Cotton 2: Magical Night Dreams

Cotton 2: Magical Night Dreams
Cotton 2: Magical Night Dreams is a horizontal scrolling shooting game and 1997 sequel to the arcade game Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams developed by Success. It was developed for the Sega ST-V arcade board and received an arcade-perfect port to the Sega Saturn the same year.

The game stars the eponymous witch Cotton, along with a new rival witch, Appli. Together with their companions (Silk, a fairy, and Needle, a talking hat), they travel a horror-themed world to retrieve a magical candy, the Water Willow, and save the Pumpkin Kingdom from ruin. This noble goal is complicated by the fact that both witches are greedy, selfish, and not terribly bright.



Cotton 2 features colorful, and well-animated sprites, multi-segmented boss monsters, and extensive background effects, showing off the 2D graphical prowess the ST-V (and by extension, Saturn) hardware.

Cotton 2 is notable for introducing a host of mechanical advancements from its more straightforward predecessor, making survival and scoring more involved. These include fighting game-esque command inputs, magical spells, sealing enemies with magic spells, and chaining enemy deaths with spells for large bonuses.

The following year Success would release a revised version of the game, Cotton Boomerang, which would include new gameplay and scoring elements, an expanded character roster, and redesigned stages. This too would see a port to the Sega Saturn.

Gameplay Overview
Cotton 2 is a horizontal scrolling game that utlizes three buttons. Combinations of directional inputs and button presses perform special moves that are crucial to play the game. In the Sega Saturn port, you can assign these attacks to single button presses and bypass the command-inputs entirely.

These special attacks allow you to magically 'seal' enemies, encasing them in a bubble that can be then thrown into more enemies, which in turn seals them (and starting a Chain). Command shots tend to do more damage than your regular shot and are crucial to the games' scoring system.

Like its predecessor, Cotton 2 utilizes an experience point system to power up your main shot, with a maximum level of 5. You gain experience by collecting either bubbles from sealed enemies, yellow crystals from enemy formations, or from tea cups dropped during the Tea Time bonus rounds.

Unlike its predecessor, Cotton 2 introduces a health bar and no extra lives by default (you can add them in the dip switches on the arcade or the options menu in the Saturn port). Your health can be refilled by collecting red bubbles gained by repeatedly shooting sealed enemies.

Controls

 * A (Press): Fires your main shot. The type of shot you have is determined by the elemental crystal you currently have equipped. If none are in stock, you fire a neutral bullet. When combined with certain directional inputs, special attacks are triggered.
 * A (Hold): Increases movement speed. This has the side effect of adding considerable inertia to your movement, however.
 * B (Press): Allows you to grab magic seals and normal enemies. Once held, pressing the B button will launch the enemy forward. Smaller enemies are easier to throw than larger ones.
 * B (Hold): Holds out an enemy in front of you. If you hold out a sealed enemy and let go of the B button, you will drop the seal without throwing it.
 * C: Fires a powerful magic spell depending on your currently-equipped elemental crystal. Using a spell depletes the crystal and equips the next in line. If the player has no elemental crystals equipped, they will not be able to use this attack. Players can have up to three crystals in stock at a time.

Special Moves
← → ＋ A: Tornado Shot. A piercing straight-forward shot, does solid damage.

→ ← ＋ A: Wide Shot. A three-way spread shot that fires frontwards, does solid damage.

→ ↗ ↑ ＋ A: Upward Side Shot. A four-way spread shot that fires upwards at a 90° angle, does excellent damage.

→ ↘ ↓ ＋ A: Downward Side Shot. A four-way spread shot that fires downwards at a 90° angle, does excellent damage.

→ →/← ←/↓ ↓/↑ ↑ ＋ A: Bomb. The directional input dictates the arc it travels outward at. They're able to be inflated (by repeatedly launching them into one another,) making them quite useful for attaining the secret bonus during Tea Time. More damaging than one might expect.

→ → ← ＋ B: Detach (or re-attach) your familiar. Makes a slight difference in speed.

→ ↘ ↓ ↙ ← ＋ B: Rolling Catch. A grab that simultaneously seals the enemy. Not particularly useful when command shots and bombs exist.

← → ← → ＋ C: Magic Discard. Disposes of your currently equipped magic attribute without having to use a magic spell.

← → ＋ A ← ＋ A → ↘ ↓ ＋ A: Final Mirage Shot. A command shot 'combo' of sorts; it fires off a Tornado Shot, Wide Shot, and Double Side Shot all in rapid succession. Capable of taking out bosses within a matter of seconds.

↑ ↗ → ↘ ↓ ↙ ← ↖ ↑ ↓ ＋ ABC: Final Comet Attack. Suicide command. Amusing, but no real utility.

Characters


In the arcade original, Player 1 plays as Cotton while Player 2 controls Appli. In the Sega Saturn port, players are locked into using Cotton until they beat the game on Easy or higher, after which the option to play as Cotton or Appli is unlocked. This option can be unlocked with the cheat code above. Outside of their starting elemental crystal loadout, both characters control identically.


 * Cotton: Player 1, star of the series. Starting Elemental Crystals: Fire (equipped), Wind, Ice
 * Appli: Player 2, princess of Pumpkin Kingdom. Starting Elemental Crystals: Ice (equipped), Wind, Fire

After starting the game, and before stage 1 starts, if a player holds UP, START, and A, B, or C, they will begin the game with three of the same element, regardless of character. Holding A gives Fire, B gives Ice, and C gives Wind.

Elemental Crystals
Shooting down an enemy formation with your normal shot will produce a Crystal. Much like in the original game, shooting the Crystal will cycle it through multiple colors. Apart from increasing your experience gauge, the Crystals may also be used to change your currently-equipped magical attribute.

Yellow: Increases EXP.

Red: Fire element. Decent strength, Fire seals are easy enough to manipulate for chaining and Pursuit. A solid shot type for beginners. Magic Spell = Fire Dragon (sends a dragon out directly in front of you. Good damage, but narrow attack range.)

Green: Wind element. A bit weaker than the other shot types, but the shots pass through terrain, and have homing capabilities to boot. Wind seals float slowly upward through the air, plus the seal retreats towards you when you shoot it, making it ideal for Pursuit. On the downside, Wind seals expire almost immediately upon touching terrain, so chaining can be tricky during certain sections. Magic Spell = Tornado (sends a tornado out directly in front of you. Decent damage, excellent range.)

Blue: Ice element. Shots reflect off of walls, Ice seals are arguably the best for chaining, very good for Pursuit, an excellent shot type all around. Only negative is that the Ice seal plummets quickly when it's not in the process of being chained/Pursued, which can be particularly dangerous when above open terrain. Magic Spell = Ice Storm (sends huge pillars of ice out at multiple angles. Good damage, excellent range.)

White: Light element. Strongest shot in the game, but the properties of Light seals don't lend themselves to chaining or Pursuit very well. Note that White Crystals are unavailable until Stage 6, or until you use a continue. Magic Spell: Flash (small beams of light shine all around in front of you, before coalescing into one ultra-damaging beam. Excellent damage, excellent range.)

Items

 * Bubble Willow: Grants points and EXP. Obtained by throwing a sealed enemy into another enemy. The larger the chain, the larger the bubble.
 * Recovery Willow: Restores health. Obtained by shooting a sealed enemy (i.e., a Pursuit). The more consecutive shots/Pursuits on a single seal, the larger the Willow - and thus more health restored. Each time you collect health, the amount of shots needed to spawn the next Recovery Willow increases by 4.
 * Tea (white): Restores health and grants small EXP. Available during the Tea Time bonus stages.
 * Tea (red): Restores more health and EXP than the white Teacups. Available during the Tea Time bonus stages.

Shooting teacups will yield points and EXP, but not health. Teacups will bounce off of Cotton/Appli's Bombs, a fact that can be exploited to easily attain the Secret Bonus.

Rank
If the game features a relevant rank system, use this section to discuss it in more detail. Otherwise, this can be omitted.

Scoring
Enemy Values

Zako:       100

Mid-Boss:	50000

Boss:       100000

Chain Values

Chain: 100

Chain Bonus: 10000 per every 10th sealed enemy (increases by 10000 every subsequent bonus, maxes out at 100000)

Pursuit Values

Hit: 100

Pursuit Bonus: 1000 per every 10th hit (increases by 1000 every subsequent bonus, maxes out at 10000)

End-of-stage Bonuses

Magic Bonus: # of Magic Crystals in stock x 5000

Attack Bonus: # of Teacups collected x 500

Technical Bonus: (# of enemies sealed during the stage x 2) x 500

Secret Bonus*: (Stage # x 10000) + 40000

* Attained by dodging every Teacup during the Tea Time bonus round

Strategy
See (Template Page)/Strategy for stage maps, enemy and boss descriptions, walkthroughs, and advanced play strategies.

This section details some particular strategic information about the game and its gameplay, such as hidden 1UPs and some basic scoring tricks. For anything particularly deep or highly complex, you can probably leave it in the Strategy page.

(Currently evaluating whether or not this specific section should even include information outside of the separated Strategy pages. Worth thinking about as a community.)

Story
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Gallery
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