that would disturb the natural balance. Why the "Rainbow" solar system? The planets you will visit are
color-coordinated. You will visit Red, Yellow, Purple, and other colorful planets in your travels. Based on the name in the title, "Cosmo Blue", you should know that there is a "Cosmo Red" version as well. Why? When Pokemon was first released, it created
this "wave". The end result was several people trying to cash in on Pokemon concepts such as numerous versions of the same game (Bugsite is also like this as well as Robopon, Demi-kids, etc.). This isn't a bad thing, however, since while companies take several concepts from Pokemon, they also add their own spins on it...creating something that can be enjoyable. I found this game to be such a title!
The graphics are pretty good. The game has cool anime portraits...though I'm not particularly fond of the artwork for characters when they are communicating from the Space-Net HQ. I'm assuming that they did it to make it seem as though the characters are like talking holograms, but using their normal colors would have been fine. The battle animations are good as far as the attacks are concerned and overworld graphics are clean. The actual special effects during battle could have been better, but they get the job done. I was skeptical of the music at first. It was okay...I didn't like it too much, but
it wasn't so bad. Then I fought my first enemy. While the battle theme is a little on the repetitive side, it was pretty good. It's fast, and gets you in the mood to clobber those foes with your jet boots! Then I went to my first town...simply awesome. The level of depth and detail in the music is greater
than many other Game Boy games I've played. It's quite unusual to hear the Game Boy try to play so many "instruments" at once. They did well with it. Went into the first hospital to get my healin' on...sweet. The other themes are mostly decent as well. I liked the music a lot.
The gameplay...is very strange. Since the game is set in the future, you can do odd things like go to the ISNA website. The game even makes it have a computer
GUI down to the scroll bar! Brownie points indeed! It acts as a tutorial as well as an encyclopedia of the worlds you visit. You receive email from various agents
like yourself. You use a spaceship that can "Warp" from planet to planet. You also have locker to store stuff. Okay..some of these things aren't so great, but you do this all inside of your ship. When battling, you can change into different "modes" of combat. One such mode makes your hero hyper skid on his jets causing him to inflict greater damage
for three turns. You also recruit monsters to join you via "Pokeballs" (Not really, but I didn't translate what they were supposed to be...) and they have their own
abilities. While the chance of success is lower than that of a pokeball (at least for me), you only lose one in your inventory when you are successful in capturing a monster. Like Pokemon, monsters can evovle as well as gain new abilities and there are numerous monsters to capture as you explore the solar system.
One gripe for me is that the game is a little slower than some in terms of progression (gaining abilities and the like) and you seem to level up a bit on the quick side. Still, I
like the game and with a name like "Space-Net: Cosmo Blue", it has got to be good for something.
- Written by Vyse the determined - |
