As you destroy certain enemies, a crystal will appear. This crystal can be red, green or blue. The crystal will add a shot to your supershot arsenal. Holding down your regular shot button will charge up the supershot and fire off one of three attacks. As an example, the red crystal will fire off a Fire Dragon.
Graphics are also bright and cheerful and enemies are varied.
Parallax scrolling is also used well in this game. You can't help but compare the two games. Cotton is a little bigger than Ripple and is thus easier to hit. The graphics and backgrounds are better in Cotton. I especially like the full moon on the first level.