GD: Cotton 2 (possible ST in the making)

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Arvandor
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GD: Cotton 2 (possible ST in the making)

Post by Arvandor »

Alright... There seems to be a lot to this game, and I've found out a bunch of stuff on accident, but I'm wondering what else there is that can be done. This is what I've found so far.

For those who know don't what the numbers I'm using mean, imagine a joystick or d-pad as the number pad on a keyboard. So up+left would be 7, straight down would be 2, neutral 5 etc.

63214B - Elemental capture

664B - Changes whether the fairy is on/off your broomstick(1P), or the hat is on/off your head(2P), apparently has a slight effect on speed.

698A - Spray of elemental attack upwards
632A - Spray of elemental attack downwards

46A - 4 quick powerful elemental shots (I think it's 4, could be 3)
64A - 3 way spread of elemental shots

46A 4A 632A - Command combo of sorts. Does the quad shot, followed by the three shot wide, and then the upwards AND downwards sprays. Unfortunately, this final part is extremely difficult to do consistently (this coming from someone who is very good at Guilty Gear XX games). It has to be executed VERY quickly. I may just stick with the 46A4A part to kill big targets like bosses.

66/22/44/88 A - Tosses an elemental orb at various trajectories
Need to test diagonals

4646C - Discards an element without bombing it off. I guess if you want to change elements without risk of killing off your chain enemies? *shrugs*

963214782A+B+C - Suicide command

You can also hold down the A button to move faster. While maneuvering like this, sometimes I get random bursts of speed, though I have no idea how to duplicate the effect. Simple dash motions don't seem to work, and I haven't messed with quarter circles and the like.

Then, as far as scoring goes... It's obvious that chaining is a big deal, and you can keep chains going by grabbing the last enemy tagged, who should be the only one captured with an elemental aura. Once you finally break the chain, a rainbow bubble of varying sizes (depending on score bonus and chain size etc) appears to be collected. You can also shoot an aura trapped enemy and it says "shot XX" for how many times it's been hit. Obviously, chaining usually breaks this bonus since the enemy thrown gets destroyed. I don't know what this does at all... Enhance bonus to chain? Nothing? Random points? Perhaps store a portion of the shots fired to give it a damage bonus? Which would be really interesting to start boss fights with. I'm not sure. Edit: All it does is give you number of shots x 100 bonus every 10 shots. So 10 shots = 1000, 20 = 2000, etc. No extra damage unfortunately ^_^ And yeah, it'll toss out health-ups every once in a while, but I don't know what governs that. It does get harder to get health ups as you use it more frequently, so since it's a negligible score improvemnt, it's best to save your shot bonuses for later levels when you may need to heal. Edit again: If you kill a big enemy with a decent chain going (usually you have to do this by continuing chains on the stuff the big enemy throws at you), it of course has that chain status on the big enemy. Well, if you hold onto him without tossing him around, and run him into smaller enemies, you'll get the rainbow bubbles for the amount of chain you have (up to 5 hits I think). So, if you kill a big enemy with a 37 chain, then pick him up and run it into some little popcorn enemy, a giant rainbow bubble with however much exp a 37 chain will net you will appear, while maintaining your chain. After the 5th hit, the big enemy is destroyed and the chain continues to grow again normally.

Each element behaves differently too. Fire doesn't seem to do anything special, I assume it does more damage than the others. Ice reflects off of terrain, and ice trapped enemies drop like freaking rocks. Wind shots have limited and random homing, wind trapped enemies slowly float up, and shooting such an enemy draws it towards you, rather than bouncing it up like with fire and ice.

Weapon level: As you gain points (most notably from the rainbow bubbles) you also gain experience, leveling up your weapon. Max is level 5, once you reach level 5, each time you level it after that it simply resets the counter and gives you a point bonus. If you get hit your level decreases. If you manage a decent chain on the first level, you can get it to level 5 quite easily, so it's not really as difficult to try and level your weapon as it is in say Mars Matrix.

You can have 3 elemental orbs at any given time, though I have no idea if having multiple orbs of the same element has any effect or not. I don't know of any way to switch between the orbs, and whichever one is in current use will be your bomb attack when you use one. I can't tell if bombing is discouraged or not in this game (point-wise speaking). Obviously you don't want to during a level, because it'll ruin chains. But on bosses? No idea.

The jewels you can shoot (to change color), grab, and collect... Red is fire, blue is ice, green is wind, and I think yellow/orange are just points? I suspect you might get a bonus for collecting these consecutively, which would be the main way to discourage bombing, but I haven't confirmed this yet.

Anyways... Does anyone know more about this game? Or can confirm/deny what I've figured out so far? I'm really enjoying this game, and am having a blast figuring it out. The main thing I'm worried about is if I'm missing any "special" attacks that require special directional inputs or possibly button combinations, which I haven't messed with at all.

Edit: Added some info, including what was listed by Goshi (right after I did another run of hte game and found out about the 46 and 64 attacks).

Edit2: Added some info from the site BulletMagnet listed. Once I get home and get a chance to experiment with them, I'll edit the entries with more confidence in what certain things actually do =P

Edit3: Added a bit to the scoring system with something I noticed on "big" enemies. If you're lucky one of these days I'll start finding numbers, equations, and actually bother to format the post. Highly unlikely though =P
Last edited by Arvandor on Sun Jan 21, 2007 4:26 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Goshi
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Post by Goshi »

Elements 101

Normal - Wide shot, enemies cannot be trapped, bomb drops a rebounding ball
Fire - High firepower, trapped enemies fall, bomb creates a powerful dragon
Ice - Can rebound off walls, trapped enemies fall, bomb shoots icicles all over the screen
Wind - Slightly homes in on enemies, trapped enemies rise, bomb fires a powerful tornado which moves forward
Light - Fires a long piercing laser, trapped enemies rise, fires beams around the screen

Chaining

Chaining involves trapping enemies and lobbing them. you can also keep shooting the trapped enemies for score as well. Doing this rakes up score but also lets you nab health powerups.

Command Shots

All command shots trap enemies

Back, Forward + Fire - Rapid Shot
Forward, Back + Fire - 3-way shot
Down, Down + Fire - Lobs a bomb
Doing Quarter circles will fire shots in that direction

Jewel Colors

Red - Fire element
Blue - Ice element
Green - Wind element
White - Light element (only available if you continue or your up to Stage 6 or higher)
Yellow - Adds experience
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BulletMagnet
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Post by BulletMagnet »

You might find some other helpful info on this page.
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zinger
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Post by zinger »

Cool, I didn't know there were so many commands. It was long ago since I last played this game, and I don't have it anymore, but I remember liking it a lot. If I ever get an STV mobo, I'll definetly pick this up. It's good to see this finally being analyzed, good luck!
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guigui
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Re: RQ/GD: Cotton 2 (possible ST in the making)

Post by guigui »

Sorry to dig this thread.

Are those the same commands in Boomerang ? And where can I find a real beginner guide that explains character selection, different kinds of shots/power ups etc... I must admit I dont understand anything to what happens on screen while playing boomerang !
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BulletMagnet
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Re: RQ/GD: Cotton 2 (possible ST in the making)

Post by BulletMagnet »

Most of the commands in Boomerang are the same, though you can map most of them to a single button in the options menu if you'd rather not deal with the command motions - off the cuff, though, I think that the "ground bomb" is no longer a command (some characters fire it by default), and you no longer need a special move to instantly capture an enemy (just grabbing them normally will do it). If memory serves, you can also use the "grab" to cancel out bullets this time around, though your charge shot will do that too - you need to time the charge somewhat, though, as holding down the shoot button too soon after firing off a charge shot will cause your character's speed to increase instead, same as Cotton 2. As far as the characters go, each of the Cotton and Appli clones is either Fire, Ice, or Wind-elemental, while Silk and Needle are Light-elemental, the basic behaviors of each are detailed above.

For further info, try the link in my previous post here, I think there's a bit more there.
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guigui
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Re: RQ/GD: Cotton 2 (possible ST in the making)

Post by guigui »

You're right bulletmagnet. That link contains much more things than I first thought.

However, isnt cotton a difficult game to understand (for a shooter I mean) or am I just stupid ?
Bravo jolie Ln, tu as trouvé : l'armée de l'air c'est là où on peut te tenir par la main.
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BulletMagnet
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Re: RQ/GD: Cotton 2 (possible ST in the making)

Post by BulletMagnet »

It definitely doesn't play like much anything else out there, so it takes some getting used to, but like most shmups once you've seen how it works for yourself things tend to click. The fact that concrete info in English is rather scarce doesn't help matters, though.
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Shuurin
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Re: RQ/GD: Cotton 2 (possible ST in the making)

Post by Shuurin »

Hate to necromancy an old thread, but I had a question whether earning extends is possible (and if they are how do you get them? Killing certain enemies or score?) or is it only from editing the options for stock lives in the options menu?

Enjoying the game just some of the enemies do vastly different amounts of dmg.
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Re: RQ/GD: Cotton 2 (possible ST in the making)

Post by BulletMagnet »

To the best of my knowledge you can earn life meter refills by shooting "sealed" enemies or collecting teacups at the end of a level, but by default you only get one life.
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Shuurin
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Re: RQ/GD: Cotton 2 (possible ST in the making)

Post by Shuurin »

I was afraid the "shooting the capture sphere" for life spheres and tea collecting was the only way to restore life. Just need to stop getting hit is all :lol:
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Re: GD: Cotton 2 (possible ST in the making)

Post by Kollision »

I'm aware now that avoiding the midbosses is important to keep a stage-long chain.
However, I'm having a little bit of trouble in figuring out how to safely do it on the fire-spitting dragon of the 4th stage.
Does anyone have any tips on how to do that? :roll:

In the HS thread SamIAm says he can pull it off, but I'm not sure if he's still around. :)
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Re: GD: Cotton 2 (possible ST in the making)

Post by sevensevenseven »

Kollision wrote:I'm aware now that avoiding the midbosses is important to keep a stage-long chain.
Not at all. There's an easy trick to incorporating midbosses in a chain. Just kill the midboss with a command shot, then quickly throw the seal that you're holding at the newly-sealed midboss, thus adding them to your chain.
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Re: GD: Cotton 2 (possible ST in the making)

Post by Kollision »

Well, keeping the seal alive and shot-commanding the mid-boss is beyond my capabilities at the moment :|
For the time being I just ram the seal into that dragon's face, it's safer...
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Re: GD: Cotton 2 (possible ST in the making)

Post by sevensevenseven »

Do you have the command shots mapped to the XYZ buttons?
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Re: GD: Cotton 2 (possible ST in the making)

Post by Kollision »

sevensevenseven wrote:Do you have the command shots mapped to the XYZ buttons?
ahn... no
I'm playing at full defaults :roll:

but yeah, looking at it that way it would be easier to defeat them
though for the 4th midboss relinquishing the seal safely and hitting the bastard is still tricky to pull off
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