What is Cosmic Fantasy?

-The basics
Rei wonders what Cosmic Fantasy isCosmic Fantasy is a series of RPGs (plus one OVA, two manga, and a drama CD) by Kazuhiro Ochi. 7 CD-ROMs were released in Japan, six for the PC-Engine and 1 for the Sega Mega-CD.

Rumour had it there was to be a game for the NEC PC-FX but that never materialized.
Only one of the CF games, CF2, was released here in the US by the people at Working Designs (now somewhat closed, RIP). It achieved some fame stateside for being one of the first CD-ROMs with decent voice acting as well as having been voted by Electronic Gaming Monthly as the Best RPG of 1992 for any system.
Unfortunately, although WD planned on bringing CF1 and 3 to the US, they never did.

Anyway, the world of Cosmic Fantasy revolves around four main people (Yuu, Saya, Van, and Rim), with two cats (Nyan and Pikku) and a robot cat (Monmo) playing supporting roles. (Of course, when WD released CF2 here, they changed a lot of their names.) Many of these characters are also Cosmic Hunters, which are kind of like a police for the universe. They may not be as large as the universe, however, as the CF2 manual states "Cosmic hunters that protect the peace of the Donakri galaxy receive special mind control training." So, perhaps the Cosmic Hunters only police the Donakri galaxy, but I don't know for certain. In any case, the Cosmic Hunters spend much of their time fighting Cosmic Pirates.

It may also be a little soap operatic at times, as Saya is Yuu's girlfriend and somewhere between CF3 and CF4, Rim becomes Van's girlfriend. Many of the plot lines are "person A has been captured by person B. Person C loves person A and with the help of persons D, E, and F, must fight persons G, H, and I (who are allied with person B, and so, against person C) to finally get to person A and then defeat person B multiple times." At least, this is so for CF2 and 4 Chapter 2. It almost makes it into CF4 Chapter 1. :)

-Caring for characters
RimThis may sound old hat, but it is cleverly told through colourful, well-animated (for the system) cinemas or cut-scenes, or whatever they're called, which are usually in Japanese. However, it is usually fairly clear what is happening.

In fact, the characters have so much personality that many people who played CF2 fell in love with Rim, probably because she was such a spunky, energetic character. (And I guess that shower scene didn't hurt her popularity much...) Most guys probably consider her their favourite CF character. BTW, her measurements are: B86, W58, H85. I'm sure somebody wanted to know :) .
All in all, I found myself very interested in what the characters do and it's rewarding to help them go around saving each other, even if I can't understand everything they say. They even seem to mature from game to game, though this may simply be Kazuhiro Ochi's art style evolving and is not meant to be a physical change in the characters. Though, I think it may be both. The two pictures below are both of Van. The left one is from CF2. The right one is from CF4 chapter 2.
CF2 VanCF4 Van

-Some seiyuu

Many people have not asked if there are any seiyuu in CF but there are. In fact, there are some familiar names (and voices) in CF. The following chart lists all of the characters I could find and their seiyuu. The links go to Hitoshi Doi's pages on them.
 
Baron (1)
Buratsukii (3)
 Nakao Ryuusei
 
 
Nyan (3-4)
Pikku (3-4)
 Miyuki Sanae
Beluga (anime)
Nina (1)
Sakuma Rei
 
 
Rei
Tsujitani Kouji
Dandy
Galam
Daigo (3)
Suzuoki Hirotaka
 
 
Rim
Purishira (3)
others
Tsuru Hiromi
Darva (2)
Galdo (3)
others
Iizuka Shouzou
 
 
Raban (1)
Narrator (2)
Tokida (3)
others
Genda Tessho
Toga (1)
Gaia (1)
Rumaretto
others 
Ginga Banjou
 
 
Saya
Monmo
Annie
others
Takada Yumi
Mai (3)
Touma Yumi
 
 
Jei (3)
 Takagi Wataru
Mother
others
Matsuoka Youko
 
 
Van
others
Seki Toshihiko
Nyan (1-2)
Pikku (2)
Nakano Seiko
 
 
Yuu
others
Takayama Minami
Laura
Minaguchi Yuuko
   
Sylph
Mizushima Yuu
Bakkasu (1)
Tsujimura Mahito
 
Narration (2)
Genda Tessyou
(What kind of order is that?!)

-What's going on now?

Recently, a couple of exciting things have started up.
1) There's a fan translation of Cosmic Fantasy (1) in the works! Headed by Dave Shadoff, this project will bring us the first Cosmic Fantasy in English!

2) Dave Shadoff is scanning and translating some Cosmic Fantasy guidebooks. They are available at GameHackWiki.

3) But now...Sunsoft just purchased Telenet's IP as of December 2009. Will we see CF on Virtual Console? I think so!



Special Thanks to:

Mike Koos for help with some of the names.
His webpage is Studio Mako-chan!

Erin Menefee for pointing out Takada Yumi.

Dave Shadoff for his updates.



Back to the Cosmic Fantasy Home Page.

(Last updated 09/12/13)

RPG is short for Role-Playing Game. But you probably knew that already.
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OVA stands for Original Video Animation.  This means that its first incarnation was as a video. In this case, it was released as both a video tape and a laser disc. OVA has also been known on occasion as OAV-Original Animated/Animation Video and most people really don't remember off hand which way it's written. I recall someone once said "OVA" is just an egg, but on the back of the CF4 chapter 2 jewel case, it says OVA...

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Manga, basically, is a Japanese comic book.
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Some of the Japanese-American name changes
Yuu to Cobra
Rim to Babbette
Saya to Sayo
Nyan to Nayan
Pikku to Pico
Larla to Laura (or Lola, in one message.)
Galdo to Vega  (Wrongo!  I got this idea from listening to Victor Ireland hinting about CF3 but I was mistaken!)
Monmo to Marley
Dandy to Robert

The Japanese names are used on every page except the CF2 page.  (With the exception of "Larla.")
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Seiyuu are famous Japanese voice actors.
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