Been playing Mushi Sama

[evil_ash_xero]

I got this a while back for PS2. First off, this is not a good port. I can tell that once underneath this blur there was a really attractive game. People complain about Ibara, which does have some blur. This is way beyond that.
I was wondering if there are any pics on the net that shows the difference between the PCB vs. the port?

Also, I think it's a good game. It's not one of my favorites from Cave. I can see how it can be improved upon. Did Futari take it to the next level? Of course, I won't be able to play it for a decade or more, but i'd still like to know.

It does have a nice atmosphere and nice music. I don't mind the girly angle. It's just too bad that Cave kind look at that as a blueprint for success a little too much now.

s/m

[henry dark]

One thing I CAN'T STAND about the game, either on the PS2 or in the arcade, is the scream your character emits when she dies.

[P_HAT]

First off, this is not a good port.

The winner is you!

[moozooh]

One thing I CAN'T STAND about the game, either on the PS2 or in the arcade, is the scream your character emits when she dies.

I'm pretty sure this is done so that you try to avoid death as much as possible. Additional motivating factor, you know. :)

[RGC]

One weakness with both the incredibly expensive arcade version, and the cheap-as-chips slightly blurry PS2 port is the delay when you hit bomb. I prefer an instantaneous blast that clears any projectiles about to hit you. You almost have to plan when you're going to use bombs before the bullet pattern begins to become overwhelming. Other than that, it rocks!

Some Cave games seem to compliment one another too - after a few hours on Dangun the other night, I whacked on Mushi and 1'CC'd original on my first credit with S-type (hadn't played it for 2 months). Unfortunately, a 1'cc Mushi original doesn't imply much skill, allegedly.

I'm sure there's a spin-off thread in here somewhere about games that compliment one another...

[elfhentaifan]

One thing I CAN'T STAND about the game, either on the PS2 or in the arcade, is the scream your character emits when she dies.

I'm pretty sure this is done so that you try to avoid death as much as possible. Additional motivating factor, you know.

she will scream passionatly when you clear the game, or at least lets imagine she would

[SuperPang]

I seem to recall Mushi has more filtering in Yoko than tate and Ibara is the other way round

[charlie chong]

I seem to recall Mushi has more filtering in Yoko than tate and Ibara is the other way round

yesh mushi is okay in tate through r.g.b.. ibara looks blurry whatever..

i just hate the jerky slowdown in the mushi port so much i just don't play it. they should have kept the slowdown going till you pass through a big pattern or made a more gradual change when you are leaving such pattern.. to get constantly hit by the last few bullets of a pattern because of sudden speeding up is just a pain in the arse..

[spadgy]

I seem to recall Mushi has more filtering in Yoko than tate and Ibara is the other way round

This must be true as I always play tate and haven't noticed a difference to the point that I find the PS2 version in any way frustrating. I play it maybe once a week or fortnight at the arcade too...

With regard to RGC's comments, I like the bomb delay, or rather I like the fact that the delay allows you to fling the bomb in a desired direction with a flick of the stick. (I'm not imagining that right? Because if so I'm adding extra effort!)

[Kaede]

This must be true as I always play tate and haven't noticed a difference to the point that I find the PS2 version in any way frustrating. I play it maybe once a week or fortnight at the arcade too...

Hey, it's not like the monitor on that Mushi cab is any better/worse than the PS2 port

[spadgy]

This must be true as I always play tate and haven't noticed a difference to the point that I find the PS2 version in any way frustrating. I play it maybe once a week or fortnight at the arcade too...

Hey, it's not like the monitor on that Mushi cab is any better/worse than the PS2 port

You mean at Casino/The Goodge? You're right. I'm basing my experience of the two in comparison on a fairly unexceptional cab, but at least the monitor is better than the stick!

[MX7]

The big problem I have with Mushi in the Casino is having to stand up. I hate being 6'2" sometimes.

I've never been good enough at this game to be significantly pissed off with the port. I started gaming in the 16 bit era: 'bad port' means something completely different to me

[RGC]

The big problem I have with Mushi in the Casino is having to stand up. I hate being 6'2" sometimes.

I cannot see the problem, personally:



This man wishes to remain anonymous on account of his best score.

[Gwyrgyn Blood]

i just hate the jerky slowdown in the mushi port so much i just don't play it. they should have kept the slowdown going till you pass through a big pattern or made a more gradual change when you are leaving such pattern.. to get constantly hit by the last few bullets of a pattern because of sudden speeding up is just a pain in the arse..

It's just as well, Mushi Futari has jerky slowdown on the arcade PCB in places. :/

[Shatterhand]

I've never been good enough at this game to be significantly pissed off with the port. I started gaming in the 16 bit era: 'bad port' means something completely different to me

I started gaming in the 8bits era... it was even worse

[spadgy]

i just hate the jerky slowdown in the mushi port so much i just don't play it. they should have kept the slowdown going till you pass through a big pattern or made a more gradual change when you are leaving such pattern.. to get constantly hit by the last few bullets of a pattern because of sudden speeding up is just a pain in the arse..

Good point, but I do think the sudden speed up is a nice penalty to pay for the advantage of slowdown. Balances things out.

[RGB]

I find myself that abrupt transition between slowdown and normal speed quite annoying too, especially in the stages 3 and 5* :/ Is it much better on a real PCB ?

[clp]

i found ibara to be rediculously blurry to play at first almost to the point of amusing but i changed from RGB to component and its ALOT better infact its awesome , mushi through rgb on my lcd screen doesnt look to blurry looks good with component to , i always play in tate .

[charlie chong]

i

Good point, but I do think the sudden speed up is a nice penalty to pay for the advantage of slowdown. Balances things out.

still it should be more gradual not sudden.. espgaluda 2 pcb does some similar stuff with the slowdown sometimes when your using/leaving kakusei zettai mode but for some reason is so much easier to predict than mushi ...
i do want to try the pcb just to see how the slowdown is tho.. all cave games have slowdown but none i've played speed up so stupidly as the mushi port

[GaijinPunch]

/ Is it much better on a real PCB ?

Yes. It's not perfect, but it's far smoother.

[Zebra Airforce]

the ps2 has that "strobe slowdown" that makes it such an annoyance

[it290]

Having not played the PCB, I don't find it much of a problem, personally. Granted I have not finished the game on Maniac, but you do learn to learn to anticipate exactly when the slowdown/speedup will occur. I suppose it would be far more annoying if you were switching between the PCB and the port with any frequency, however.

[evil_ash_xero]

The big problem I have with Mushi in the Casino is having to stand up. I hate being 6'2" sometimes.

I've never been good enough at this game to be significantly pissed off with the port. I started gaming in the 16 bit era: 'bad port' means something completely different to me

ha ha..I started gaming in..ummm...well, Atari, and i'm still complaining! It's too blurry, and there's too much slowdown.

However, let us remember the Atari port of Pac-man, and things look a lot better.

s/m

[gray117]

240p hex edit appears to help both versions.

Most significantly for me are the ibara tate improvements @ 240p. I suspect this is because ibara uses a filter that works more like a screen pass or effect upon a sprite.

Mushisama appears to work differently - I suspect each sprite is rendered as poly and texture filtered... reducing resolution will help to make it look like the sampling is reduced for this... technically I don't think this is actually reduced - simply slightly less obvious.

End results on an lcd screen may vary widely depending on how rgb/component inputs are handled... Some might significantly crap out with a 240 image others may sharpen up nicely... [*edit 'nicely' as in all things being relative ... why the pissing hell we can't have options for 240/480 p/i filtered/unfiltered filter options etc etc for all games as default, in a menu, I'll never know ...]

[Kollision]

One weakness with both the incredibly expensive arcade version, and the cheap-as-chips slightly blurry PS2 port is the delay when you hit bomb. I prefer an instantaneous blast that clears any projectiles about to hit you. You almost have to plan when you're going to use bombs before the bullet pattern begins to become overwhelming.

I played Mushi a lot a few weeks ago and I don't remember any delay when bombing.
Yes, the bomb animation sequence takes 1 or 2 seconds to happen, but its panic effect is instantaneous.

[LSU]

Despite the port's issues this is still easily my favourite Cave game that's been ported to a home console so far.
I played Futari a bit recently and from my limited experience that seems to be even better - although if you don't like the sound she makes when she dies in the first game, you should really be prepared for the voice effect in Futari when she collects powerups...

[Hibachi]

I have to admit that I have only played the PS2 port and I love it.

I also enjoy Ibara but again, have not played the arcade.

I did go into Casino on Goodge St once though but did not play Mushi as the screen looked really bad and played ProGear instead.

I still find the game very playable so in my case, ignorance is bliss.

[Thunder Force]

I started gaming in the 16 bit era: 'bad port' means something completely different to me

I started gaming in the 8bits era... it was even worse

Exactly, this is a point that comes up repeatedly from retro players. Fans of the genre these days just have it too good (spoiled... grumble, grumble... back in my day... etc. ). The ps2 ports of Mushi and Ibara are easily some of the best games in that console's huge library, not to mention the convenience factor of having them in that format. Probably would have been called "arcade perfect" in the old days (that term was never accurate ).