RF Generation Message Board

The last couple years, the Shmup Club has chosen a high profile game as our January title, and it would serve as both the introduction for the year, as well as a scoring competition throughout the year. However, we haven't had great participation beyond January with those, and in particular, keeping up the leaderboard throughout the year proved to be something I couldn't keep up with successfully. So instead of doing that, we're trying something new. We'll still have a high profile game we want to cover, but instead, it will be called the "Focus Shot" game. Each month, we hope to have people playing the game alongside the regular monthly selection, but with a focus on learning the game more specifically, and not just going for a 1CC, but also in more completely exploring all the game has to offer, whether that is more modes, scoring techniques, other ships/characters, or other secrets and content. For the podcast, we'll talk about the "Focus Shot" game each month in a short segment, and then we'll have a special episode at the end of the year to wrap up discussion about the game, and cover it in greater detail, like we do for each regular monthly game. We hope this approach will encourage greater participation throughout the year, and give us a lot more ability to really go in-depth with a game.

With that in mind, we're covering the Cave classic Mushihimesama as our 2022 "Focus Shot" game. With its recent digital release on the Nintendo Switch, and forthcoming physical pressing from Limited Run Games, in addition to the long available Steam release, Mushihimesama has quickly become much more well-known over the last year than it has been for some time, particularly outside the shmup fan base. This "bullet hell" style shoot-em-up takes ideas Cave had implemented in previous games and refines them, as well as paring down the game play experience a bit to a tighter approach, eschewing the 2-loop system many previous games had, and sticking to a really well designed, core set of stages that scale in difficulty in a way that allows players to scale with it as they learn. Mushihimesama also sees Cave exploring new territory at the time, shifting focus from military-style shooters to the much more colorful and vibrant world of insects and nature scenes. Beyond the original arcade version, there have been other iterations on the formula, with the later 1.5 version, which changes enough to make it a different experience, as well as the Arrange mode, and of course, multiple difficulty levels for each mode that further add replayability. And there's also a Novice mode to help bring players into the world who might be less familiar with this style of shooting game, and help players learn some fundamentals. Join the RF Generation Shmup Club during 2022 as we play Mushihimesama throughout the year!

  I started playing some Mushi this month. I'm not too familiar with this original game like I am with Futari. I'm playing on the Steam version.

  I'm starting out playing the original and 1.5 versions just to see the differences. I see that you start off pretty weak in the original version. The 1.5 version you get at least two little bug options to start out with. This makes the original version more difficult in the first two stages than 1.5. Once you get to stage 3, things start to balance out difficulty wise, as fast as I can tell now. So far I think I like version 1.5 more since it feels and plays like Futari more. I'll get around to giving the Arrange version a go here soon.

  I've just been using the green weapon so far since I was comparing the versions and didn't want to muddy the waters of the comparison. I have been picking up different formations as they appear in the game. First impressions have me leaning toward the wide formation. Maybe that will change once I get a better hold of the routing in each stage.

  So far, this game is fantastic. There's so many options, weapons, formations, versions, etc. to mess around with. I'll be leaving my impressions through the year here as I progress.

  Happy bug splatting! 

Great initial thoughts! I'm focusing (heh) mainly on 1.0 right now, as I hope to be able to get enough into the game to get a clear of the original arcade release, and move on to other modes or difficulties as I clear, and probably closing out the year trying all the modes and difficulties, so I can get the full breadth of the experience. I ended up clearing the Novice mode within 3 or 4 tries after I initially bought the Switch digital version last year, and I would like to see about Novice Maniac and Novice Ultra at some point, just to see what I can do with those. I'll probably continue to focus on the Switch version, primarily because it has all the modes. The Steam port locks some content as DLC, in case you weren't aware.

 
  LOL! I never even thought about Novice Maniac or Ultra. What is THAT like? I'm definitely going to try that next! So many ways to play, I love it!

  I played some Arrange mode. You get full power from the start, I believe. At least option bug wise. Noticed it has auto bomber on. Seems like there are more bullets with the ability for BIG juicy cancels. I don't think it seemed as easy as Arrange in Futari but maybe I just wasn't playing very well.

  I like your approach of tackling 1.0 first. I think I'll do the same. Then move to 1.5.

Novice Maniac and Novice Ultra are no joke. They're obviously going to be easier than Maniac and Ultra in other modes, but having cleared Novice Normal difficulty within a few tries, I hit a wall quickly on the other Novice difficulties.