Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams (TBCD) - Walkthrough
Version 1.12
Copyright Dec/16/2008 by Apathy000
[email protected]
Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. Game Story
III. Options
IV. Basic Controls / What's on Screen
V. Powerup System
VI. On Crystals
VII. End Level Point Calculation
VIII. Strategies / Tips
IX. Enemies
X. Bosses / Strategies
XI. Stage 1
XII. Stage 2
XIII. Stage 3
XIV. Stage 4
XV. Stage 5
XVI. Stage 6
XVII. Stage 7
XVIII. Endings
XIX. Cheats and Codes
XX. Copyright
I. Introduction
What drew me first to Cotton was the anime-like style of how everything is
portrayed. What kept me interested was the interesting powerup system, the
amusing story, and it just being a fun shooter to play. Since this was
released for the Turbo CD you can be assured you are getting CD quality music,
which is another plus. You will not regret playing through Cotton: Fantastic
Night Dreams.
II. Game Story
An evil mist covered the entire world and somehow snuffed out the day. An
innocent (maybe) witch walks in a forest and comes upon a fairy crying in the
woods. The witch does not care that the world is covered in darkness. The
only thing she wants is a Willow. To eat it. The fairy begs the witch to
restore the world, but the witch does not care. When the fairy, promises the
witch the Willows in return for her help the witch enthusiastically begins her
quest
III. Options
At the starting screen if you press Select you can set two things.
Life - You can choose from 1 to 5 lives
Text - You can choose English, Chinese, or Japanese text
IV. Basic Controls / What's on Screen
1. Controls
Press Fire - fires bullets
Press Bomb - drops bombs
Holding Fire - Use magic if you go it
Holding Bomb - Shoots out your fairy(s)
Holding Fire and Bomb - If you have a magic available, this will use an
entirely new magic depending on the magic color.
Select - Pause
Turbo - Switch to Turbo **Recommended state when you are not using magic
2. What's on Screen
a. Lives - In the upper right are trophies. These represent how many
lives you currently have. Does not continue to add trophies after you go past
5 lives. You can have more than 4 lives it does not show it.
b. Magic - On the bottom right you have your magic. A little picture
shows whether it is a blue or red magic. You can only carry 4 max.
c. Bullet Level - The bar on the bottom of the screen gets filled as you
get crystals and do damage. As the bar gets repeatedly filled, this increases
the size and amount of crystals beside the bar until you reach the max bullet
level. Refer to the Powerup System section for more details.
d. Points - The points are located in the upper left section of the
screen. Every 20,000 points you get another life.
V. Powerup System
1. Bullets - Max level is 13
On the bottom of the screen there is a bar that fills as you damage
enemies and gain crystals. At level 1 to bar is miniscule and will not take
much to fill it, and advance to level 2. As your level increases so does the
amount of damage/crystals you have to give/attain. When you start at level 1,
there is a tiny blue crystal. This crystal reflects your current bullet
level. The crystal gets bigger until you reach level 4, and then you get
another crystal next to your bar. When you get 4 large crystals next to your
bar and it looks like the bar will not grow any larger, then you have reached
level 12. When you fill the bar up on last time, and the four crystals
combine into one enormous one, then you have reached 13, the highest you can
attain. I like how they made the most unlucky number into the most lucky.
Kind of appropriate for Cotton being that she seems to be a witch.
Each level adds more/bigger forward bullets that Cotton can use. However,
leveling in this game is extremely difficult. Getting to any level beyond
level 6 requires you to defeat at least one stage without dying. When you die
your current level is halved. The only silver lining is that they use a
ceiling function on the result, so that if you have level 13, then your level
will drop to 7. But if you can get level 13, Cotton becomes a weapon of mass
destruction that can waste any number of enemies in front of you.
**Orange Crystal increases your bar the most.**
2. Bombs
Bombs are a weapon you do not want to be without, and the more powerful
you make them the easier this game will be. You can upgrade your bombs by
touching the multi-colored circle-like object that floats up and down on the
screen after some enemies are destroyed.
The bombs have a nice little feature that if you hold the back button,
Cotton will toss the bombs down at a shallower angle. This is very useful on
the level 6 mini boss. It really is a shame that when you die all your bomb
powerups disappear, because when they get up they kick a ton of butt.
level 1 - starting - one bomb, very slow frequency of fire
level 2 - two bombs
level 3 - adds a red bomb that shoots out along the ground.
level 4 - adds another red bomb that moves along the ground
3. Fairies
Fairies are a constant companion of Cotton. Good thing to, otherwise this
game would be much harder. Cotton always has at least one fairy as a
companion, but you can get up to 4. You can add a fairy by destroying an
enemy that carries a fairy cast in metal. When you die with more than 1 fairy
than one sacrifices itself and kills all the enemies on the screen before your
resurrection. You can control the position of each fairy in your retinue
through your movement. Controlling the fairies was extremely well done in my
opinion since it is easy and intuitive once you see how they move. Each fairy
has three main attack abilities.
1. Shoots a bullet about once every half-second.
2. If it touches an enemies it will cling to them and cause damage until they
are dead or off screen. The damage is pretty significant if you are firing
while it is clinging, because your little fairy will fire as well.
3. They can be shot forward by holding the bomb button. They cling to the
enemy and damage them. Note that they do not perform this behavior on mini-
bosses or bosses.
4. Magic
When enemies die they sometimes drop a crystal. These crystals are the
key to using magic. There are only two types of magic and they are given by a
blood red crystal and a blue crystal.
The blood-red crystals give a flame dragon that shoots out straight in
front of you. The blue crystal gives you an awesome long lasting, powerful,
lightning attack. The flame dragon is weaker and less lasting, the
lightning. What makes magic so incredibly useful in this game is the fact
that while you are using the spell you are INVINCIBLE. Since this game is a
shooter you can just imagine how useful this is. Unfortunately you can only
carry 4 spells at a time, but that is still a very good amount.
When you get a crystal that is either blue or blood-red you need to know
that they added to your queue of four spells. Each magic you get is added to
the queue, and the magic that was first in is the first to leave. This means
that if you accidentally get a fire magic then you will have to get 4 other
blue magics to get rid of the flame magic.
Every once in a while you come across a large crystal. If you change the
crystal's color to that of blue or blood-red, then you will receive 2 magics
dependent on the color. There is an even bigger crystal, which I dub the UBER-
Crystal. This gives you a bunch of experience points toward your bullets, and
full blue/red magic if you get either of those.
You can perform a combination attack with the fairy when you have a magic.
Hold the fire button, and then hold the bomb button. This will make your fairy
float around you and change the color of the pre-magic sparkles around Cotton
to several colors other than red. Casting the magic this way will do something
other than simply shooting it out in a line in front of Cotton. Look at the
later section for more details.
And so to sum up all you need to know:
1. Blue crystals give Lighting magic, and this has a long invincibility
time when cast. When used in combination with a fairy (look at later section)
this will make a blue bubble appear around you.
2. Blood-Red crystals give Flame Dragon magic that does fairly low damage,
and has low invincibilty time when cast. Use the fire magics in combination
with the fairy to make yourself invincible for a long time and to set the fairy
on fire. This combination magic is the strongest in the game.
5. Combination Magic with a Fairy
You can perform a combination attack with the fairy when you have a
magic.
Hold the fire button, and then hold the bomb button. This will make your fairy
float around you and change the color of the pre-magic sparkles around Cotton
to several colors other than red. Casting the magic this way will do something
other than simply shooting it out in a line in front of Cotton.
1. Fire and Fairy - Flaming Fairies
This combination attacks sets your fairies on fire and makes them fly
around
Cotton. It is extremely powerful and can kill just about any boss or miniboss
in two to three uses. Unfortunately you cannot shoot the flaming fairies due
to the rules, BUT you can ram them repeatedly into various objects. These
various objects quickly die from contact with the flaming fairies. This
combination magic is the strongest in the game, and it also makes you
invincible
for the entire duration fo the spell.
Use the red magic as the color to perform this magic.
2. Lightning and Fire - Shield
The shield combination magic is the least useful magic in the game. Using
this will make a bubble appear around Cotton. This will prevent Cotton from
taking damage, but it is very limited. After a second or two or ramming or
being shot the shield will go away. The shield is also timed to disappear
after
something like 5 seconds anyway! I see no reason to use this in favor of the
Lightning Magic, which not only makes you invincible for about the same time
period, but it also kills all the enemies you can shoot.
Use the blue magic as the color to perform this magic.
**Without Incidental the Supreme Pimp's hint, I would not have known about
this combination technique.
VI. On Crystals
Crystals drop from enemies fairly randomly in Cotton. Sometimes it is
necessary to kill a whole wave of a certain type for it to drop one crystal.
Crystals have four colors Blue, Blood Red, Yellow, and Orange. You can change
the colors of these crystals by shooting them. I suggest using individual
bombs so you can stop shooting once you see your desired color (which is
probably blue).
The Blood Red crystals give you flame magic, and the Blue crystals give
you Lightning magic. And all the other colors give you experience points
towards your next level of bullets. Every once in a while you come across a
large crystal. If you change the crystal's color to that of blue or blood-
red, then you will receive 2 magics dependent on the color, and if it is a non-
magic color then you just get experience toward the bullets. There is an even
bigger crystal, which I dub the UBER-Crystal. This gives you a bunch of
experience points toward your bullets, and full blue/red magic if you get
either of those colors.
Orange Crystals are a good choice to go with since they give a lot more to
your buller level than any other crystal. It seems they give 2 to 3 times
more
toward your bullets than the others.
Yellow Crystals are the worst crystals. They give little to the bullet
level, and they do not give any type of magic. It is best to try to shoot or
bomb them into a different coloring.
The best thing to do with crystals is to use them to get 1UPs. By getting
a blue or blood red crystal when you have all 4 slots filled with some magic,
allows you to receive 1,000 bonus points. Every 20,000 points you will get a
1UP. Even though the screen only shows 4 trophies representing your lives (if
you have that many), you can hold many more lives than just 4.
VII. End Level Point Calculation
When you defeat a boss there is a little bonus round, where you can
accumulate a few thousand points. There will be little tiles that fall from
the top of the screen. The light colored ones are worth 100 each. The darker
tiles are each worth 500. The lighter colored ones are all added to your
score en masse shortly after the tiles stop falling, but the darker ones are
added immediately. After the tiles stop falling a little screen with a barely
clothed fairy announces the points that will be added to your score. Here you
can see that you get 1,000 points for each magic that you have in your
inventory. This is another incentive to defeat bosses without using all your
magic.
After all is said and done you can make a pretty good killing. You
should easily be able to get around 10,000 points just at the end of the
round! And since an extra life costs 20,000 points it is common to get enough
for your next life. The game will add your extra life at the start of the
next level.
VIII. Strategies / Tips
1. Keep trying for the magic crystals so you get 1,000 points for every magic
crystal you get when you already have all 4. Every 20,000 points gives you a
1Up.
2. In stage 4 before the fire mini boss you can get an UBER gem.
3. Stay away from the edges of the map, because enemies fly in quickly.
4. Always try to get the blue crystal for its lightning magic, and the blood
red crystal for its combination magic.
5. You can time the Mini Bosses out. Useful for the crab mini-boss if you
are having trouble eliminating the last one.
6. Try to keep as many crystals in play as possible until you can get them
to the color you want.
7. For each Level the game allows you to continue for two continues, your
current one and a new one.
IX. Enemies
Archer - One of the most annoying enemies in the game. It shoots a red
arrow either forward or in an arc. The red arrow is quite hard to see on
Level 6, because the background has a lot of red in it.
Bat - They just fly straight forward. Easy meat.
Bird - Fly together in packs and move in fixed paths. Sometimes there is a
lone one that will fire shots at you.
Blue Devil - This comes on screen and throws a spear straight forward.
Chimera - A tough enemy with a decent amount of health. It tries to smash
into while shooting fireballs.
Cloud - These are placed to get in your way for the most part. They always
drop something when they are killed.
Dwarf - They throw an axe in an arc towards you. Use bombs for best
effect.
Eyeball - Floats around in the level. Very easily killed.
Fish - Only appears in water (duh). It shoots bubbles upward that block
your shots.
Fire Dragon - Large amount of health, and a fast bullet make these tough
opponents.
Flying Cutter - These fly all over the place, but only in a straight line.
Ghost - Homes in on your position. Wants to make its scythe meet your face.
Grass Woman - Starts out on the ground, jumps up, and spreads shots in many
directions. Not many of them in the game.
Imp - Has a giant eye that shoots a laser beam forward. It them raises the
beam straight above it.
Stack o' Wood - These things are un-killable, but you can knock their parts
back so you can go past.
Sword Fairy - These fly on screen and release a small blue wave which moves
forward quickly.
Turtle - Lots of health combined with shots that spray out make this a
difficult enemy to kill. Bypassing them is probably best.
Weird Metal Head - It usually carries various objects. You get 3,000 points
if you kill it when it carries nothing. If it carries a fairy, and you kill
it, a multi-colored acorn looking object will fall down below it. If you can
catch that you get a whopping 5,000 points. These enemies are immune to your
fairy's clinging attack.
Zombie - It shoots its head at you, and boy does it make a good homing
missile. Kill these as soon as you see them. The head can still kill even
after it stops chasing you and falls to the ground.
X. Bosses / Strategy
1. In Need of Heads
Find a safe spot in the upper left corner of the screen and keep shooting
until it dies. The safe spot is easy to find. Stay near the upper left
corner and dodge one shot, then you have found it.
2. Evil Dead Wannabe
Shoot it with lightning magic once the head comes off. You want to kill the
hands and the head because they are very dangerous. Then just shoot the
body. Watch out because the body will jump forward. Also be kind of careful
of the extra long neck that extends from the main body.
3. Silly Centipede! Tricks are for Kids!
The centipede has two difficult moves. The first is that it fires a small
homing fuzz ball at you that has a lot of health. The second is spikes that
shoot straight up from the ground, and then retract. Stay in the upper left
corner and keep blasting the centipede with magic. It will take all four
shots to kill it, and maybe a few other normal shots. If you have enough
fire power you could also stay on the left edge and just keep shooting the
boss and the little enemies it fires at you.
4. Sphinx in the Face
First Form - Stay in the upper left corner and avoid the dwarfs and the bats
that it vomits at you. Do not use any magic here.
Second Form - Use magic to obliterate the snake out of the lion's mouth. This
guy uses homing fireballs and these are extremely hard to dodge. The only way
to beat this without dying is magic.
5. Grabby Green
a) Hover Cotton over the boss's tongue. You cannot be harmed there, from its
giant hands or form the shots it fires from its mouth. Then just bomb it
until it dies.
b) This is the second harder way to defeat him. Stay to the left edge of the
screen and as far down as possible. The boss's shoot three waves of shots.
The first will miss. The second would hit you if you stay still, so move
slightly up, then move back down to avoid the third shot.
6. Lava Dragon
a) The poor man's way of victory is to stay all the way left down and keep
firing until it dies. You are almost untouchable in that position. You will
probably die once or twice in that position, but it does seem to be the most
effective.
b) Stay to the left of the screen, but keep using magic whenever the dragon
fires fireballs at you. Dodge if you run out of magic, but it should not be a
problem.
b) Yet another way to kill it is to hover above the head and bomb the dragon
from the top of the screen. But you will need to move above the body to avoid
its upward fireballs.
7. The Ultimate Fairy
The enemy boss appears directly in front of you every time it reappears.
Go to the center of the screen then move slightly to the right. The boss will
appear near the right screen. This is good because it will give you room to
maneuver from her spiraling death heads.
XI. Stage 1
The first level is not a level that will cause anyone to get a game over.
However there are a few surprises that will most likely kill you if this is
your first time playing. The first surprise is the Mini Boss. It rushes
onscreen fairly quickly and will try to hit you with the spinning rocks.
Blast that sucker with magic to kill it. The second surprise is a bird that
is standing on the ground. This bird will shoot a shot at you unlike most of
its kind. The third surprise is the Imp. The green imp shoots a large laser
forward and slowly points it up. Blast it with magic if you are at a loss as
to how to dodge. The boss is very easy. Stay in the upper left area and find
the safe area between its shots, and shoot it to death.
Mini Boss - Rock
This the largest mini boss in the game. It has a bunch of rocks that spin
around its core. One lightning magic takes care of this guy.
Boss - In Need of Heads
Find a safe spot in the upper left corner of the screen and keep shooting
until it dies. The safe spot is easy to find. Stay near the upper left
corner and dodge one shot, then you have found it.
XII. Stage 2
The second stage increases the difficulty quite a bit. The Flying Cutters
fly on stage from behind as well on this stage. The second stage just has
more stuff than the first level. The Mini Boss is more like a boss than
anything else, and probably should just be shot with magic until it dies. You
need to watch out for the archer's and their hard to see arrows. But by far
the hardest part is before the boss with ghosts trying to ram you along side
zombie heads. Try to kill the zombies as soon as they come on screen or you
will most likely be dying far more then you would like. I find it amusing
that the boss is pretty much the easiest part of the level.
Mini Boss - Creepy Tree
This mini boss can be a real pain, because it has a massive amount of health,
and it is shooting tiny seeds which turn into trees all over the place. I
suggest just blasting this guy with magic until it dies. If you only use your
normal shot you will probably not be able to kill it until the fight times
out, and the level progresses.
Boss - Evil Dead Wannabe
Shoot it with lightning magic once the head comes off. You want to kill the
hands and the head because they are very dangerous. Then just shoot the
body. Watch out because the body will jump forward. Also be kind of careful
of the extra long neck that extends from the main body.
XIII. Stage 3
The third stage does not really have anything that is overly difficult. Make
sure to keep your magic inventory full and keep away from the sides and you
should be fine. The Mini Boss can quickly be killed with magic, so no trouble
there. However there is one tough part before the boss where you may want to
use magic once to clear it out from all the enemies. The boss is easy if you
use all your magic on it, but it could be tough if you fail to stock up on it.
Mini Boss - Flame
This boss is not hard at all. It moves along the bottom and jumps every few
seconds spraying fire everywhere near it. Stay reasonably far away from it
and keep shooting. Magic will deal with it quite quickly.
Silly Centipede! Tricks are for Kids!
The centipede has two difficult moves. The first is that it fires a small
homing fuzz ball at you that has a lot of health. The second is spikes that
shoot straight up from the ground, and then retract. Stay in the upper left
corner and keep blasting the centipede with magic. It will take all four
shots to kill it, and maybe a few other normal shots.
XIV. Stage 4
This is where the difficult starts increasing again. Lots of enemies all over
the place combined with a restricted space to dodge and a tough boss makes
this quite a hard level. You really should be using magic every once in a
while if you are in a pinch. However you must makes certain that you get to
the boss with full magic, otherwise its second form will eat you for breakfast.
Mini Boss - George
Shoot the plant with 2 magic blasts to eliminate this extremely easy mini boss.
Boss - Sphinx in the Face
First Form - Stay in the upper left corner and avoid the dwarfs and the bats
that it vomits at you. Do not use any magic here.
Second Form - Use magic to obliterate the snake out of the lion's mouth. This
guy uses homing fireballs and these are extremely hard to dodge. The only way
to beat this without dying is magic.
XV. Stage 5
The first half of this level has a high chance of giving you a game over,
because of the mini boss. Even though the first half is much tougher than
anything yet encountered in the game, you NEED to be able to bring at least
two magics to kill one of the Red Crabs. If you do not you will need to try
to time them out. After the mini boss you are nearly free of this level. You
do not need to conserve your magic for the boss, since you can park your broom
right above its tongue and bomb it until it dies.
Mini Boss - Red Crabs
1) Blast one of the crabs with all your magic and kill it. It should take 2
blue magics and a couple of shots to finish off. Then it becomes much easier
to kill the remaining one.
2) Timeout - This is the desperate and boring method of continuing the level.
Stay on the rock to the right of the screen on the bottom. It is the safest
spot by far. However, if the bottom crab stops right at the edge of the left
screen its shot will be able to hit you. This event is very rare however.
Boss - Grabby Green
a) Hover Cotton over the boss's tongue. You cannot be harmed there, from its
giant hands or form the shots it fires from its mouth. Then just bomb it
until it dies.
b) This is the second harder way to defeat him. Stay to the left edge of the
screen and as far down as possible. The boss's shoot three waves of shots.
The first will miss. The second would hit you if you stay still, so move
slightly up, then move back down to avoid the third shot.
XVI. Stage 6
If you are going to fail anywhere in the game it will be on this level. Tough
fire dragons are commonplace along with archers, chimeras, and clouds. If you
can get your bombs to max level you will have a much easier time of beating
this. Otherwise you will be struggling to identify the archer's red arrows
and the fire dragon's red fireball (did I mention the background is mostly
red?). The mini boss is hardly a challenge, but the section after him is.
The section before the boss is very hard. You will truly have to resist using
your magic too much here. You will be wanting those magics for the boss.
Mini Boss - Twins
At the start of the mini boss there are several Weird Metal Heads on the
ground and Clouds hovering around. It is important that you destroy them
ASAP. To defeat the mini boss you need to move in a circular motion around
one half of the screen. The two mini bosses start out on ground, on opposites
sides of the screen. They fire a shot diagonally upward, walk forward, and
jump off screen. When the reappear on the sides of the screen the pattern
repeats. If you stay near the left side of the screen and hold back (to make
the path of the bomb shallower) you can bomb them when they appear there after
they jump. Then just avoid their jumping, and they will die eventually.
Boss - Lava Dragon
a) The poor man's way of victory is to stay all the way left down and keep
firing until it dies. You will probably die once or twice in that position,
since every once in a while a fireball will sneak in.
b) Stay to the left of the screen, but keep using magic whenever the dragon
fires fireballs at you. Dodge if you run out of magic, but it should not be a
problem.
b) Yet another way to kill it is to hover above the head and bomb the dragon
form the top of the screen. But you will need to move above the body to avoid
its upward fireballs.
XVII. Stage 7
Boss - Ultimate Fairy
This entire level is solely dedicated to the final boss. The final boss
appears directly in front of you every time it reappears. Go to the center of
the screen then move slightly to the right. The boss will appear near the
right screen. This is good because it will give you room to maneuver from her
spiraling death heads.
After its defeat you can go enjoy and the ending :).
XVIII. Endings
You can get two different endings.
1) The first one is the first time beaten through.
2) The second ending is when you beat the GO EXTRA game after you have beaten
it through once. You will have to use the lives and continues left over from
first time though.
XIX. Cheats and Codes
1) Level Select (Up to Level 4) ** verified
Press Select at the title screen to bring up the options screen. Then,
highlight exit. Next, press Down, 2, 2, Left, 1, Right, Select. You will hear
a chime, the letters in the background will turn red, and a stage select
option will appear.
In the game you will normally have 4 continues, but with the code you can
start the game at Level 1 with 9 continues. When you put in the code it will
modify your amount of continues depending on the level. For every level
you skip will decrease your new continue amount by 1. At Level 1 you get 9
continues, at Level 2 you get 8 continues, at Level 3 you get 7 continues,
and at Level 4 you get 6 continues.
From
http://cheats.ign.com/ob2/068/008/008724.html#439788
XX. Copyright Dec/16/2008 by Apathy000 aka Michael Zacka
This may not be reproduced under any circumstances except for
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Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public
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All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by
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Sites that have my permission to use this guide are gamefaqs.com.
