Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams

Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams is a side scrolling shoot 'em up developed by Success and published by Sega in the Arcades in 1991.

Plot
One day an evil mist suddenly threw the prism of light out of order and covered the world in darkness. Since that day the world had been shrouded in darkness and the people had lived uneasily, not knowing how to bring morning back to their world.

Elsewhere a witch named Cotton roamed the woods. She didn't care about the plight of the prism nor did she care that the world was enveloped in darkenss. Her head was full of nothing but thoughts about eating sweet treats known as 'Willows' until she was fit to burst.

As Cotton was thinking about Willows, an exhausted fairy named Silk landed by her. Her eyes full of hope, she clasped her hands together and begged Cotton for her help vanquishing the evil tyrants who kept the light at bay. Cotton barely finished letting Silk finish before walking away, as she was only interested in sugar.

Silk mourned the lack of aid, lamenting that if Cotton defeated the boss of the tyrants she could get the special 'Willows' of Fairyland. Cotton overhearing this immedietly came running back, grabbed Silk and announced she'd help.

Gameplay
Players control Cotton as she flies on her broom, firing out blasts of magic and avoiding being hit by the flying enemies on screen.

Players can gather crystals that will be dropped by enemies. Yellow crystals provide Cotton with extra points, orange ones will give her extra experience and blue and red will grant her special blue and red magic that can be used either offensively or defensively giving a layer of strategy to their use. Blue crystals give Cotton the ability to shoot blue lightning for the offensive spell, or a bubble for the defensive spell. Red crystals give Cotton a flaming dragon for the offensive spell, or a flame shield for the defensive spell.

Silk, the fairy, accompanies Cotton on her journey and can be joined by other fairy friends as Cotton progresses and rescues them. Silk and her fellow fairies will act as extra firepower or be sent to deal with enemies sneaking up in Cotton's blind spot.

If Cotton dies in combat, the fairies she's accompanied by will sacrifice themselves one by one to bring her back, and unleash a devastating screen clearing blast of magic.

Whenever Cotton dies her magic power is cut in half meaning an enemy she could one shot will now take two shots. If she dies again, it'll take four shots.

Trivia

 * Sega only published the Arcade version of this game, but it was also published by Hudson Soft for the TurboGrafx-16 Super CD in North America.
 * The Astro City Mini is the first time the Arcade version by Sega has seen a home release.