GD: Cotton - Fantastic Night Dreams

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Herr Schatten
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GD: Cotton - Fantastic Night Dreams

Post by Herr Schatten »

I got Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams for my PCE the day before yesterday and I'm enjoying it a lot.

However, I don't seem to get exactly which way the powerup system works. The yellow round things improve the bombs, right? The yellow crytals seem to give you bonus points and the blue and red ones special magic attacks.

What do the orange crystals do?

And how exactly does the experience system work? Is it directly tied to score or is there more to it?

What's the point of the "tea time"? Just score?

How do I trigger the different special attacks (magic, fire Silk, shield) and is it really worthwhile to use them? So far I'm only using normal fire most of the time.



I can make it to the stage 5 boss (the big green face), but there my journey ends usually. Absolutely everything on screen seems to be deadly suddenly. Any hints on how to beat him? Is there a save spot maybe?
Last edited by Herr Schatten on Sat Jun 11, 2005 7:38 am, edited 2 times in total.
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BulletMagnet
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Re: RQ: Cotton - Fantastic Night Dreams (powerups/ stage 5 b

Post by BulletMagnet »

It's been a little bit since I played this on my PSX but I'll try to remember as best I can...
Herr Schatten wrote:The yellow round things improve the bombs, right?
To the best of my knowledge, that's right.
The yellow crytals seem to give you bonus points and the blue and red ones special magic attacks. What do the orange crystals do?
The yellow ones actually increase your experience meter a bit; I believe that the orange crystals do the same thing, only more so.
And how exactly does the experience system work? Is it directly tied to score or is there more to it?
I imagine you mean the meter at the bottom of the screen. Once it's filled up, your shot's power will increase; both shooting down enemies and collecting crystals raise it. Dying lowers your power level by one, IIRC.
What's the point of the "tea time"? Just score?
To the best of my knowledge it's pretty much just an end of stage bonus.
How do I trigger the different special attacks (magic, fire Silk, shield) and is it really worthwhile to use them? So far I'm only using normal fire most of the time.
This one I'm really not sure about, but I believe that charging your normal shot will give you the "regular" fire blasts and whatnot, and charging your bombs (or your shot and bomb at the same time) can give you a shield instead...you'll have to experiment with that one though.
I can make it to the stage 5 boss (the big green face), but there my journey ends usually. Absolutely everything on screen seems to be deadly suddenly. Any hints on how to beat him? Is there a save spot maybe?
Hmm...big green face...I'll hafta dig my PS disc out.

Hopefully at least some of that helped.
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Re: RQ: Cotton - Fantastic Night Dreams (powerups/ stage 5 b

Post by Herr Schatten »

BulletMagnet wrote:
I can make it to the stage 5 boss (the big green face), but there my journey ends usually. Absolutely everything on screen seems to be deadly suddenly. Any hints on how to beat him? Is there a save spot maybe?
Hmm...big green face...I'll hafta dig my PS disc out.

Hopefully at least some of that helped.
Indeed it did. I'll experiment with the special attacks later a bit, I think.

The stage five boss is a huge green face that shoots fast spreads from its mouth while big green hands break through the floor and ceiling all of the time. Everything, the hands, the shots from the face's mouth and even the floor/ceiling bits kill Cotton instantly.
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Post by BulletMagnet »

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention: I'm not sure if the first Cotton has this, but on the "Tea Time" section in the Saturn-era Cotton games, if you manage to miss every single falling teacup, you get a large "secret bonus" (I forget exactly how much). I haven't tried it with the 16-bit Cottons though, maybe you'd want to.
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Post by Herr Schatten »

BulletMagnet wrote:Oh, one thing I forgot to mention: I'm not sure if the first Cotton has this, but on the "Tea Time" section in the Saturn-era Cotton games, if you manage to miss every single falling teacup, you get a large "secret bonus" (I forget exactly how much). I haven't tried it with the 16-bit Cottons though, maybe you'd want to.
Sounds interesting. I'll have to try that.

In the meantime I accidentally found a safe spot at the stage 5 boss. If you sit right in front of his eye, almost ontop of his nose, you won't get hit. I have now made it to the stage 6 boss (blue dragon). I died there, but the fight doesn't seem to be all that hard.

And it seems that the yellow crystals just increase your score (which also increases EXP a bit, since you get a little EXP for earning points) while the orange ones directly increase EXP in huge leaps.

I experimented with the special attacks and found out that holding down button II triggers magic, holding down button I sends out the little faeries and pressing both buttons activates the shield or sets the faeries on fire. If only I knew how it's determined whether you get the shield or the fire-faeries, as the shield is the only special attack I actually find useful enough that stopping to fire the normal shot to trigger it seems like an adequate tradeoff.
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Post by BulletMagnet »

Herr Schatten wrote:If only I knew how it's determined whether you get the shield or the fire-faeries, as the shield is the only special attack I actually find useful enough that stopping to fire the normal shot to trigger it seems like an adequate tradeoff.
Maybe it's whether you have a red or blue magic icon up to use next?
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Post by Herr Schatten »

BulletMagnet wrote:
Herr Schatten wrote:If only I knew how it's determined whether you get the shield or the fire-faeries, as the shield is the only special attack I actually find useful enough that stopping to fire the normal shot to trigger it seems like an adequate tradeoff.
Maybe it's whether you have a red or blue magic icon up to use next?
Yes, that's it. I only wish they had just implemented the shield, because the fire faeries are pretty useless and there always seems to be a red magic symbol in front when I need a blue one. :?
BulletMagnet wrote:Oh, one thing I forgot to mention: I'm not sure if the first Cotton has this, but on the "Tea Time" section in the Saturn-era Cotton games, if you manage to miss every single falling teacup, you get a large "secret bonus" (I forget exactly how much). I haven't tried it with the 16-bit Cottons though, maybe you'd want to.
Thanks for mentioning this. It does work in Fantastic Night Dreams, too. You get a yummy bonus of 20,000 points for missing all the teacups.
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Post by BulletMagnet »

Heh, I guess you just hafta do your best to collect only (or at least mostly) blue crystals...I'm not much good at it either. But hmm, the Secret Bonus exists in the old Cotton too...I'll hafta remember that. :)
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Post by Herr Schatten »

BulletMagnet wrote:Heh, I guess you just hafta do your best to collect only (or at least mostly) blue crystals...I'm not much good at it either.
I try to collect orange crystals exclusively, as a rise in experience is much more desirable than everything else. I pick up the red and blue crystals only accidently. :? I only use the shield on the second form of the stage two boss effectively anyway. Sometimes I use it on the sphinx and the green face in stage 5 as well, but I can also beat those without them.

Yesterday I made it into stage 6 on my first life. This was the first time I had my main shot at maximum power with no more experience levels left to reach. Looks quite impressive. Unfortunately I got hit by one of those hard-to-see arrows from the archers. Losing two power levels of the main shot when losing a life is not all that bad, but losing the red bombs is painful, as you really need them in stage 6. Without them, at least one scene in stage 6 is impossible to survive.

Still having problems with the blue dragon boss. I thought I had found a safe spot in the upper left corner, but it turned out that it wasn't one. I'm considering a more agressive way of dealing with the boss (instead of hiding in a corner), but I haven't figured out his attack patterns yet and the fireballs are so awfully fast if you want to rely on your own raection time.
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Post by Herr Schatten »

Alright. I cleared it. I reached stage 6 on my first life, but I died there twice and I lost more lives on the dragon boss. Fortunately, I got a lot of extends during the game. I cleared the game on my last life.

I didn't expect the game to have a second loop. :shock:

I found the final boss fight a bit anticlimactic. Not to the extend of the average Konami end boss, mind you, but still. The last boss was a lot easier than the blue dragon, as my strategy for that one still sucks (getting up close, dying and getting up close again is hardly what I call a strategy).

Anyway, great game. Now I'm going hunting down the other parts of the series. Thanks for all your help, Bullet Magnet.

I changed the topic title to GD. I'd love to discuss some more (boss) strategies.
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Post by BulletMagnet »

Glad to have been of service. :) There's another thread on here someplace wherein I and a few others discussed Cotton 2 and Boomerang (which play quite differently from the originals); check that out for some info on those, if you're thinking of trying them out.
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