Cosmic Fantasy

Cosmic Fantasy was the flagship Role Playing Game franchise from Telenet Japan, created exclusively for the PC-Engine's CD attachment, with one Compilation Rerelease for the Sega CD and masterminded by manga artist Kazuhiro Ochi.

Like Sega's own RPG franchise Phantasy Star, Cosmic Fantasy combined anime presentation with a mixture of fantasy and sci-fi. However, by utilizing the CD format, CF was among the first such games to rely on fully animated and voice-acted cutscenes not unlike Nihon Falcom's popular Ys games or Game Arts' Lunar games.

It's also fairly notorious for being one strong case of No Export for You -- only the second game ever saw a release outside Japan, thanks to Working Designs.

Games in this series include:


 * 1) Cosmic Fantasy: Bōken Shōnen Yū (1990)
 * 2) Cosmic Fantasy 2 (1991)
 * 3) Cosmic Fantasy 3: Bōken Shōnen Rei (1992)
 * 4) Cosmic Fantasy Stories (1992) (the only non-Turbo release; remake of the first two games for the Sega CD)
 * 5) Cosmic Fantasy 4: Ginga Shōnen Densetsu - Totsunyū-hen (1994)
 * 6) Cosmic Fantasy 4: Ginga Shōnen Densetsu - Gekitō-hen (1994)

This series provides examples of:

 * All in a Row
 * Animal Mecha: Marley, a robotic cat.
 * The Anime of the Game
 * Catfolk: Very common through the franchise
 * Cool Mask: Galam.
 * Follow the Leader: The battle system is pretty much Dragon Quest with the serial numbers filed off. 4 introduced the Active Time Battle system pioneered in Final Fantasy IV.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: While 2 was still fairly censored in its localization, not all of it was, notably Babbette's Shower Scene.
 * One Game for the Price of Two: The fourth game splits the adventure between the protagonists of 1 and 2.
 * Rescue the Princess: Van for Laura.
 * Science Fantasy
 * Space Pirates: Or Cosmic Pirates, rather.
 * Take Over the World: Galam's plan.
 * Totally Radical: Good luck finding someone who doesn't use the word "Cosmic" in an unironic manner anymore.
 * Unfortunate Name: Van, and did they really need to use the long A sound for Galam's first syllable?
 * Updated Rerelease: Stories is such for the first two games.