Developer: Success Publisher: Success Released: 12/04/97 Genre Shooter
Ah, Cotton, I admire your dedication to destroying my wallet. Cotton, alongside Parodius and Twinbee, is one of the best series of shooters that no one knows in the West. For the lucky few that bought a copy of the original on the Turbo Grafx before it cost a kidney they were rewarded with a fantastic little shooter that hid a well-balanced challenge behind its cute facade. Cotton 2 took everything that made the original great and added more, more weapons, more modes, and more fun. This is a great game and it won’t require a bank loan to purchase either.
Cotton 2 originally saw an arcade release and used the Sega ST-V hardware. Since it was essentially a Saturn in an arcade board this made the home port a foregone conclusion. Cotton 2 is a beautiful game with fantastic art direction and performance. The game pushes a ton of large sprites without a hint of slowdown and features plenty of cool effects like transparency and mood enhancing fog. The bosses are massive and are made up of many individual sprites for both animation and gameplay reasons. Combined with the generous layers of parallax Cotton 2 is what many of us expected 32-bit 2d games to look like. But how does it play?
The core of the gameplay in Cotton is mostly the same. Like the previous game destroying groups of enemies will release a crystal you can shoot for different magic spells. Yellow crystals gain experience to increase weapon level. Crystals can cycle through multiple colors with each representing a different element. These elements (ice, fire, wind, and light) not only grant a magic spell but will also change your main weapon to that element. It’s a similar system to Soldier Blade, down to sacrificing your weapon when using magic. Sadly the charge attack and even Silk are no longer present.
Cotton’s repertoire extends beyond elemental magic. Cotton can now seal enemies, creating a projectile you can throw. The timing can be rough but once mastered you can do some cool stuff. Depending on your current element seals behave differently. Ice seals drop and bounce around while wind and light tend to float. Seals can be used in a variety of ways. You can throw it at enemies or hold it in front of you. Hitting enemies with your seal will create a chain which increases your earned points. The most important is to shoot it after release to create a pursuit. A pursuit seal initiates a shot counter that will eventually generate a heart depending on how high your count. This is one of the only ways to restore health and becomes a critical skill to learn in the game.
Creating seals uses fighting game style button combinations which produce different shots. Most of these are simple but are tricky to use in during gameplay. Luckily the game has a secret option menu that lets you map these commands to buttons on the controller. As a bonus the seal attacks are more powerful than your standard shot and a good way to wear down bosses.
Cotton 2 is a game that is clearly designed for high scoring. While this applies to most shooters the way the levels flow and their design bears this out. Enemy waves and types are deliberate to allow you to switch weapons as needed. Certain elements and their seals work best in specific situations; narrow tunnels are perfect for ice magic as it tends to rebound off walls. This isn’t to say you need to engage with the various systems to enjoy Cotton 2. But once you learn how seals work and their idiosyncrasies each level is practically begging to be replayed. With seven levels Cotton 2 is almost the perfect length. Not so long that each run feels like a slog but long enough that it feels rewarding.
By default you have a health bar and no lives. Cotton 2 is generous with its credits; you get ten continues. You can go into the options so you get three lives per credit but I would argue that it makes the game too easy at that point. Not to say that the game is easy overall but with three lives per credit you have room for a lot of sloppy mistakes. With that buffer in place there is little reason to explore the game’s more complex mechanics which would be a shame as I feel they are really good. Boss battles can be tricky but if you exploit your abilities you can nearly trivialize each encounter. I’m not one for 1ccing games. But in this case the design of Cotton 2 lends itself to it. But only the hardcore need apply.
In Conclusion
Cotton 2 is a fantastic game and one of the better shooters for the Saturn. That is high praise, considering the Saturn has one of the best libraries in the genre of all time. Fantastic production values, great gameplay, and accessible difficulty make Cotton 2 an all-around great purchase for all gamers.
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