Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams

Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams is a horizontal shooter that stands out right away by having you fly a young witch on a broomstick instead of a spaceship. Cotton doesn't take up arms against the dark forces for noble reasons but for the promise of candy, and this lighthearted tone runs through the entire game, including the drawn cutscenes and chatty characters. Attacks come both as a standard shot and as magic in three elements, obtained by collecting crystals; a crystal's color determines the type of spell, and gathering experience gradually strengthens the character, adding a light growth element to an otherwise purely arcade genre.

The gameplay hinges on managing magic wisely and reading enemy waves that arrive in readable formations. Bosses are large, visually distinctive, and require learning their patterns; the difficulty is nicely balanced to be challenging without being off-putting. The Sharp X68000 version is among those cited at the time as an example of how close a home computer could get to its arcade source: smooth scrolling, large moving objects, and a rich palette that shines especially in fairy-tale backgrounds full of castles, graveyards, and night skies. The FM-synthesized soundtrack works with bold melodies close to a fairy-tale musical. On top of that, collecting crystals forces the player to take risks and fly into spots they'd otherwise avoid, adding pleasant tension to an otherwise clear and readable game.

Cotton eventually became one of the best-known faces of the so-called cute'em up, shooters that traded military seriousness for colorful fantasy, and the brand went on to see a number of sequels and modern revivals. For X68000 owners, it was one of the titles that showed the platform could handle licensed arcade ports at a very high level. Today the game still feels fresh mainly thanks to its humor and visual style: it's short, clear, and ideal for anyone wanting to try the genre without the tough school of classic military shooters.