Mushihimesama Futari ~ver 1.5~ Review

虫姫さま　ふたり
Title: Mushihimesama Futari ~ver 1.5~

Platform: Xbox 360, iOS
Developer: CAVE
Genre: Shooting
CERO: A

As this is my first review, I'm going to give you the layout. I will review 5 different areas: Gameplay, Presentation, Story, and International Friendliness. each category will be on a 10 point scale, and then the final score will be a combined average on a 10 point scale as well. The final score is reflective of my over-all opinion of if you should import this game or not, you may refer to each individual section if, say, you already speak japanese completely fluently and you want to ignore that, or if you don't care about the story. Okay thank you so much, LET'S GO!!

OH SHIT!!

Gameplay

Mushi is a shoot-em-up, and a good one at that! from CAVE, a well known Japanese shmup maker, mushi is an internationally popular title. you've got your basics here: an arcade mode and a score attack mode. There is a multiplayer mode, but honestly it's nothing special, and I enjoy single player a bit more. Each mode brings you through level after level, each with a big boss and a sub boss. you're given three lives per credit (infinite continues in arcade mode) and one hit kills you. the more you kill the more gems you get which rack up your points. sometimes enemies will drop power-ups and bombs.

The battle system is simple, but still good. Definitely not to the complexity of games like Zanac, but Mushi still holds her ground. the levels are well designed, and the bosses are challenging and fun. The real appeal of Mushi, and really all cave shooters, is to memorize and master the levels and to get the highest scores. If you are not interested in getting High Score, or if you don't have an arcade mindset, this game can get a bit repetitive.

there are three levels of difficulty, essentially easy, medium, and hard. Here is where one of my few beefs with this game comes in. Easy mode is VERY EASY, medium is reasonably difficult, and hard mode is essentially suicide. once you get the hang of it its no big deal, but when you're new there is quite the learning curve. I have to say, though, once you get good you won't want to play anything other than super hard mode!

SCORE: 8/10 

Presentation

Mushi looks great! the did revamp the graphics from the arcade version to be more suitable for the Xbox 360 system. The characters are well designed, the enemies are well designed, and the art is gorgeous. 

One major bonus to Mushi's presentation is how colourful and alive it is. It definitely keeps you interested as you run through its beautiful levels. On top of it's liveliness, it's music is also very well suited and gets you excited while you take on the challenge.

The downside to this though is that, although better than the Arcade version, the graphics are still very jagged and do look a bit dated. if you play this on big TVs this will be a lot more noticeable. On top of that, the recording quality of the voice acting, sound effects, and music are not the greatest. Combined you do feel like you're playing a last gen title, on a current gen system. Now overall, this is fairly standard for CAVE shooters, so it doesn't really stand-out as particularly bad by any means.

Now this bothers me, and it may not you, but there is no full screen mode, so the whole game will be played in a window in the middle of your screen.

SCORE: 6.5/10 

Story

As an arcade game, there really is not story to speak of, so I will focus more on the universe of the game. The universe this game creates stands out. you've got elements that only the Japanese could ever think about putting together: Anime Girls, Giant Bugs, Dinosaurs, and Explosions. It's easy to get lost in, because of it's unique quirkiness. add on top of that the wonderful art, and cool CG you get between levels, and you've got yourself a neat little world that is completely it's own.

SCORE: 8/10

Import Friendliness

This game is absolutely region free! it's even localized completely on the iOS! these are great ways to rank your score up. The game is rather inexpensive (usually about 39.99-49.99 USD) so you're not losing life and limb getting it over here. and the game is loaded with English mixed in with the Japanese  Outside of navigating menus (briefly) not a lick of Japanese is required for playing and enjoying the game! This game is essentially the epitome of Region Friendliness!

SCORE 9/10

Final Thoughts and Score

Mushi is loads of fun, easy to get into, and wonderfully quirky. This game is responsible for my recent fascination with Shooting games. it has my high recommendations!

FINAL SCORE: 7.87/10