Mushihime Sama Ps2 impressions

Ord · Post by **Ord** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 3:27 pm

Still waiting.

Grinning Cat · Post by **Grinning Cat** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 5:56 pm

Me too

UK sucks hardcore!

captain ahar · Post by **captain ahar** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 9:41 pm

just got my pack in the mail today from yesasia. i can't blame them really, the game arrived in town 6 days ago, and its taken that long for the carrier to bring it to my door. sucks ass... yes, but it is finally here.

wow, i am amazed. i am absolute rubbish right now but it is incredible. Ultra is my favorite but i can barely clear the first boss on that mode. can't even place on the charts in Original (my highest is around 970,000), can place 5th on Maniac.

arrange is currently my home, between having fully powered up options and auto-bombing it is very kind to my non-skills. my high score places around 67 millions at stage 4, i think.

mannerbot · Post by **mannerbot** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 10:47 pm

Finally got mine today. Graphics are ugly in RGB, blah blah blah. Anyway, I'm very glad to be able to play this game, even though I'm getting slapped around hard at the moment. It's amazing how superplay guys can make games look so easy, but once a mere mortal steps grabs the joystick...

And as it turns out, Play-Asia lied about having shipped the game on July 20th as my package was postmarked July 25.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 12:22 am

Mine has finally been delivered to my house too, and I have no overtime tonight :D

Overtime will be FUN tomorrow, I have a couple of people here at work hyped up for some Mushihime :)

edit:
D:

Had to pay an additional $71 CAD at customs since the taxable value of my whole package was declared at $303 CAD.. OMFG! I could buy another game for that... -_______________-;;;

Not to mention my package was opened at customs... Heh, but luckily nothing was withheld. Of course my UMD pr0n had to be the first ones you see RIGHT AT THE VERY TOP of all the packaging.... -_________-;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

pixelcorps · Post by **pixelcorps** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 6:04 am

ok, so this game is beginning to bug me with the hitbox bullets..

how the hell are you supposed to squeeze by something if you don't know how close you can get??

it all seems to be down to luck with some of the faster bullet swarms...

Post by **Dave_K.** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 6:13 am

Just got my Mushihimesama today, and I can't help but be disapointed. Why the hell would they take a game which was created for vertical scrolling non-interlaced arcade monitors and interlace it! At least add an option to choose interlacing or not!!! Taito must think this will look better on home TV's but in actuality its worse for scrolling shooters. Its definately worse playing this through a 15khz tated arcade monitor via scart/rgb cable. I just played the real thing about 6 days ago at the Casino arcade when I was visiting London, and its apparent to me this just doesn't look right. From the open graphic that scrolls diagonally, you see shimmering. And when the opening background begins to scroll on the first level, you see frameskipping! To make things worse, the artificial slowdown (particularly on the first boss) doesn't match the arcade version at all. It definately feels sloppy/rushed to me.

Now I won't throw the baby out with the bath water just yet. I do understand we are blessed to be able to play such an awsome Cave game at home, and I hope more come in the future....but please oh please let Arika come back and do the porting!

pixelcorps · Post by **pixelcorps** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 8:57 am

consdering how frustrated i'm getting with the game when I die (for what looks like) no reason at all, the occasional glitch that causes the death sample to occur up to several seconds after i get hit pisses me off more...

the more I play the less impressed I am...

Valgar · Post by **Valgar** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 2:15 pm

I actually thought Arika was asked to port it first, but they declined because it would be too much work.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 2:35 pm

Considering that (AFAIK) they're currently hoping to port Ketsui onto the PS3, I doubt that Arika would have turned down Mushi had it been offered to them.

Grinning Cat · Post by **Grinning Cat** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 3:15 pm

Mushi uses different hardware to DOJ, Galuda and Ketsui. From what I understand, once Arika did the DOJ port, doing Galuda was pretty easy, since both (from a technical stand point) are near-identical. I think that's why a Ketsui port is so appealing to Arika: apart from being a great game, it wouldn't be difficult to port.

Had they chosen to do Mushi, they would've had to pretty much start from scratch...

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 4:06 pm

You were right, bloodflowers. Formation worked great on stage 3's side zipping crony bugs, got a new high score of over 6,900,000 mil.

edit: And it's still not enough to post in the high score thread.

Alske · Post by **Alske** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 5:57 am

pixelcorps wrote:consdering how frustrated i'm getting with the game when I die (for what looks like) no reason at all, the occasional glitch that causes the death sample to occur up to several seconds after i get hit pisses me off more...

the more I play the less impressed I am...

I completely agree. The more I play Mushihime, the more I want to play DDP.

zakk · Post by **zakk** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 6:13 am

BulletMagnet wrote:Considering that (AFAIK) they're currently hoping to port Ketsui onto the PS3, I doubt that Arika would have turned down Mushi had it been offered to them.

No, they turned it down. Mihara (or however you spell it) mentioned it in one of his blog updates. Basically the way he seems to put it, initial porting of DOJ was very difficult and he was not eager to repeat that experience with Mushi. There's been mentions of him having some 'stress related' health issues too, which might explain the unwillingness to take on a stress-inducing port.

DEL · Post by **DEL** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 10:56 am

Dave_K - Yes I agree that the artificial slowdown doesn't match the arcade. Plus, the display I'm getting is fuzzy and the interlacing gives a funny shimmer to the display. I was initially worried that all these negative factors would stop me from 1CCing Maniac as usual, but its ok, they're not. However, I can't be as precise with my movements as with the arcade. I'll try to rig my PS2 to my Hantarex Monitor via SCART, hopefully the display will be clearer.

Cheers, DEL

Marler · Post by **Marler** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 12:05 pm

My copy arrived this morning from play-asia...
(FYI - Ems boxed, Limited edition and a Capcom fighting jam memory
card. A customs charge of £13! Swines.)
I'd like to thank...
The royal mail for their oh-so speedy service.
Play-asia for the last order I will -probably- be making from them
(Never say never eh?)
Taito for giving me the greatest reason ever to buy a TV suitable for
tateing, thanks to their shimmery yoko stylings.
Mihara (or whatever) For worrying so much about his physical condition.
What about mine and everyone elses eh? The needs of the many and all
that.

Other than all that, I like this very much.......seriously.
Slightly dodgy or not Mushihime is for me a very fun game indeed.

PS - In yoko mode, if you set the 'screen adjust' to 0, -2 (up on the stick
twice) An extra, I dunno, maybe 2 rows of pixels appears at the top of
the screen, well, on my TV anyway. Odd.

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 6:26 pm

Not to say anyone follows my opinion, but having now played this game a few hours, it has kinda pushed some thoughts I've had about cave and modern shmups in general to a head...

Which is to say that I like 'original' mode significantly more than 'maniac'. Original mode feels like an homage to dragon blaze (minus the dragons shot of course...doh!) with some still very dangerous and fast patterns--but still being what I recognize as a shmup (that is, my mid-90's shmup brain).

'Maniac' however immediately takes the 'moving walls' idea to heart, and I can see from the super-plays (and even the not-so-super plays) that I am supposed to somehow see the microscopic hole between the walls of pink that is admittedly bigger than my pixel size hitbox but my still require me to have a 36" tv in tate to be able to actually identify.

I think we all have different skills we bring to shmupping; my skills still belong to toaplan, psikyo, seibu and the early cave. I know others who are more of this 'bullet-maze' variety but I feel more stressed out with the big sea of pink than I should be playing a video game.

Good lord, I know my opinion is very often contrary to the majority here, but I suddely want to play a few rounds of Trizeal.

(all that said, I AM enjoying Mushi, but I think original is a lot more fun for me--I'm so happy Cave included it!)

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 6:46 pm

Thanks for the impressions. These Mushihime impressions make me want to get a Japanese PS2 or some way to play import PS2 games. However, becuase of her age and traits, the main character reminds me a bit of Nagha from the Slayers movies and OVAs.

mannerbot wrote:Finally got mine today. Graphics are ugly in RGB, blah blah blah. Anyway, I'm very glad to be able to play this game, even though I'm getting slapped around hard at the moment. It's amazing how superplay guys can make games look so easy, but once a mere mortal steps grabs the joystick...

And as it turns out, Play-Asia lied about having shipped the game on July 20th as my package was postmarked July 25.

They did that to me with Kururin Paradise. I'm curious to see what the date postmarked on my next order that just shipped will be. They shipped awfully fast...

Ord · Post by **Ord** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 9:35 pm

**sigh** STILL waiting....

Post by **Icarus** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 11:39 pm

I've had the game for a week, and while I like the game a lot, and I love the styling and presentation, there isn't really anything about Mushi that grabs me and sinks it's claws in.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, immensely fun - Maniac and Arrange are great for a quick go - and the gameplay in itself is very deep, but there's nothing different about Mushi compared to [insert Cave game here] to warrant more play time. It feels just like another typical Cave manic to me

EDIT: And the slowdown! Oh, my God. While I expected the port to have some slowdown because of the amount of bullets being pushed around, I never expected it to be of the stop-start variety. Several times I've had bullets suddenly dash into me when the slowdown cuts off, and several times I've tried to make pinpoint maneuvers through patterns, only to have slowdown kick in, and then kick out a split-second later, sending me careening into a line of bullets. Once or twice every now and again is bearable, but several times within the same credit is just plain annoying.

While I'm thankful for the port and to Taito and Cave for bringing it home, there are just a few little niggles that stop it from being 100% playable/enjoyable (in Maniac, Arrange and Ultra at least). Original is fun to play though. But TBH, given the choice, I'd rather play the PCB instead.

I'm probably the only neutral-to-negative opinion in this thread...

CVM · Post by **CVM** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 12:08 am

Ord wrote:**sigh** STILL waiting....

Ditto. It'll be 17 days if it arrives later this morning...

cigsthecat · Post by **cigsthecat** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 1:50 am

Icarus- I don't think it's anything amazing either; I can't see myself playing it for too long. I think I've just about had it with chaining too.

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 2:07 am

Icarus wrote:I've had the game for a week, and while I like the game a lot, and I love the styling and presentation, there isn't really anything about Mushi that grabs me and sinks it's claws in.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, immensely fun - Maniac and Arrange are great for a quick go - and the gameplay in itself is very deep, but there's nothing different about Mushi compared to [insert Cave game here] to warrant more play time. It feels just like another typical Cave manic to me

EDIT: And the slowdown! Oh, my God. While I expected the port to have some slowdown because of the amount of bullets being pushed around, I never expected it to be of the stop-start variety. Several times I've had bullets suddenly dash into me when the slowdown cuts off, and several times I've tried to make pinpoint maneuvers through patterns, only to have slowdown kick in, and then kick out a split-second later, sending me careening into a line of bullets. Once or twice every now and again is bearable, but several times within the same credit is just plain annoying.

While I'm thankful for the port and to Taito and Cave for bringing it home, there are just a few little niggles that stop it from being 100% playable/enjoyable (in Maniac, Arrange and Ultra at least). Original is fun to play though. But TBH, given the choice, I'd rather play the PCB instead.

I'm probably the only neutral-to-negative opinion in this thread...

Really? I think the game feels notably different than DDP or Storm of Progear (the only other two Cave games I own). The bullet clouds are often quicker, they're more like Psikyo bullets than typical Cave bullet clouds (as others have said) but they have a lot more method to their madness.

EDIT: I also want to add, that unlike DDP or Progear, the bullets spread out more or are circular rather than coming at you in one traveling cluster.

Yeah, the slowdown is bad in a few spots but nothing completely jarring. I personally have never died due to it but have avoided a few scrapes.

As bloodflowers has said, the PCB slows down too. But maybe he can clarify if that is the same amount of slowdown less than the port.

And just to be clear myself, I still haven't played the full game. I want to try and get to stage 4 on one credit before I treat myself to the finale.

I also wanna add that the big, crawling stage 3 enemy is beautiful to behold. I love the eyes it has all over its body.

Post by **Icarus** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 2:30 am

Like I said, I do like the game, but to me, it feels like another Cave chaining manic with different graphics. You can only take the chaining system ideas so far IMO, same goes with huge pink bullet swarms, and it'd be nice to see some more variety in the future (which is partly why I invested in Ibara). Again, I am glad they brought it home, and I may put time into it in the near future, but I regard Ketsui and Guwange as far greater games.

The slowdown is expected, but in some spots, it is awful, especially in stages 4 and 5, where it goes from full-speed to snail pace and back again in the blink of an eye. In many cases the slowdown is very welcome - makes dodging a bit easier - but when it almost does the jerky-jumpy thing and sends you into bullets (and, more often than not, vice versa), it's more irritating than welcome.

(Got a kusoplay of me playing crap in Arrange, 169mil to the true last boss, with several hits caused by the slowdown if you're interested

)

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 2:56 am

Icarus wrote:Like I said, I do like the game, but to me, it feels like another Cave chaining manic with different graphics. You can only take the chaining system ideas so far IMO, same goes with huge pink bullet swarms, and it'd be nice to see some more variety in the future (which is partly why I invested in Ibara). Again, I am glad they brought it home, and I may put time into it in the near future, but I regard Ketsui and Guwange as far greater games.

The slowdown is expected, but in some spots, it is awful, especially in stages 4 and 5, where it goes from full-speed to snail pace and back again in the blink of an eye. In many cases the slowdown is very welcome - makes dodging a bit easier - but when it almost does the jerky-jumpy thing and sends you into bullets (and, more often than not, vice versa), it's more irritating than welcome.

(Got a kusoplay of me playing crap in Arrange, 169mil to the true last boss, with several hits caused by the slowdown if you're interested )

Oh I agree, there's only so much difference between Mushi and other Cave games. It feels notably different in some ways. It just has a profoundly different presentation (to me) which I love.

And no I don't wanna see that replay because it will make me feel like I have crap skills. Which I do compared to you.

Post by **Icarus** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 3:09 am

Dylan1CC wrote:And no I don't wanna see that replay because it will make me feel like I have crap skills. Which I do compared to you.

Don't feel bad. When it comes to Cave games, even though I like them a lot, I just cannot play them as well as some forum members here. "Bullet hell" games just don't agree with me at all, my skills are rooted to old school types - fast, aimed deadly bullets, small patterns, hazards from scenery and sneaky enemies - and it is those kinds of games I'm good at.

A lot of Mushi is luck. Several times I've managed to pull off some miraculous dodges because of the generous hit detection, quite often through seemingly impassible walls of pink. However, that tiny hit detection can also be a pain in the backside, as it's really hard to judge just where your hit center is, the glowing orb you get from holding down Shot doesn't really give you much of an indication as to just how small it is.

Besides, you've cleared Batsugun. That's something I haven't managed to do yet

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 3:12 am

Icarus wrote:
Dylan1CC wrote:And no I don't wanna see that replay because it will make me feel like I have crap skills. Which I do compared to you.
Don't feel bad. When it comes to Cave games, even though I like them a lot, I just cannot play them as well as some forum members here. "Bullet hell" games just don't agree with me at all, my skills are rooted to old school types - fast, aimed deadly bullets, small patterns, hazards from scenery and sneaky enemies - and it is those kinds of games I'm good at.

A lot of Mushi is luck. Several times I've managed to pull off some miraculous dodges because of the generous hit detection, quite often through seemingly impassible walls of pink. However, that tiny hit detection can also be a pain in the backside, as it's really hard to judge just where your hit center is, the glowing orb you get from holding down Shot doesn't really give you much of an indication as to just how small it is.

Besides, you've cleared Batsugun. That's something I haven't managed to do yet

Yeah, the game is generous sometimes, I agree. As for the hitbox itself I like to think of it as a centered target that the bullet has to hit a "bulls-eye" on in order to score a kill on ya. I dunno that helps me understand it better anyways (in Mushi's case).

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 3:17 am

Icarus wrote:Like I said, I do like the game, but to me, it feels like another Cave chaining manic with different graphics. You can only take the chaining system ideas so far IMO,

Mars Matrix should've killed off enemy chaining 5 years ago.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 4:02 am

Icarus wrote:Like I said, I do like the game, but to me, it feels like another Cave chaining manic with different graphics. You can only take the chaining system ideas so far IMO, same goes with huge pink bullet swarms, and it'd be nice to see some more variety in the future (which is partly why I invested in Ibara).

Not to be a pain in the neck or anything, but I'm curious...considering all the similarities that are supposed to exist between Ibara and Garegga, what makes the difference between "you can only take this idea so far" and "it's a great variation on this theme," or something like that? Is it because Cave has tweaked its "formula" several times, while Garegga-esque systems haven't appeared as often, or is it something else? Again, not trying to pester or whatnot, but I'd like to hear your "chain" of thought on this.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Sat Aug 06, 2005 5:14 am

I'll agree w/ the Mushi is rather bland. Don't get me wrong. It's fun, but as I've stated before in this thread, I'd much rather have one mode, somewhere between original and maniac. I think they just tried too hard to please everyone this time.

As for the port... well... really, anyone could've done this good of a job. Props to Taito for actually doing it. Jeers to them for not putting as much heart into it as they could have. I think I have the right to say that as they're a company I've adored in my younger years.