Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams [Arcade/PCE/X68000/PS1/NGPC]

[Perikles]

PC Engine



Perikles - 564,820 - 2-ALL

Aw yeah, bow down before my (not so) awesome Cotton skills! Ever since I saw you guys getting the 2-ALL I knew I had to do it, too. Refined my survival strategies considerably, there was probably not a single spot during the second loop where I had less than 12+ lives. Once you know the appropriate modus operandi for all the bosses it becomes fairly easy (still not so sure about the dragon, though, it's still awkward to dodge the whirling fireballs if you're on top of him; there's a safespot in the lower left for most of his patterns, but not all of them). Great, great game, seriously considering giving it a spot on the upcoming top 25! It's such a jest trying to get the secret bonus, too, unlike in Cotton 100% where I can never get it for some reason.

Will post a Cotton Original score next time I dig out my PS1, I've cleared it quite a while ago, score's pathetic, however. Say, Kino, is it challenging to 2-ALL the arcade version?

[Kino]

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[Perikles]

Damn, nice one! How many hours did you milk the Stage 1 boss?

Not at all, actually. I got eight secret bonus rounds and a lot of points for picking up crystals/orbs while being maxed out. I murdered the first boss right away on either loop.

And thanks for the information! How come that the X68000 version is harder than the arcade game?

Edit: Great videos you got there! Ultra rapid sure helps out for Cotton Original's Hard difficulty I'd surmise?

[Kino]

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[Perikles]

Cotton Original - Normal



Perikles - 929,310 - ALL

I don't want to play this any longer, it really is disappointing compared to the splendid PCE CD port. I also hate, hate, hate playing without autofire - yes, it's absolutely not necessary in this game, I still despise having to tap or mash buttons, it's a pet peeve of mine ever since. Furthermore I'm convinced that this particular port just loves to rain on my parade, I never get more than two secret bonus rounds for some godforsaken reason (here I got one in stage 1 and one in stage 5 (!), both stage 2 and 3 screwed me over in the last possible moment with an unavoidable wall of tea cups ). I shall return with an arcade score one day!

[Kino]

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[ProjectAKo]

Keep it up, im sure you can figure it out through testing stuff in savestates

[Mero]

I never get more than two secret bonus rounds for some godforsaken reason (here I got one in stage 1 and one in stage 5 (!), both stage 2 and 3 screwed me over in the last possible moment with an unavoidable wall of tea cups ).

Yeah, I could only ever get it on the first 3 stages, too many tea cups after that.

[Kino]

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[Kino]

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[Kino]

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[Perikles]

Arcade



Perikles - 2,113,190 - 2-ALL - 30Hz

Video


Maaaan! I was of course not expecting to come even close to Kino's score after just a few hours of playing the game and not learning the proper milking routines, but I'm bummed nonetheless. Didn't lose a single life all the way to 2-6, and then I die twice to those dumb idols. While these are just plain silly (not enthusiastic about the high resilience of enemies in the second loop) I don't have any excuse for my horrendous performance on the dragon afterwards. Oh well. I was playing "cottonja" in case it's important.

At least now I know why the PCE port explicitly asks you whether you want to play the second loop or not. It always struck me as odd, I couldn't presage that you have to actually put in a second coin in the arcade coin to play the second loop, that's rather insolent! And like Kino I also have no idea how on earth to get 4m or more in this game, even with perfect milking, every secret bonus, no lives lost and a lot of colored crystals you're not even going to hit 3m...

[EmperorIng]

After owning and enjoying this game for a while I'd like to add my say to the scoreboard.

PCE CD version:

EmperorIng - 2-3 - 312,850



Man, I screwed up a lot during that first loop. I somehow misjudged the 5th-stage boss's safe-spot, sending me all out of whack and underpowered for the final stage. Thank goodness for that generous safe-spot for the dragon, or else I don't know how I would have dealt with him otherwise. The final boss was cheesed accordingly, as well.

I guess it's kinda bad that so many bosses, especially at the latter half, can be dispatched with a few simple tricks, but this game's ginormous hitbox makes me nervous enough as it is despite the lives being handed out like Willow candies. The lack of fire-power really makes you vulnerable in the later stages since everything just has much more health.

My quick death into the second loop was due to the newfound realization that every enemy has more health now, so my simple strategies of bombing particular larger enemies (notably stage 1's midboss) left me woefully unprepared for a nasty surprise.

Still, this was a perfect shmup to open up the Halloween season with!

[TodayIsForgotten]

Hey guys. I just started playing this game a little bit myself. It wont help your scores out very much but on stage 1 after the first stone head (not sure of the logistics of this) but you go about an inch away from the bottom right of the screen and constantly drop bombs it will reveal another stone head just before "stone face."

There are probably more of these reveals throughout the game but definitely not 2m worth. Also, the bubbles (at least on stage 1) do not stay on the screen.

[Kino]

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[Kino]

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[Kino]

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[Kino]

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[EmperorIng]

Cotton You Do! is such a troll difficulty. But I'm glad you persevered! You make me want to try my hand at finally beating the 68K remake... But anything harder than the PCE is 2hard 4 this scrub

[M.Knight]

Arcade version
M.Knight - 114,050 -1-2 - No Autofire

Spoiler

[Dumple]

Arcade AUTOFIRE OFF
Dumple - 901,710 - 2-3

Here's a replay with some non-autofire-friendly strats, including a cheeky safespot for the stage 4 boss:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itBAIBsd5ro

[azmun]

May I request the moderator to include me on the score board? I started my 1cc attempt early this month and finally succeeded in completing the game. It's not as easy as some have put it and has taken me almost a full month. Upon completing, the game asks me if I want to go extra. I did the second round/loop but got up to the third stage only. All enemies are tougher now. The medusa/centipede boss got be bad and beaten to a pulp.

azmun - 409,270 - ALL (2-3) PC Engine

https://imgur.com/a/TpVSbeX

[Ex_Mosquito]

PC Engine CD

Ex_Mosquito- 567,320 - 2-ALL

[marus]

x68000 (XM6 TypeG 332L30)
Normal
marus-MPO - 1,323,370 - ALL

Spoiler

I just started playing this game with the release of Cotton Reboot on PS4 & Switch! Ironically I'm playing on emulator for now so I can use savestates for practice; either way though the game's pretty fun!

I haven't done any in-depth comparisons, but from what I can tell there are a few differences between the original x68000 version and the port. Most are pretty small but one is big. I'm not super familiar with the game and I can't play on an original x68000 computer, so I'm not sure if these are due to emulator bugs or if there were multiple versions of the game released - I'm curious if anyone more familiar with the game can chime in.

• The original x68000 is way more generous with extends. I wasn't paying super close attention but I definitely got extends at 100,000 and 300,000 points, and I think 500,000 as well. On PS4 I only noticed getting an extend at 100,000. I still haven't gotten that far on the PS4 version so I don't know if that's the only extend you get, or if the values are just different. This is by far the biggest difference I've noticed so far.
• On the PS4, as soon as you beat a boss you can't shoot any more shots until the next stage. On the x68000 you can continue to shoot until the Tea Time starts. This is important as it means on PS4 you can't shoot the crystals to change their color after the boss is defeated.
• The PS4 version gives you a new dedicated Magic button. You can do the different magic attacks by either tapping it or by holding it down. In the x68000 you only have 2 buttons, and you do the different magic attacks by holding down just the A button, or holding both the A+B buttons. This means you can use some of the magic attacks faster in the PS4 version, since you don't have to hold the button down.
• This might be placebo, but it feels to me like you build exp faster on the x68000, or maybe shots do more damage. This could just be my autofire setting being more aggressive in the XM6 emulator though.
• There's more slowdown in the x68000 version. Again, this could be due to the emulator though (and different versions of the x68000 could have different slowdown too for all I know).

Overall I think the extra extends and slowdown makes the x68000 version WAY easier. I'm not sure if the slowdown is supposed to be intentional, but the missing extends in the PS4 version is a really weird change.

[EmperorIng]

Kino has given me permission to shutter this thread and open a new score thread for Cotton games and the new Cotton reboot. You may find it here: viewtopic.php?p=1452942#p1452942

[zoydo]

Arcade:

zoydo - 907.660 - St.8/(2-2) - autofire (30Hz)

Video: https://youtu.be/Qzc-m8fEXwM



PC Engine:

zoydo - 261.680 - St.12

Video: https://youtu.be/Zh5RHQq7WKM