After my month of NieR, I decided I wanted to play something short and sweet recommended by my good friend @Ptcremisi. I'm glad I did, because this was a fun time.

This game is pretty simple, it's basically wall tennis but it has this really awesome minimalistic Y2K aesthetic. It was originally an arcade game, so it can be beaten really quickly but there's multiple routes you can go through and so it has a decent amount of replayability to it. I decided to go through every level and yeah it was pretty rad. I will say though, it can get somewhat tedious going through the exact same 7 or so levels if you're trying to play them all.

The default time setting I found kinda brutal so I set it to max this time around, just so I could at least experience every level. If I replayed it again, I'd lower the time to add some stakes to my playthrough. I'd try to get a much higher score than I did this time around because clearly there's strats to do so. I got like 660,000 something points as my top score but you can do things like timing your charge attacks (which cant be spammed if you want a good score because they drastically reduce time) correctly so you beat stages fast and without losing your ball.

Anyways, Cosmic Smash is a real good time and my 2nd Dreamcast I've played... I'm definitely enjoying the game selection it has so far.

We Love Cosmic Smash

7.5/10

cosmic smash sets the tone.

sonic adventure was a system seller, a response to nintendo's own 3D platformer which was sm64. however, games like Rez, L.O.L., Roommania and most importantly Cosmic Smash were political statements. it was a response not to one game but to the industry as a whole. that was sega saying "we are not afraid to experiment, and look at what that sentiment birthed".

sega gave their geniuses the platform and opportunity to shine. without worrying about money and profit, they allowed for odd and questionable ideas to become fully fletched experiences and the result was one of the best libraries of any videogame console ever. more importantly to this review is that this push of unadulterared >art< resulted in a strong and firm sense of style.

when people think of Y2K aesthetics, they're thinking of the dreamcast. they're thinking of Space Channel 5. they're thinking of Tomoko Sasaki's Serani Poji. they're thinking of Rez. but moreover, they're thinking exactly of Cosmic Smash.

a game that would give the guy who created VIDEOBALL a field day, a simple and finite one-player digital sport that gives the player set challenges that they can choose to overcome with whatever moviments they like. there's a time limit, but you don't need to worry about that when you already know how to control your character. it's ok, you'll make it. the challenges get trickier, but you get stronger, you create muscle memory and your own strategies to each stage. eventually you get a game over -- or you win, who knows -- and then, you think, "i'm gonna do it again".

all of that, of course, coated under the most clear cut and transparent display of what people would later call "Y2K aesthetics". so much in fact that it seems weird to think of cosmic smash as a part of the era and not the trend setter itself. the music, the textures, the lines, the minimalism, even the game design itself, all reek of the turn of the century. it's a more contained and quiet version of what Rez was doing, so it ends up being less eye catching but still beautiful. its minimalism also contrasts Rez's intricate design and artistic execution, being the exact opposite extreme, so it's sort of the anti-rez.

cosmic smash is an era defining statement, a tone-setter that feels like the cherry on top of the dreamcast library. anyone could play this, and everyone should.