It’s Tea Time, Witches!
Great video games are often the kind that are quite easy to pick up, but soon reveal layers upon layers of depth that ultimately take a long time to master. You WANT to sink time into those kinds of games. You WANT to improve your skills, because those games are so well designed that you enjoy every minute of it and the experience feels richly rewarding. On the Saturn, if you combine this concept with an excellent ST-V (Titan) arcade translation, well… we can only conclude that we have a great game on our hands. Such is the case with Cotton 2: Magical Night Dreams, a 1 or 2-player Japanese Saturn exclusive ‘cute-em-up’ in the long-running Cotton series.
Developed by Success, Cotton 2 was initially released in Japanese arcades in 1997, and was swiftly ported to Saturn. Being a Titan game meant a near-perfect conversion to Saturn because the Titan board is essentially an arcade version of the Saturn. The game follows the story of young witch Cotton as she goes on an adventure to eat some willow candy (her favorite pastime), and gets caught up in fighting through hordes of monsters in the process. Hmm… she must want that candy, BAD. Being the first of two Cotton games converted to Saturn, Cotton 2features excellent hand-drawn graphics, large sprites with tons of rotation and various excellent effects, frenetic gameplay with deep shooting mechanics, and even supports additional RAM (1MB; can also substitute for a 4MB) cartridge for extra effects! Not bad. Not bad at all.*
The game features quite a bit of text during the opening sequence, the story-advancing cut scenes, and of course the ending… and as this game is a Japanese Saturn exclusive, there is no way to enjoy the story in English. But… it’s a shooter! That guarantees that the text is relatively unimportant in getting the majority of fun out of the game. And in fairness, this game is quite English-friendly. The menus, options, and commands are all in English. However if you are curious about the story of Cotton 2, then read on, because SEGA Saturn, Shiro! has got you covered.
Appli is a young, somewhat spoilt, boy-celebrity-loving witch who also happens to be the princess of the Pumpkin Kingdom. One day, she wants to experiment with high-level magic and for this, she needs to ‘borrow’ the sacred Water Willow artefact from the castle. She steals it and takes off, but then in a tragic, careless moment, loses it in the woods. Along comes Cotton, our willow-candy-loving heroine, who finds the willow in the forest. A pre-teen witch just like Appli, Cotton LOVES to eat willow candies. In fact, her love for willow candies drives most of her decisions – she’ll do anything for them! When she finds the Water Willow in the woods, she eats it, and then sets out on a quest through the Pumpkin Kingdom to, naturally, find more willow candies! Unfortunately, the evil Wool (final boss) also has plans to capture as many willows as possible, for her own nefarious needs…
The player takes control of Cotton right at the forest where she found and consumed the Water Willow, with the castle looming in the background. Cotton takes off on a broom through 7 levels of side-on, auto-scrolling action. She can only face forward, and has multiple attacks at her disposal. She sports a standard forward magic shot (the standard bullet) that can also be charged up for a stronger shot, a magic capture ball that she can project forward that falls to the ground (the alternate bullet), and finally, she can literally grab minor enemies and toss them at other enemies (the… um… grabby bullet?).
Amplifying her natural abilities are magic crystals, which come in five different colors – red (fire), green (forest/earth), blue (ice), silver (light) and yellow (no magic – but gives points). Crystals can sometimes be found bouncing around the land but are much more commonly acquired by defeating enemies. For the most part, enemies come at Cotton in waves. Destroy an entire wave of enemies and the last one will drop a crystal.
Cotton can hold upwards of three crystals in her inventory at a time, and these crystals serve several functions. Firstly, the crystal that was last picked up dictates which element of magic Cotton is using in her standard shot (fire, earth, ice, or light). Secondly, the crystals affect what kind of spell Cotton can cast. Spells are like super-attacks: a large force is unleashed that obliterates most of the enemies on screen. The cost? An entire crystal. Since Cotton can only hold three crystals at a time, judicious use of magic spells is well advised, lest you run out of magic!
There is also a clever ‘capture and seal’ mechanic comes into play. You see, whether by using the ball projectile or by initiating a capturing attack, any minor enemy hit is encased in a ball of the magic element that Cotton is currently using. Each elemental seal acts differently – for example, fire seals gravitate towards you whereas ice seals fall to the ground and bounce with physics similar to a somewhat deflated basketball. Once an enemy is sealed, the seal can be manipulated in a few interesting ways.
Shoot at the sealed enemy and you will build up a life container inside the seal – an on-screen counter will keep track of how many successive shots you’ve fired. Leave the seal alone and after a few seconds it pops, at which point you can collect the heart icon and replenish a portion of your health bar. The more shots you got in, the larger the health boost reward.
Alternately, grab the sealed enemy and toss them at other enemies, and you create a chain – the other enemies are captured in the same seal as the original. Keep the seal from bursting by grabbing it, toss it at subsequent waves of enemies, and you can get a heck of a chain going, with points bonuses awarded for every increment of 10 chains. Once a chain gets sufficiently large, you can toss it at mid-level bosses and actually capture them as well!
There are other quirks to the gameplay, and they all add up to a surprisingly deep shooter. Easy enough to pick up and play – it is possible to clear the game without using any advanced techniques – but takes time to master the nuances of the deeper mechanics. Ultimately, high scoring becomes the primary goal of a play-through.
Cotton’s life is measured by a health bar in the upper left corner of the screen. In a quasi-RPG move, Cotton’s magic strength progresses from Level 1 to Level 5 as she gains experience, and this magic level decreases as damage is taken. Naturally, there is quite a difference between Level 1 and Level 5 magic! Her lives remaining are indicated by the number of broom icons next to her life bar, and there are continues available as well. The game also works quite nicely in 2-player mode, as there can be lots of interaction such as the two witches grabbing each others’ seals, competing for crystals, heart icons, etc. Heck, each witch can even grab the other and toss her at enemies! The game is easier with two players, and due to the amount of interaction between the players, can be a real hoot.
So with all that said, it’s safe to state that Cotton 2 is a great shooter with plenty of depth to it. And just how does it look?
Gorgeous. There are tons of sprites on screen at all times, the backgrounds are beautifully hand-drawn and pop with color, and the enemies are varied and interesting. Some of the bosses are huge, and in several cases, are a collection of sprites that animate independently to fill the screen. All of this ‘goes down’ with nary a slowdown. There are several layers of scrolling parallax as well as effects such as fog or fire (plasma?) to astound and delight. There are also other sprite distortion effects; a good example is the fire boss that undulates as he appears and disappears from his pool of lava. Cotton 2 is great game to show off what the Saturn is capable of displaying visually, and all of this is achieved using the stock Saturn. The extra RAM, should you insert a cartridge, is actually used to add additional voice work during gameplay, and has no bearing on the visuals at all. The levels vary thematically from enchanted forests to underground caverns to long-abandoned castles to underwater kingdoms. In short – excellent. All of it. The game sounds smart, too.
The music is entirely appropriate , sounding relatively tame in places and picking up tempo and urgency in later levels.
Perhaps the neatest addition to this game over the arcade original is the inclusion of a Saturn Mode. Saturn mode features updated graphics (the first level boss fight happens in wintertime as opposed to summer, the underground lava world becomes an ice world, etc.) and remixed enemy placements. This welcome addition serves much the same way as a well-done Mirror Mode would in a racing game – not quite providing entirely new levels, but providing just enough differences to warrant much more playtime out of the title. Excellent.
Once the player completes the game on Normal Difficulty, a few bonus options open up, including rapid-fire, being able to play as Appli in a 1-player game, and the option to disable the inter-level cut scenes (handy for us non-Japanese speakers). The game does create a save file to keep track of high scores, high chains, and unlockables, which is handy.
Once you get into the game (easy) and begin to master some of its’ intricacies (hard), you’ll surely want some Shiro Challenges to prove your mastery, no?
• Try and create a 100+ hit heart icon inside a sealed enemy. This will mean ignoring / dodging enemy fire while you land 100 successive hits on your target!
• Score a chain of over 100 sealed enemies. ING!!!!?????
• Can you 1CC it? All scores are in increments of 10, so your score will always end in a 0. However, continuing gives you 1 point, so all your scores will end in 1. That is the way to determine if a high score was achieved by 1CC.
• Try to seal a mid-level boss. Tossing them when sealed doesn’t add minor enemies to a combo – but it does create new seals out of everything it touches! The combos are spectacular.
• Try and catch 40 cups during Tea Time. It’s hard but do-able.
Overall, Cotton 2: Magical Night Dreams is an easy game to recommend. It looks fabulous, plays really well, has excellent replayability, and is easy on the English-speaking player. This is a game that would have been really good to bring to North America back in the day, perhaps by Atlus or even by Working Designs. Alas, it is destined to remain a Japan-only, Saturn-exclusive gem.
Translations
We’ve discussed the details of the story line, now here is the ending translated into English, based on arcadeendings.com. Cotton and Appli show up at the Castle to see the King and Queen in the Royal Court, with a large contingent of citizens of Pumpkin Kingdom chattering, worried about the missing Water Willow.
King: Quiet, everyone! Now, Appli: what is this interesting story you have to share with us?
Appli: Well… I was the one who removed the Water Willow! I just wanted to try out some advanced magic spells! I’m… I’m sorry!
Crowd: ooohhh… aaahhhh….
Queen: I see… the Water Willow does have the power to raise magic skill, but it’s more than that. It’s a very important treasure which is needed in order to maintain the balance in the land. Now that it’s gone, the future of our kingdom is…
Cotton: Whatever! Now hang on here! What happened to that great, big, squishy, bouncy willow? Where is it? Where? Where? Where? Huh? Ohhh…. My tummy is…
Silk: Whoa. That’s why I told you not to eat the willow found on the ground in the woods. The color of that willow was so strange.
Appli: Hold on now. That willow you found in the woods, that didn’t happen to be sky blue, did it?
Cotton: Oww… oww… yeah. I mean, I had never eaten a sky blue willow before. It wasn’t very chewy, but it tasted OK.
Appli, hitting Cotton over the head with her broom: IT TASTED OK, YOU SAY??? I was gonna build up a collection of hot guys with that willow. Now my plans are ruined!!
Cotton: How the heck was I supposed to know that?
Appli: Why, you little…!!!
Cotton: What???
King, looming large over them: Hey! Get a hold of yourselves! Go cool your heads in prison!!
Cotton, flying above castle: Here we goooo!
Appli, also flying: Let’s go!
Narrator: And so, having lost the Water Willow, which had kept the balance in the land, the Pumpkin Kingdom gradually transformed into a horrifying land plagued by terrible monsters. The End.
Certainly an odd, tragic, Japanese-only ending to the game!
Tea Time!
At the end of each level is a quirky little bonus game called Tea Time! For roughly 20 seconds, tea cups fall from the sky and Cotton must dart around and catch as many of them as she can before they smash, or fall out of view. Some will increase her health and some will increase her magic levels, not to mention the points bonus they award. It’s a frantic, fun little mini-game.
In Japan, the game could be had in a special edition with an actual tea mug. The standard edition included a 6-page loose 1998 calendar (the game released on Saturn in 1997).
*Not bad. Not bad at all is a reference to the sometimes snarky but cool-as-a-cucumber Lead (Reed) Phoenix from Burning Rangers.
Originally published 2018-11-06. Updated 2020-02-01.
A Saturn fan since the beginning, Peter plays Saturn almost exclusively. For Peter, Saturn represents a moment in time where 2D games were at their best, 3D was just rising, and fascinating gaming ‘firsts’ were commonplace. There are very few Saturn games that Peter cannot find some enjoyment in!
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