COGEN: Sword of Rewind / COGEN: 大鳥こはくと刻の剣

It's one of those overly contemporary translations where you can smell the embellishments of the guy who worked on it. This localization turns Kohaku into some bratty, bossy girl-boss who needs to own every scene she's in with her passive-aggressive snarky comments and demanding attitude. It teeters into outright fanfiction where dialogue and characters are concerned. The protagonist is so far divorced from the original script penned in the English version you would think they were actually making this stuff as they went along.

for now: demo doesnt let you edit control but the real game lets you wall jump is more like a wall kick but otherwise everything else feels fine theres are a lot of move controls in this game so probably not so wise for new players with the action platformers (double jump dash air dash backroll) whacking stuff with sword feels good price seems to be on the expensive side but i dont know how long the game is yet oh btw rewinding time resets your air dash and double jump POST game review: emmmmm its kinda average and the game took 6 hours to complete [spoiler]after 2.5 hours it goes into loop2 which is a hard mode where you basically only have 3 maxium health points with the rest of the game which i feel is kinda scammy instead of having real diffculity options [/spoiler] combat:9/10 i love all the moves i can do which lets me do a simple 5 hit combo,the only thing missing is a downward attack really anime(immersion+plot+world building+character design)7/10 plot and world building isnt bad but i dont feel anything special about it so all the points really are all coming from the cool dad and characters also they messed up the laser beam gaming in the end kinda music:?/10 its there but again i dont feel anything which is probably because its too quiet enough (i set everything to 100% volume with 60% windows volume(headphone), which i probably should had set 70/100/70 and full windows volume) boss design:5/10 the year is 2022 and your final boss dont even have a second phase?i mean seriously you have already copied so much from gunvolt and you mess up the climax? not going into indivual bosses because kinda spoiler tl;dr gunvolt with a unique twist but worse buy when -75%off i guess

Going to have to give it a negative review just to post this, but the feelings are weird for this one mainly due to the bad release practice. Recommendation: Even though the review is negative, I recommend you getting this game if you like action platformers and don't care about price and are happy with about 4~5 hr (crazy for 22 bucks) meaningful content when purchasing a game. If you care about the value for amount of content you will be receiving then I would recommend avoiding this game. Game is Too Overpriced: Completed the game's "first run" which was pretty descent for action platformer. Controls weren't that bad, a few weird hitboxes but solid game play. Where I have a problem with this game is the amount of content provided for the price. They could have added more content like a variation in the stages or a new ability to keep it fresh. Instead they tease " aren't secret levels supposed to be the opposite and introduce some new scenery like ice" on a stage that's fire based. That would have actually been a good idea but instead you get "witty" mockery. If they included the day one dlc as part of the game ,instead of a bad taste practice imo of overpricing it. Then maybe it would have been worth the initial price. So many megaman like games out there that have the same mechanic of getting S-Rank but provide enough content to make you feel like you got your moneys worth. An example of this would be megaman zero. If the argument is that the budget is higher for main title capcom games, then I would suggest looking at the underrated games KarmaKnight or Liblade. These games provide a good amount of content and are way too under priced and underrated. KarmaKnight in my opinion is more fluid in its controls and they give you a distinct enough additional character that makes you actually want to replay the game. You can practice all you want for speed running or master the amazing level design. Liblade on the other hand gives you a well balanced difficulty and lots of character skills that keep the game fresh and enjoyable which also can garner the "oh I have to speed run S-Rank feel". It's sad to see games like the above get missed due to lack of publicity and have to price themselves low.Then you get games like this which ,don't get me wrong is enjoyable and a good game, overprice for minimal content just because they have a following. (Also, this post has no ill intent. If you like S-Rank and speed running which even I enjoy at times, more power to you. That however, isnt a justification for the state of content the game provides to all demographic players and makes it feel like its a consumer comes second type of deal)

No. Just no. Don't buy it at full price. Whoever developed this game doesn't know difference between "hard game" and "unfair game". "Hard game" is, for example, uh... Touhou, Dark Souls... This game is straightforward unfair (and is perfect example of bad level design). To begin with, sometimes you NEED to get hit to pass. At least it happened once during [spoiler] Cycle 2 Stage 2 [/spoiler]. And if you got hit 3 times before it... well, just jump into lava, haha. Story is... average. Honestly, everyone could predict [spoiler] EB [/spoiler] being final boss, and just like this, most twists are either predictable or useless. Music is ok. Especially loved Stage 5 boss theme. Other OSTs are average too, often turned off game sound to listen to other music. Graphics are good, especially background. Nothing more to say. From now on, heavy spoilers start. [spoiler] I have nothing against hard games. I enjoyed Cycle 1, since it was all fine. Cycle 2 tho... To begin with, it's just a hardmode, in terms of gameplay. It honestly seems like developers were lazy to do 4 more locations (cuz cycle 2 stage 5 location is different) and made "haha now do a victory loop, but you will suffer more, also 3 max hp deal with it". Cycle 2 bosses? Stage 1 was as easy, as Cycle 1 version, Stage 2... Was most cringe experience I've ever seen. Imagine undodgable attack that 100% kills you no matter what? Well, Cycle 2 Stage 2 boss has it in his second phase! Stage 3 was as easy as cycle 1 version, again. Stage 4... Measurable... And then there is final boss. First half you just cheese through him with infinite time rewind. It's neither interesting nor entertaining. But then he denies your heal and... He summons 3 Yellow Invincible bots? Ok, you give up. And that's it. In his "no heal" phase 2 of his attacks can kill you with 100% chance if he will use it, namely portal blades and summon one. If he summons Blue Shooters or Kamikaze, it's ok. But if he summon Yellow Invicible guys, you just give up. Something similar is with Portal Blades atack. With some chance, coombination of portal type can hit you with 100% chance... And the funniest ♥♥♥♥ ever: outside of no-heal phase, he is easy as hell. Even his ultimate attack (aka haha funny jokes about Sans Undertale) is too easy with this infinite heal new form provides you. So if you survive 4 attacks in no-heal phase (that are always the same: Portal Blades -> Beyblade -> Summon -> Waves), you just instantly won. I could give my respect to all previous bosses, even tho Cycle 2 Stage 2 boss had undodgable attack, it still was hard and intersting enough. Final boss is just dissapointment of the year. [/spoiler] [spoiler] Final Thoughts: Cycle 1 good, Cycle 2 bad, except for Stage 1-4 bosses. [/spoiler]

I think, realistically, I should review this game as a total package and not just by giving it praise for the few things it does really well. As a whole, COGEN is frustrating not because of any legitimately good reasons, but as a result of tons of amateurish mistakes regarding fundamental issues such as hitboxes, level design, and general game feel. A few minutes into COGEN's 1st stage, enemies were rolling up a very slight (20 degree) slope at me and I WAS UNABLE TO HIT THEM IN ANY WAY BECAUSE KOHAKU CANNOT SWING HER SWORD DOWNWARD. She has a crouching sword stab, but the angle of this attack actually goes up and the hitbox is a narrow rectangle with no downward vertical reach. Kohaku also has no command downward attacks in midair. These simple enemies were invincible, unless I awkwardly jumped over them to get onto the low ground of the slope and then attacked them that way... not because of intelligent game design, but because of poor hitboxes and glaring omissions in my character's moveset. The entire game is like this. I was ranting about these issues in voice chat to my friends while streaming the game, and everyone's consensus was that COGEN and specifically Kohaku as a character "kinda looked like ♥♥♥♥♥." I'd get clipped from boss attacks I jumped over because Kohaku's sprite is massive and every pixel of it is a gigantic hurtbox, so getting your toes clipped counts as getting hit. I'd wait on Crushers (Thwomps) only to get trapped between them because the developer gave each group of Crushers RANDOM timings instead of patterns, so they can randomly sync up to create an unavoidable deathtrap if you're under an "Up" Crusher while waiting for a "Down" Crusher to move. The only counterplay to this is to wait for a better random pattern. You can get score bonuses by doing certain actions in a stage, but once the bonus is unlocked once (tracked as an achievement system), the game keeps awarding you those points at the end of every stage even if you didn't do anything??? This results in you effortlessly getting giga-points and SS ranks just for grinding out a bunch of single-run achievements, one-at-a-time: what the heck??? The only move with i-frames is a button for a dodge roll but it only works on the ground and only goes a specific, needlessly long distance. There's not even a brief air-dodge or any function for the button midair, and you never get additional actions for it even though the menu calls it "Action" and not "Dodge" (implying that there would be more actions later). The entire game is full of frustrating trial-and-error design. They even messed up something as simple as the difference between walking and dashing speeds: they're too similar so dashing "feels bad" because it's barely any faster than walking. It has an animation that implies speed, but without the speed. It's possible for you to master COGEN: Sword of Rewind and to have fun with it... but the game fights you every step of the way. Some aspects of the game, such as the control options and the music, and especially the 2D character portrait art: are really good. But then you have to look at the actual pixel art of the rest of the game, which is mediocre to terrible: especially for the price tag and relative to other indie games you could be playing. The bad frequently outweighs the good, and that's not even touching on fact that the game has a second loop which ramps all the frustrating parts up to 11. I played this game more than most people who would leave a negative review like this, but I *only know this game exists because of Luminous Avenger iX 2". I specifically bought this to play as Copen and partially to support both devs for the crossover stuff, but that's not typically why someone buys a video game. Generally, you buy a game because it's fun to play, and COGEN will fight you the entire time: try the available demo before buying.

A great and punishing 2D game that is very hard at first but helps players improve as they play. I meant the punishing part since I did the first stage with 55 deaths. (First timers like me) The rewind system really takes the icing in this game. (Especially during boss fights) Easily re-playable stages with great achievements as goals to beat. Story, Characters and OST's are all top notch. Keybindings are changeable via in-game options. Recommend? Of course, cause it's a fun game. But not recommended to people who get frustrated through dying multiple times a LOT or lack of patience. Full price or wait for sale? Yes. Full price is worth it, to support the game but if your tight on budget save it until sale.

NOTE: demo lacks control rebinding but the main game has it, also the walljump doesn't suck in the full release either At it's best, Cogen is just dollar store mega man zero. Very uninspired level gimmicks, meh boss fights, uninteresting story, it sure is a game trying to play like the zero games. It's extremely short, only 5 levels and then a hard mode for the true ending, and a weird in-game achievement system that means pretty much nothing. At it's worst, Cogen is ungodly frustrating, with some really finicky controls and hitboxes, slow bosses, screen crunch (yes, screen crunch in the modern day), and obnoxious enemy placement. It doesn't make good use of it's time rewinding gimmick, despite the fact that the whole THING about the game is "you die in one hit, use your time rewind to escape death", the rewind meter might as well be a healthbar anyway since it does NOTHING interesting with it aside from 2 very basic platforms that are affected by you rewinding, and the fact that getting hit will pause everything so you can rewind back anyway. The aforementioned hard mode is just "play the game again, but with extra ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ enemy placement and the rewind meter no longer auto recharges", which 1. isn't very fun and 2. further reduces the rewind mechanic into just being a more complicated health bar. If you DESPERATELY need to play this, at least wait to get it on sale for 10 bucks like I did, even if the game played well the extremely limited amount of content doesn't justify the high pricetag.

実績コンプしたのでレビューします。 公式チートのサフェドに頼らず、ノーマルこはくでコンプまで走りました。 かなり賛否分かれる作品だと思います。面白いですがオススメはしないです。 まずこれはロクゼロの皮を被った「死に覚えパズルアクション」です。 難解な敵配置やギミックをあれこれ試行錯誤して突破するゲームになります。 X4やロクゼロのゼロみたいに、ばったばったと敵をなぎ倒していくゲームではないです。 ゲームバランスは悪いです。 まともなのはステージ1ぐらいで、あとは全て「ぼくのかんがえたさいきょうのステージ」。 何から何まで開発者の性格の悪さ全開で、解法を知らないと何度挑戦しても死にます。 ウリの時戻しもはっきり言って役に立たないです。 被弾した時点で立ち回りが間違っているので、時戻しよりチェックポイントからやり直した方が早いです。 限られた使い道としてはジャンプ回数の復活、モーションキャンセルでDPS向上、無敵付与ですり抜け等。 時戻すために使うことは稀です笑 まあ、そういうゲームだと理解したうえでやるぶんには楽しいと思います。 ドット、音楽は良質だし、難度の高さもやりこみがいがあると解釈できるので。 美少女ロクゼロだと思って手を出すと痛い目を見ますね。 それ目当ての人はやめておいた方がいいと思います。

I really wanted to like this game. The controls are great, movement is pretty good, but the game is just a chore to play. The whole idea of getting hit means time rewinds for you to then try to not get hit seems ok on paper, but the implementation is kind of a nightmare. Often you'll find yourself stuck in a loop of getting hit causing you to just die. If the game had a normal life-bar, you'd just get hit and move on rather than fumble around with a rewind mechanic. The levels themselves are just long, drawn out, marathons of avoiding traps, bullets, enemy placements, etc...and it's just not fun. I almost never write negative reviews, but as someone who loves the Inti Creates style games which this very much is, like Gunvolt, this is disappointing. I wouldn't even call it frustrating because it's just a trial and error game in the end, not super hard really, just a massive test of patience which I lack for this.

I like this game a lot. You play as a character who feels sort of like Zero from the Megaman X/Zero games, except a little too heavy, a little too floaty, and without any kind of projectile attack. You have a dash and a double-jump, one each per grounded jump. You can also rewind time: each hit is an instant kill, but you will always rewind time from death, and the rewind meter is your life bar; when that bar depletes, you're done and have to restart from the last checkpoint. You also have an invincible dodge, but it's absolutely not a fix for every situation. Your character is powerful so, naturally, the enemies are also powerful. They fire off extremely fast projectiles, they swarm the player, they do all sorts... this is why the invincible dodge isn't a crutch. The game gives you these extreme tools for dealing with enemy aggression, but they expect you to minimise use in order to get a high score. This is where the game excels: there's a high ceiling in terms of skill and memorisation, and you can absolutely blitz through the levels with enough knowledge, but it doesn't feel bad to get killed a bunch and use your rewind to finish the level. Boss fights are another high point. Most of them are great. The worst you get is that one or two of them have an excessive reliance on waiting for the boss's vulnerability, but it isn't too bad. I will say that I don't think the final boss is entirely fair, though. As for criticisms, picture this: you get killed while doing a standing attack combo. You need to duck to avoid the hit, BUT, you also need to attack to kill an approaching enemy. So, you rewind back, you hold down while pressing the attack button... yet your character continues the standing attack they were doing when they were hit in the first place. The rewind should interrupt the player state, but it doesn't, in this instance. It's frustrating and I'm sure it could be fixed in a day or two by the programmer, but it wasn't and won't be fixed, so! Anyway. I bought this game twice. I have a Playstation copy too. That should say enough. It's a must-play for any Gunvolt fans.