Cosmo Police Galivan (Famicom)

Flying away from a planet and not having it explode for once would feel so weird to me at this point.

Back to the Famicom I go in search of more unlocalized deep cuts. I really struck gold this time with Cosmo Police Galivan, a 1988 side-scrolling action RPG that’s among the best of its kind I’ve encountered for the system. Pity it never made it to the NES, because it leaves Castlevania II in the dust and compares quite favorably to such classics as Metroid and Rygar. My thanks go out to Griffin “Jair” Knodle and Adam “MO” Fitch for their superb fan translation.

Cosmo Police was developed and published by Nihon Bussan (aka Nichibutsu) and is very loosely based on their 1985 arcade run-and-gun platformer of the same name. In the impossibility distant year 2010, the dark lord Madius, leader of the Mado syndicate, has defeated all but one of the elite Cosmo Police and is on the verge of controlling the entire universe. Only dashing cyborg cop Galivan remains free and must now launch a desperate solo assault on Mado’s fortress planet of Badurr.

If you’re thinking this setup sounds oddly familiar, you’re not wrong. Though technically an original creation, Cosmo Police was clearly meant to remind its Japanese audience of a pair of popular action tv shows, Space Sheriff Gavan and Space Sheriff Sharivan. Both featured the titular interstellar law enforcement officers donning flashy techno-armor to battle the forces of alien crime organization Makuu. Whether Nihon Bussan ever tried to obtain a license for Space Sheriff from Toei or not, I can’t say. In any event, they didn’t let the lack of one stop them.

With its science fiction setting, side-view perspective, and focus on exploring an underground environment in search of hidden passages and new equipment, it’s natural to compare Cosmo Police to Nintendo’s own Metroid. The influence is undeniable, yet this no simple clone. First off, it’s not a true open world experience. Rather than being one huge interconnected maze like Metroid’s Zebes, Badurr is divided up into six distinct stages served up in a set order. After Galivan defeats the boss of a given area and moves on to the next, there’s no turning back. You still have hundreds of individual screens to deal with, they’re just portioned out as self-contained packets of a few dozen apiece. If you’re the sort who hates the constant backtracking that defines so many exploration-heavy games, this should be music to your ears.

Another key difference is the combat. Galivan’s go-to weapons aren’t guns, but a selection of energy swords straight out of Star Wars. The ranged attacks that are available all draw on a limited supply of Cosmo Points (similar to the Magic Points common to fantasy RPGs) and are thus best saved for boss fights and other special occasions. The resulting high stakes pressure to get in close to enemies recalls Zelda II far more than it does Metroid. Galivan can offset the increased risk by summoning his trusty Cosmo Armor, which cuts incoming damage in half. Doing so requires filling up the GP gauge by collecting power chip icons dropped by defeated enemies, however, and the armor can only withstand eight hits before dissipating unless recharged with additional power chips.

Apart from that, Cosmo Police is a solid by-the-numbers 8-bit action RPG. Every zone contains its share of unique enemies and hazards as well as fresh upgrades for Galivan. Said upgrades are mandatory to progress and include stronger swords, path revealing utility items, and new powers like healing and flight. Some of these boons can be well hidden indeed. Fortunately, Galivan can obtain clues from his imprisoned comrades and their advice is actually coherent and useful for the most part. That’s always appreciated in a game of this vintage.

Factor in pleasing graphics, a decent soundtrack, and some memorably strange critters and environments, and you have an above-average Famicom title on your hands. It even incorporates a handy auto-save feature that seamlessly records your progress for you without interrupting the action. Alas, Cosmo Police’s one major misstep is a doozie: The experience grind.

Leveling-up Galivan himself isn’t the problem. Simply killing whatever the game throws at you as you make your way from point A to point B seems to do the job. The real issue is the baffling choice to also have the various swords you collect over the course of your playthrough level-up separately. You read that right: The first six swords have their own experience counters. If you’re not grinding them all to full strength pretty much as soon as you obtain them (to the tune of hundreds of kills per sword), your advancement becomes exponentially tougher due to the absurd rate at which enemy health totals ramp up. Worse still, the seventh and final sword, the Cosmo Blade, has an attack power determined by the average level of all your other swords, so you’ll be punished at the end game if you attempt to circumvent any of this excruciating process.

This leaves me in a tricky position. As cool as the majority of Cosmo Police Galivan’s design is, the prospect of once again devoting a good hour or more to sword grinding alone makes me wonder if I’ll end up revisiting it in the future or not. If I do, I’ll likely put it off a lot longer than I would otherwise. What a shame. That said, your enthusiasm (or at least tolerance) for repetitive monster bashing may well be greater than mine. If that’s the case, you’re in for a treat.

As for Galivan the character, he was last seen in 1993’s Cosmo Police Galivan II: Arrow of Justice, a Final Fight style beat-’em-up for the Super Famicom. This makes his trilogy of adventures a rare example of a game series in which no two entries share a genre. After years of declining fortunes, Nihon Bussan sold off their back catalog to an outfit called Hamster Corporation and shut down for good in 2015. Barring any surprise moves from Hamster, this is one space cop who’ll be exercising his right to remain silent indefinitely.