Similar to Max Payne, Jet Grind Radio, and Tony Hawk.. it is remarkable how much of a concept can stay true to the core roots-- despite port allocation being severely limited, due to the portable architecture & etc.

While the aforementioned titles certainly go through their own design changes and constraints, I often notice what transpires can be a uniquely different experience, especially mechanically.. for better or worse. However, I find that Ulala's Cosmic Attack is a bit of outlier in this category.

I REALLY adore Space Channel 5 and I've probably beaten it 15+ times. I first rented it for my Dreamcast when I was 10 years old and brought it to a sleepover. My friends hated it. My last play through was a year ago or so (PS2 Special Edition). My perspective here is purely impression, I just jumped into this one.

I have to say, I am utterly fascinated by how much this game is fundamentally the same experience to its original counterpart. It really comes down to the differences in presentation and sound quality, just downscaled and constrained. The Simon/Memory rhythm-timings felt the same to me.. albeit some weird differences where certain sections felt slightly more forgiving and then others slightly harder-- mainly, any consecutive/rapid press of a single input more than 2 times.

Obviously, the mechanical simplicity is what makes this uncanny experience possible.. still, it is very cool to have played this at least once as a fan. I may come back to it just to tinker and contrast it simultaneously against the original. Recommended for fans and fun weirdos. What I find so interesting is how much my "score" could increase relative to the original-- for me, it boils down to like +1.5 stars for the audio and then a +0.5 star for the graphical presentation (restorative-ly speaking). Otherwise, it really is the same game. Quite cool.

for being a GBA port of a dreamcast game, this shouldn't really have been as faithful to the original game as it actually ended up being. Despite being on a cartridge, the OST manages to retain the same groove as the dreamcast original, and due to the graphics mostly being prerendered anyways on the dreamcast game, using downscaled renders of those same assets means the game even looks vaguely similar to the original. If you wanted to play space channel 5 on the go in the early 2000s, this would absolutely be a sufficient way to play it. Very strange that this game wasn't released in japan though considering the original games dev team, i would love to hear the story of this games development. I feel like in this day and age if you want to play space channel 5 you should probably play the original game instead of this, but if you are curious like I was then this port is actually pretty decent.

If you squint, this looks like garbage. Like a garbage heap filled with candy wrappers and chewed gum. The sacrifices to make this more playable than the original are too great.

Space Channel 5 is neigh incomprehensible even with voice acting and the full experience. Reducing all spoken dialog to overlapping color-coded captions in the cheapest manner possible, playing atop sprites made of screenshots from a real game, is surreal.

There is some effort here, but its not worth it. The soundtrack still brims with life. The guitarist you steal from Pudding still adds a bass line to the score. Overall, an absolute travesty.