[ Note ] = This article was originally a message board post at Shmups.

I'll start saying this: This game is absolutely fucking beautiful. Cave really got into the use of fading and transparency and stuff like that. Pink bullets? Nope. They're all purple now, but who really cares about that. You know how the explosions in Dragon Blaze are blue? In Mushihime, they're all like blue-green. Once I edit the videos, I'll get 'em up really quick. (Can someone help me out here?) The enemies are animated quite well. In one stage you're flying over this huge four-screen-long bug and you can see individual joints moving. You'd have to see it to believe it.

The pokeball-thing is NOT the "gimmick" is just a bomb. Of note, the Power-up system is very different from the other Cave games. How so? You have a selectable shot system. M-Power is your standard fare shot that balances between coverage area and power. W-Power is your wide shot that fans out (like DDPDOJ's B, of course) and S-Power covers a narrow area, but the shots are more powerful than M-Power. Holding the A-button doesn't change your weapon at all. It just slows you down so you can maneuver those tight spots. You can also choose between two types of option formations. There's the traditional Trace (Gradius) arrangement and there's Formation (fixed) options as well. Collecting Options items adds one more option to your squad.

There is however, a scoring gimmick. It doesn't at all seem difficult, but it can only be done in Maniac mode. I'm not really sure how to explain it, but I'll try...It's something like DDP2's combo counter, but it doesn't chain from one enemy to the next. It's specific to the enemy that you're shooting at. (I think it might work for groups of popcorn enemies too) One bonus is added up if you destroy the first phase of some of the larger enemies (there's a lot of that in this game). The Jewels you get are more the equivalent to DDP's stars - the final tally is added up in the end for a bonus. Also like DDP, there are ground jewels as well as air jewels. I couldn't quite understand it entirely, but I might be somewhat close...