The brothers Wright, Wilbur and Orville, are honored and remembered for their contribution to the world of aviation. Had they never successfully taken flight in 1903 in Kitty Hawk, NC, the path from land to sky and from sky to space may have twisted another way, perhaps into a completely different direction. Yet the Wright Flyer, their now legendary craft that allowed four miles of air travel to happen, would be considered not only ill fitting, but incredibly dangerous to use by today’s standards. Just because it was groundbreaking at the time doesn’t mean it can operate by today’s measurements in any degree. With that in mind, I invite you to look at the JRPGs of the PC Engine era, and the curious artifact that is Cosmic Fantasy Collection.

For many players, you’ll have little to know idea about these games from the beginning of the 1990s. Given that Cosmic Fantasy II is the only one to get localized outside of Japan, it’s completely understandable: The PC Engine (Turbografx 16 to us North Americans) didn’t exactly sell gangbusters, and 1992 saw Japan go nuts for Dragon Quest V, most of the world celebrating A Link to the Past, and me, utterly convinced that Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest was superior to both. Plus, the second installment of a franchise where nearly no one would have played the first is a bold and maddening choice by Working Designs (who published the Lunar series) and Nippon Telnet (best known for the Valis games).

The through line of Cosmic Fantasy is a complexity of unrelated events, similar to Phantasy Star or even the Final Fantasy series. For our first Cosmic Fantasy Collection, games one and two are included, both with scanned manuals for nostalgic enjoyment. The first puts you in the shoes of Yuu, a space police officer, who gets marooned on a foreign planet after Cosmic Pirates ambush him with space mines disguised as asteroids. The second, which is infinitely more strange, has young Van fight wizards, challenge Cosmic Pirates and also fall in love. The connection to both is buccaneers in space and little else, though the mechanics of both games are exceedingly similar.

In each game, you have overworld maps where you walk around and randomized battles that can do almost nothing. While that might sound mighty oversimplifying, you have to understand that we now exist in a world where even the smallest RPG has the potential for line movement, tactical decisions and other fine-toothed changes to make the engagements dynamic. As the PC Engine was arguably underpowered compared to, say, the SNES, the limitations are apparent and sometimes frustrating. Combat is somewhat randomized, though dying and respawning gave me the impression that there’s a clear pattern in which the monsters would generate and attack.

There are two ways to view Cosmic Fantasy Collection: as a piece of artifact/art for appreciation, and as a video game that you can currently buy for your modern consoles. Viewing it either way changes the perspective significantly, and results in a different takeaway from what drives you to want or not want to purchase this title.

From an art appreciation perspective, there’s a lot to love about the Cosmic Fantasy Collection. The music and artwork are, undeniably, fantastic. The composers really went to the mat to push the sound chip as far as it could go to deliver the best of 8/16 bit tunes, and the atmosphere changes to match the mood of the game. Cosmic Fantasy I has a distinctive space opera vibe to it, giving Yuu a dynamic, exploratory feeling as he races around the planet, trying to figure out what the hell to do next and riding some kind of tanuki motorcycle the whole time. The music shifts abruptly whenever you enter an encounter, a different area or even talk to some NPCs, so it can throw you off at times, but it’s not necessarily negative.

Moreover, I would say the music gets even better with Cosmic Fantasy II, where the player is really put into a wonderfully unique position that tries to blend the science fiction elements with the classic fantasy in a definitive way. There’s more gentle changes, and the tonality of the atmosphere completely warps when the game enters its second act with a time leap that keeps you on your toes in terms of anticipating what comes next. Both games also succeed wildly with the voice acting elements, which saw some early roles from eventually very famous seiyuu (Yuu’s voice becomes Detective Conan from Case Closed).

Shifting from the music, the sound effects of Comic Fantasy Collection help elevate and underline the key nature of the animated cutscenes, which are short but still impressive in terms of art styling and effort. Sound effects are all straight out of 80s-90s anime, so if you were a fan of Macross, Project A-Ko or even Robotech, you’ll be comforted by the explosions, laser zaps and errant screeches/squeals. In a time when a lot of games still relied on manuals to do the majority of the storytelling, Cosmic Fantasy really managed to spearhead letting the game tell the tale, even if the tale it tells is still wonky. Not having to basically make things up as you go along is excellent, and the full access to cutscenes both within and outside the game via the Collection menu is exceedingly helpful.

As a fan of this era of gaming, I can say that enjoyment for newcomers is strictly something that comes from appreciation and understanding of limitations and directive that came with this era. Cosmic Fantasy Collection, as a gamer, is something difficult to simply jump into fresh, purely because it isn’t the easiest or most exciting situation to get into. The first Cosmic Fantasy is now over thirty years old, and the age lines really show in a title that seems to have been translated in an awful hurry. Given that our protagonist, Yuu, can’t find a real reason to do anything in the game for the first couple of hours, it’s a leap of faith that players need to take that “this all pays off” that many modern games wouldn’t ask.

What I mean to say is that the first Cosmic Fantasy is a bit of a bumble. You, space cop, have crash landed after being tricked by pirates, but getting caught up in the local politics of an unfamiliar planet while also randomly meeting entities you know from other galaxies is a head scratcher. Additionally, this game shows its influences more than the sequel due to a very random feeling hot springs scene that goes to show I can’t escape Japanese developers putting their characters in semi-nude situations no matter how far I think I’ve run.

Like the original Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, Cosmic Fantasy expects you to grind and figure things out for yourself, but there’s an even bigger catch here. With the previous two games, there’s elements that help to personalize and incentivize the grind: Final Fantasy lets you choose your party (and just brute force with four fighters if you choose) and Dragon Quest has a clean progress bar for how long to level up, plus available weapons and armor that you can’t get initially BUT could purchase with a lot of time spend slaying slimes for gold.

Cosmic Fantasy, the first, doesn’t tell you when a level is coming or what effect it has on your character other than your HP getting refilled. The weapons available in town shops (if any) are generally just the next step up, and the menu makes it exceedingly confusing to tell which you’ve currently equipped if you buy a new item: it’s best just to immediately sell your old dagger or whatever to ensure you’re not charging into battle with subpar items.

This is only further bungled when you feel like the game isn’t as open a concept as you’d imagined. More than once, the bosses and enemies that I encountered could only be defeated if I was at a specific level, which didn’t necessarily match with the enemies around the area. So I would have to be very careful if I felt that I was stronger than where I was before attempting the boss, or I would risk getting merked and then need to wake up from a “bad dream” at my last save point and grind all over again. The result was often hanging outside of a dungeon, endlessly smooshing baddies until I was overleveled to negate the risk of death.

Cosmic Fantasy II solves several of these problems with being more clear about progress and EXP, and also having a better party relationship between Van and Larla (as well as other NPCs who appear). The plot is altogether more cohesive, and the ideas of getting stronger are cemented from the beginning: players will probably die multiple times trying to leave the village unless they are willing to grind at least a couple of levels before attempting to head south to the first cave and major story point. Say what you will, but they weren’t holding back when the developers decided players could handle being attacked by 3-4 enemies at a time starting from the very beginning.

The solutions, however, also bring about a bit of tedium. If you honestly and truly want some old school “battle/heal/repeat” gameplay, then Cosmic Fantasy II has got your number. The amount of strategy needed from the first game – which could sometimes throw some curve balls – is significantly lower, as all you need to remember is “strongest wins.” There’s magic, sure, but all you really need is to be a couple levels higher than expected and then swing away. Once you get those ideas down, you return to the center of it all: these games are great showcase pieces for artwork, animation and sound/music, but not necessarily gaming elements. After all, I haven’t seen a single thing that becomes a takeaway lesson in either game.

Having said that, I still have Dragon Quest on my phone, one of the few RPGs I’ve bothered purchasing. Final Fantasy is a title I’ve owned for the NES and the PSP, and I wouldn’t mind getting the Pixel Remaster for my Switch at some point. That’s because these games were important to me at the time, and they carry the nostalgic weight that comes from being a formative title in my youth. Cosmic Fantasy wasn’t there, and so I see the flaws and the shortcomings more readily than other games from the same era. It’s not fair, but it’s the truth.

If, like me, you have a curiosity and fondness for games from back in the day, then Cosmic Fantasy Collection is something that merits a bit more investigation, but I sadly can’t recommend it strongly. Besides the manual and the sound/movie viewers, the QOL improvements that other straight JRPG ports have received are nonexistent, and, without the ability to speed up encounters or exploration, the time takes its toll on your patience. Physical collectors would do well to grab their copies quickly, and, should the second Cosmic Fantasy Collection come calling, it definitely has my interest: it can only get better from here.

Graphics: 7.5 Wonderfully handmade animation from the 90s, everything about these short scenes attested to my childhood and the love of the era. Spritework for the game itself is decent, with good enemy and boss variety. Landscapes and dungeons can be repetitive, but it’s expected with 90s level JRPGs.	Gameplay: 3.5 Incredibly straightforward and blasé. Grind near safety ad infinitum, stock up on healing stuff and then plow ahead till you hit a wall. Continue grinding, move ahead. As a very early JRPG, the choices were few and simple, and the mistranslations in the first Cosmic Fantasy do nothing to help the player along.
Sound: 8.0 Fantastic chiptune work to paint a dynamic soundscape on both sides. Voice acting, such a rarity in this age, is spot on and grabs the players attention in a big way. Explosions and laser blasts bring a smile to my face, and even annoying mascots have great attitudes.	Fun Factor: 4.0 While I respect the games and what they meant, I kept wanting and hoping for more to keep me engaged more than a few minutes at a time. What should have been a few hours of excitement turned into handfuls of minutes broken over many, many days because I wasn’t connected to the source.
Final Verdict: 5.0

Cosmic Fantasy Collection is available now on Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch

A copy of Cosmic Fantasy Collection was provided by the publisher.