Mushihime-sama (PS2) is so awesome

jonny5 · Post by **jonny5** » Sun Dec 14, 2008 9:28 pm

what is so mind crushingly hard about holding down one button while tapping another?

or tapping 1 button in one spot in the game......and holding the button on another spot?

oh noez....too many things to keep track of....mental overload.....cannot compute

Frederik · Post by **Frederik** » Sun Dec 14, 2008 9:44 pm

From EOJs guide:

Code: Select all

2.0 Fundamentals of the scoring system
2.1 Tapping techniques
2.1.1 SAT: Slow A Tapping 
2.1.2 FCT: Fast C Tapping
2.1.3 MFCT: Mid-Fast C Tapping
2.1.4 SCT: Slow C Tapping 
2.1.5 HCTA: Hold C and Tap A

I´m sorry, I don´t understand why this is necessary at all. Maybe it´s the sweetest thing ever, but this is the first time I never tried scoring in a Cave game even once. I mean, it´s completely fine with me if people enjoy this kind of work, but it just seems completely unintuitive to me. And I really would have wanted to like the scoring, because the game is very elegant otherwise.

Jockel wrote: luckily, Futari has WAY easier scoring.
believe it or not, the scoring in Futari is actually a hell lot of fun!

Thats good to hear.

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Sun Dec 14, 2008 10:18 pm

People grossly exaggerate the complexity of Mushi's scoring. Yes, it has tapping (but so do many other CAVE games). There are two basic principles to the scoring - Tap A slowly on midbosses & large enemies to raise the child counters, then tap C really fast to finish off the midbosses & large enemies and boost your chain. If you want a more powerful shot, hold C and tap A slowly at any time.
Not very complicated. Everything else is just stuff you do in the Donpachi games - Tap shot to keep your chain alive in certain parts of stages.

Or if you don't feel like tapping, the PS2 version allows you to assign the tapping to autofire buttons.

BTW if people are so adverse to tapping, they're going to hate Deathsmiles.

Zweihander · Post by **Zweihander** » Sun Dec 14, 2008 10:24 pm

Bootaaay wrote:has great music

http://digitalvideo.8m.net/Batman/TDK/JokerJail.jpg

freddiebamboo · Post by **freddiebamboo** » Sun Dec 14, 2008 10:29 pm

EOJ wrote:People grossly exaggerate the complexity of Mushi's scoring. Yes, it has tapping (but so do many other CAVE games).

True. It's much easier tapping to hold your chain/skyrocketing in mushi than it is to slow tap your way through the sparse parts of DDP. The hard part of the scoring comes down to positioning and using your options properly I've always thought.

KindGrind · Post by **KindGrind** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 12:34 am

I'm a couple of posts away, but the component cables really do clear up the picture a lot with a HDTV compared to composite/svideo. They're dirt cheap, too.

John845 · Post by **John845** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 1:25 am

I'll see if I can get a hold of some of those component cables, the price it's selling for is worth it. Now I'm assuming if I play the PS2 on an hdtv with the component cable the image won't be stretched out anymore? When I tried Ikaruga on the Dreamcast with my hdtv the games image was more spread out but everything was smushed and it looked retarded.

So my question is will the component cable make something like Mushi have the correct proportions on the television, and if I do the deinterlacing patch on the iso will it look even better?

quizknows · Post by **quizknows** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 1:53 am

John845 wrote:I'll see if I can get a hold of some of those component cables, the price it's selling for is worth it. Now I'm assuming if I play the PS2 on an hdtv with the component cable the image won't be stretched out anymore? When I tried Ikaruga on the Dreamcast with my hdtv the games image was more spread out but everything was smushed and it looked retarded.

So my question is will the component cable make something like Mushi have the correct proportions on the television, and if I do the deinterlacing patch on the iso will it look even better?

sounds like you may need to find the "aspect" or "pic size" button on your TV remote, you probably need to set the TV to 4:3 instead of 16:9.

bcass · Post by **bcass** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 2:09 am

I have to admit, this is my favourite Cave game too. It might not look exactly like the arcade version (or play like it), but it looks nice enough through RGB on a CRT. I think it's the only Cave port I've played where the different difficulty settings actually mean anything.

Zweihander · Post by **Zweihander** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 3:49 am

It was my favorite Cave game for a while as well, but a few months later I realized I was just biased because I've always been an insect geek. Sub-par soundtrack (aside from stage 4 and Aki's true chorus theme), horrible porting job, great stage design capped off with average-at-best boss fights... I went back to Dodonpachi DOJ and my Cave favorite, ESPgaluda. However, Mushihime-sama would still be in my top 20 list of shmups, if I had to comprise such a list. I'm sure the arcade version was infinitely better, I just don't have $1000+ to blow on a PCB.

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 3:52 am

Zweihander wrote:I'm sure the arcade version was infinitely better, I just don't have $1000+ to blow on a PCB.

FYI it's about $400 these days.

I agree with the boss fights being blah though. Other than the stage 1 boss, and the TLB, none of the boss fights are particularly memorable or exciting.
I think the midboss fights are better, actually.

They really improved this in Futari, which has awesome boss fights.

CStarFlare · Post by **CStarFlare** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 3:52 am

A Mushi PCB will probably cost you less than $400 if you get it off YJapan and wait for an auction with a starting price below 40k yen

Not that your point is not valid

Just saying

Zweihander · Post by **Zweihander** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 3:59 am

EOJ wrote:
Zweihander wrote:I think the midboss fights are better, actually.
Agreed. I vividly remember the scorpion fight on stage 2 but all I can recall of the end boss was blowing off all 6 of its legs.

CStarFlare wrote:A Mushi PCB will probably cost you less than $400 if you get it off YJapan and wait for an auction with a starting price below 40k yen

Not that your point is not valid

Just saying

Seriously? I'll likely go there, then, whenever I decide to get into the PCB scene. (my girlfriend is skilled in making cabinets, and the components should be cheap in comparison to the actual PCBs, heh) I just remember seeing a re-boxed Mushi PCB on Ebay the other day for $1000. :/ Thanks for the info. Odds are, though, by the time I get around to that, I'll probably just pick up Futari instead. Seen some videos, looks like a sexy improvement overall.

Jockel · Post by **Jockel** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 6:21 am

Zweihander wrote:Odds are, though, by the time I get around to that, I'll probably just pick up Futari instead.

Do that. Futari is the shit. Best cave game (and shooter, for that matter) in existance, if you ask me. And besides DDP DFK and Pink Sweets i played every cave shooter, so it's not like it's the only game i played

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 6:23 am

Jockel wrote: Futari is the shit. Best cave game (and shooter, for that matter) in existance, if you ask me.

You have good taste, sir!

dmauro · Post by **dmauro** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 3:24 pm

It's so sad to see this running alongside the DOJ and ESPGaluda ports on my Astro City because when the other two are running they look like PCBs, but Mushi's background lossy looks even worse in 240p.

I still love the colors and the bug theme so it gets plenty of play (and I don't even go for the tapping mechanics, just score as well as I can with a naive sense of how to score), but it almost makes me want to learn PS2 assembly code so I can hack the ISO and remove the filtering.

MJR · Post by **MJR** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 3:37 pm

I loved the style and music of mushihime-sama, I even modded my PS2 just to get to play it (and I didn't mod it to play the pirated version - I bought it too!)

However, I got totally frustrated on the difficulty, too many times I had 'WTF just hit me?!?!"-deaths, and that's why I ultimately gave up.

This being said, I had the same problem with dodonpachi while on mame I was even able to 1cc in first loop. On playstation, never.

Maybe I should buy the PCB some day.

clp · Post by **clp** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 3:46 pm

KindGrind wrote:I'm a couple of posts away, but the component cables really do clear up the picture a lot with a HDTV compared to composite/svideo. They're dirt cheap, too.

yep ive been saying this for a whilst , whilst it may not match the pcb it seems to me like ibara and mushi on ps2 are clear and playable with component cables.

clp · Post by **clp** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 3:47 pm

MJR wrote:I loved the style and music of mushihime-sama, I even modded my PS2 just to get to play it (and I didn't mod it to play the pirated version - I bought it too!)

However, I got totally frustrated on the difficulty, too many times I had 'WTF just hit me?!?!"-deaths, and that's why I ultimately gave up.

This being said, I had the same problem with dodonpachi while on mame I was even able to 1cc in first loop. On playstation, never.

Maybe I should buy the PCB some day.

wtf just hit you? you mean you had trouble seeing a billion bright purple bullets?

MJR · Post by **MJR** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 4:38 pm

clp wrote: wtf just hit you? you mean you had trouble seeing a billion bright purple bullets?

Nope.

I could see them all right, but in arcade mode they fly so fast, that too often I could not see which of them just hit me. Arrange mode was gentler in that context.

RGC · Post by **RGC** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 4:56 pm

MJR wrote:This being said, I had the same problem with dodonpachi while on mame I was even able to 1cc in first loop. On playstation, never.

I swear (arse!) the playstation port runs slightly faster - I'm talking with Wait =enabled. It definitely feels faster than when I play it in MAME, and like you I do much better with the latter version. The port also looks a lot nicer (sharper, with more vibrant colours), but then I haven't done any proper tweaking to MAME. The PCB is on my wishlist.

Taylor · Post by **Taylor** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 7:24 pm

Slowdown is emulated pretty badly, but unless you're playing ultra I don't see it being in the way of enjoying the game. Same goes for the slightly blurry graphics. They're flaws, but they're not so horrible I need to vomit abuse at it... besides, the arcade version near me has no stool, a broken stick, a badly overscanned monitor, a bugged scoreboard and a C button that sticks in (and on the P2 side, the C button doesn't work at all).

The scoring trick of hitting the buttons funny always seemed unintended to me. The banking does kind of make sense, but it's a pretty weird design and isn't used nearly enough to justify it. I'd guess it was going to serve a larger role, maybe in the end of stage bosses, and was cut out badly.

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 7:48 pm

Taylor wrote:
The scoring trick of hitting the buttons funny always seemed unintended to me.

It's very clear the game was designed this way. You don't just get this by accident. There's a video of Ikeda watching one of his programmers play the game in their development studio, and he's doing the Hold C tap A power shot technique on the stage 2 midboss.

The banking does kind of make sense, but it's a pretty weird design and isn't used nearly enough to justify it.

Yes it is. Watch a pro play.

Taylor · Post by **Taylor** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 8:13 pm

Well, from memory I've only ever seen it used on mid-bosses and stage 2 plants. Feathered shots in a few places too (pretty much all level 3) but they aren't exploiting some weird banking system, just keeping things alive. Maybe I'll scrutinise them again when I’ve got time.

Though, for me, it turns “unintended” to “bad design.” Just for knowing some nonsensical RSI-inducing sequence nobody is going find out by themselves, I get +40,000 counter for free at the stage 2 mid-boss?

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 8:19 pm

Taylor wrote:Just for knowing some nonsensical RSI-inducing sequence nobody is going find out by themselves, I get +40,000 counter for free at the stage 2 mid-boss?

Again, grossly exaggerated. You just tap A slowly until your child counters are around 400~600 then tap C as fast as you can until the boss dies (you can easily get over 70,000 here by doing this). The faster you tap, the higher your counter becomes. You don't need to know any complicated "sequence".

Taylor · Post by **Taylor** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 8:30 pm

You're right it's not complicated, though I only said it's nonsensical. I usually do it during the stage 2 boss for the easy extend, but don’t have the balls on the others.

LSU · Post by **LSU** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:48 pm

Mushi is a beautiful game - easily my favourite Cave title.

Personally I'd much rather play a flawed port of an amazing game, than a perfect port of an average game...

The PS2 version very obviously has its issues, and I do wish it had been programmed with more care. But it's still quite playable.

John845 · Post by **John845** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 9:55 pm

So I put my tv in tate and I put the deinterlacing patch on Mushi. WOW. Its like a whole new world has been opened up, haha, it looks amazing now. All the other Cave shmups on the ps2 look amazing on tate, should of done this a while ago.

Plasmo · Post by **Plasmo** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 10:12 pm

I agree with the boss fights being blah though. Other than the stage 1 boss, and the TLB, none of the boss fights are particularly memorable or exciting.
I think the midboss fights are better, actually.

Play some Ultra and every boss fight becomes quite memorable. The bullet patterns are just too beautiful! Cave never had that complex patterns before. (of course Futari is the better game, yes)

henry dark · Post by **henry dark** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 12:38 am

the characters death scream is like 100 nails down 100 chalkboards