MushihimaSama doesn’t have much of a story, and for a shmup, that isn’t necessarily unheard of. The only story elements you have are in the brief animated scenes at the start and end of the game. What little story these provide is that the world you find yourself in has been taken over by giant alien bugs. It’s now your job to stop the alien bug invasion and save the planet.
The game has you playing as a young woman that’s flying around in an alien craft, taking down everything coming at you. The player flies the “ship” around the screen as bugs and bullets come around you. The game scrolls vertically from the top to the bottom. As you take down enemies, you gather precious gems that are used to increase your score. The larger your score is, the more continues you’re provided to get through the game.
MushihimaSama provides you with four different versions of the game to play. You get your choice of Novice, Normal, Arrange, and Ver 1.5. Novice is what you would expect, it’s an easier difficulty that anyone can pick up and play that are new to shmups or want a more relaxing experience. Normal mode is the arcade version of the game that you can play at home, it’s also a higher quality version of the arcade game that isn’t available in arcades. Arrange mode is a special mode that was created specifically for the home release of the game. This mode gives you all satellite crafts at the start of the game and allows you to switch shot types on the fly. Ver 1.5 is a special limited edition of the game which appears to be a combination of Arrange and Normal modes.
Once you select what version you would like to play, you’re provided with three different difficulty modes, Original, Maniac, and Ultra. Original is a basic mode that has less bullets coming at you. Maniac drastically increases the number of bullets coming at you that you will have to avoid, but allows you to rack up insane bonus points. Ultra is the hardest difficulty settings that has even more bullets coming at you than Maniac mode, and has even more enemies on screen than any other difficulty mode.
As for offensive weapons, you get your choice of three different shot types that you pick at the start of the game. Each shot type can be powered up three times until it reaches max power. You also have little mini satellite crafts that when picked up, can shoot down enemies along side you. Besides the satellite crafts and single weapon, you also have the ability to drop bombs.
These bombs are dropped in order to not only take down enemies and do large amounts of damage to bosses, but they are also used to help clear the screen of bullets. This game is a bullet hell and the game definitely lives up to it. There are so many bullets on the screen from the numerous enemies you will encounter that dropping a bomb every couple of minutes is crucial at survival. This is because that with this game, one hit and your done. You can set your lives at up to five in the options, which helps to get continues and eventually be able to beat the game, which I would definitely recommend doing.
Speaking of options, one of the cool things you can do in the options, besides adjust the points to continue ratio is to play the game in tate mode. I found this a bit odd as it’s being played on console and not an arcade cab, but I get the appeal for those purists or those looking for an arcade experience at home, I am glad that it’s here for those that want it.
One last thing I will say about the options in this game is that you can see the controls and it lists different fire methods as well as a option to change the shot type, depending on the button you press. Despite these controls being present in the options screen across game modes, they only apply to the Arrange and Ver 1.5 modes.
MushihimaSama is a graphically impressive game with a unique art style. All of the numerous enemies on screen are very detailed. Each one has several animations, bright colors, and great movement. The mid bosses and end stage bosses are massive and fill the screen. Each one also have different stages to combat and both look great, regardless of playing in docked mode or handheld.
The environments, like the enemies and bosses you encounter, are very bright and detailed. Each one looking drastically different than the last. The art style of MushihimaSama gives the game the appearance of being an interactive watercolor painting. It’s really hard to describe in words, but you can kinda get an idea from these photos. Though I will say t hat the photos presented in this article really doesn’t due the games visual appearance justice. It’s the kind of visual style that is best played than being seen as a static image.
Now this is the point in the review where I would say that despite all of the bullets, enemies and enormous bosses that the game performs like a dream, but that’s just not the case with this game. Yes the game does perform surprisingly well given everything going on before you. However, it does have a rather large performance dip when there are either a ton of enemies on screen, or an end stage boss with a lot of moving components. Despite this considerable dip in the performance, it’s very brief and hardly detracts from the over all experience.
Along with the stunning visuals, the music in this game is really artistically pleasing to the ears. Yes the game does have sound effects, but they aren’t unique. The sound effects are what you would expect to hear in any shmup on any given platform or arcade cabinet.
Where the game shines in the audio department is with its music. Every background track on every stage is different and unique. Each track sounds like it was orchestrated and not like it was electronically made, though it may well have been. But the point here is, that it doesn’t sound like it, and it’s impressive to think that if it was electronically made, that it could sound as good as it does.
The last thing I will bring up in terms of sound is the fact that not only does each stage have its own track, but each track differs slightly between each version. I would have expected the tracks to be recycled, but to my surprise, that just isn’t the case with this game. It really makes you appreciate the attention to detail that went into every aspect of this game.
MushihimaSama is one of the most beautiful arcade shooters I have played in decades. The attention to detail and the amount of content you get with this release is unmatched in it’s genre. It blends the feel of modern and retro shooters that just feels nearly perfect. The only blemish being the dip in performance which results in a glaring visual slowdown.
But despite this, it truly is an amazing game to play, even if it is short, it’s enough of a challenge that it will have you keep coming back for another run. This is really what you would want in a shooter of this caliber.
I was going to mention this at the start of this review, but figured it would be best to add into my final thoughts. The physical release of this game from Clear River Games, isn’t a special edition with lots of goodies, but it is in fact very special. It’s not because it comes with a two sided poster, which honestly, I would have preferred a manual; but it’s that it’s in a physical form.
You see earlier this year, the publisher of MushihimaSama pulled the digital release of the game from all Switch digital store fronts. You can’t even re-download it from your purchase history. The reason for this was due to the publisher losing the license agreement with Cave, the original developer and publisher of the arcade version.
So you see, the physical release of this game truly is special. I would highly recommend picking this game up while you can.
Disclaimer: We were provided with a review copy
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.