Fantastic Night Dreams: Cotton Original

 

Fantastic Night Dreams: Cotton Original - PlayStation (1999)

Developed by: Success

Published by: Success

Cotton Original is a horizontal shooter with a "cute 'em up" aesthetic which was originally released in arcades by Success and Sega in 1991 and was eventually ported to the Sony Playstation in Japan in 1999. In this title players control a witch named Cotton who along with her fairy companion Silk travels through various dark(but cartoony) fantasy themed levels fighting off hordes of monsters that are inhabiting the land. Although Silk and her fairy companions are set on saving their world, Cotton is motivated solely by the promise of a large [WILLOW] candy at the end of her journey in exchange for helping the fairies.

The game consists of seven levels that gradually increase in difficulty, however on the Normal and especially the Easy settings the game is quite manageable and a good choice for people who are relatively new to shmups. Cotton has a standard shot and droppable "bomb" like shots. These are leveled up throughout the game by picking up yellow and orange gems dropped by various enemies. She also is able to hold a stock of both blue and red magic at a limit of six which are also dropped by defeated enemies. These magic attacks can make short work of most bosses in a surprisingly little amount of time. These magic attacks also have alternate abilities accessed by holding both the shot and the bomb buttons to charge them up. blue gives the player a protective shield for a limited amount of time and red launches a fireball that homes in on enemies. In addition to these abilities Silk and her various fairy companions who you can also rescue along the way serve as options which can be maneuvered to help you defensively as well as also adding their own shots to your standard attack. You can also charge and launch these options at enemies for them to go in for an up close attack. Extends are given to the player when they reach the first 100,000 points and every 200,000 points earned after. Players are given an opportunity at the end of each level to collect tea items which fall from the sky to boost your score. However if one tries to dodge all of these instead and succeeds, the player is awarded with a secret bonus to their score of 20,000+ points.

As I mentioned earlier, the game is quite accessible for newer shmup players. While some of the environments get pretty tight, there's no penalty for hitting the walls like there is in most horizontal shooters. You just have to worry about dodging the enemy attacks and a small amount of select environmental hazards. Most of my deaths came when I carelessly tried to pick up power up items dropped by enemies without properly assessing the risk of the other enemies near by. Also, some of the bosses toward the end of the game can trip you up a little (on Normal or higher) if you allow your character to get powered down too much and also run out of magic before or during the battle. If you play on Easy all bosses in the game are complete pushovers though. I would imagine trying to play through this title without using magic would add quite a bit of challenge to the boss fights on the higher difficulties.

My Normal mode 1CC score.

This was a very fun game to clear and I'm definitely looking forward to playing other titles in this series. I initially decided to play this in anticipation for the new release of Cotton Reboot which features a remade version of the game as well as the Sharp X68000 version of the game that so few have had access to over the years. That version of the game contains several key differences to this version so I'm looking forward to spending some time with that version and learning the new changes. Look out for a blog post about it in the future!

Daisenpuu

 

Daisenpuu - PC Engine (1990)

Developed by Toaplan/Center Tech

Published by NEC Avenue

One of the less popular vertical shooters from famed STG developer Toaplan, Daisenpuu (known as Twin Hawk in the west in arcades and on the Sega Genesis) was ported to the PC Engine and published by NEC Avenue in 1990. The game features a World War II styled setting in which the player flies a fighter plane attacking an enemy military force that seems to only consist of ground based units. As such the player spends the entire game battling with tanks, turrets, boats and other land/sea based enemy vehicles. The pace of this game is slow and methodical and places some emphasis on learning enemy placements and best positioning yourself to take out enemies as soon as they enter the screen. The scoring seems to be simply based on the number of enemies taken out and extends are earned at certain scoring milestones.

The stand out feature that sets this title apart from many others in the genre is the helper system in which the player can summon a group of ally aircraft to help you out in battle. When these planes get shot down they will fly towards enemies and try to take them out as they crash as well. Alternatively the player can press the summon button twice rapidly in order to use a standard semi-screen clearing mega bomb that is popular in so many other STGs instead of summoning allies. Players battle enemies through 4 fairly lengthy areas that are seamless in transition apart from the music changing to a new track.

While ally planes are summoned the enemies still primarily aim their attacks at you. One strategy that simplifies pretty large chunks of the game is to act as somewhat of a diversion and lead enemy shots away from your allies in order to keep them alive for longer allowing them to take out many enemies along the way. While most of the game is pretty straightforward, especially if you use this strategy, there were a few areas of the game that kept tripping me up. In particular the sections with the large boats and the final "boss" vehicle gave me more trouble than they probably should have. However after taking some notes and really thinking out a good strategy it only took me a couple of additional runs to conquer these sections.

Upon clearing, the game loops infinitely. However my main goal for this title was to clear a single loop on a single credit on the Normal difficulty. On my best run I managed to get to the 2nd area of the 2nd loop before using up my first credit with a score of 647400. As a Toaplan fan I have set a personal goal for myself to try and clear more Toaplan titles this year and I eventually plan to check out the other versions of this title as well. While it may not be as exciting as some of the other titles from this developer I would say it is still worth checking out as it is a well designed game overall.

My final score.