Muchi Muchi Pork

[Discoalucard]

www.hardcoregaming101.net/muchimuchipork/muchimuchipork.htm

This one was actually a long time coming - looking at the files, I was supposed to post this up three months ago, but realized I had never played the Arrange Mode, so I put it off until now. Anyway, I'm posting it here early to see if anyone can pick out anything I got wrong with the scoring system on either mode. One of the things that drives me nuts about writing shooting articles is that proper FAQs are still rather difficult to find. The only place that broke out all of the Arrange differences was on Giant Bomb, of all places, and actually got some of it wrong. (The Lard attack does drain the Lard meter, although since it's no longer segmented, you can use it much more often.)

Oh wait, what is this game? It's a Cave shooter by Shinobu Yagawa, but it nicely combines the typical aspects of a standard Cave game along with his other games for Raizing (Battle Garegga, Bakraid, etc.) Despite the goofy "pig girl" concept, I really dig it - I was looking more forward to the 360 port so I could play Pink Sweets, which I prefer aesthetically but is just way too difficult. I originally had a Play Asia ad which now showed up incorrectly when I went back to revise this - apparently it's out of stock and prices have already shot near the $100 mark on eBay. Geez, the package is only like six months old!

[PooshhMao]

Anybody else here fed up with Cave as I am? I still count Dodonpachi as one of my favourite games of all time but they just re-theme and re-skin the same game over and over and over (and change the game mechanics slightly)

[killer]

Whaddyatalkinabout? Even the different modes within 1 game are played wildly different from another. Maybe you're just done with vertical shooters as a whole?

"All the time, you flying this ship/person/thing up the screen, shooting and dodging *yawn*"

[PooshhMao]

Well, not really, I still enjoy the occasional go at Raiden DX, or the older Cave games. It's that the 'tap the fire button for rapid fire and movement, hold it down for a powerful beam attack and slow movement' mechanic is just to fucking OVERDONE. Danmaku bullet patterns the same thing. Final nail in the coffin for me is the recent-ish switch to fetishy underage anime girl themes, something that's putting me off from modern anime in general too.

[killer]

Alright, alright, I get you... The scoring mechanics vary wildly however.

[Weasel]

I'd argue that the scoring mechanics is far from the reason I'd play a shooter, so I honestly stick with stuff like Raiden DX, 1943, or R-Type.

[killer]

I'll add that they can't be separated from everything else in a Cave game, so in these they matter whether you like it or not. It's just that you don't. Like it, that is.

[retromjm]

I love this one! I've played and loved most of Yagawa's games, but I think I prefer his work from Cave than his Raizing work, but that's just me. Have you considered doing an article on the NES action game, Kickmaster? He worked on that one.

I disagree with Cave creating the same game over and over again. Compared to the very sheer unoriginality of modern gaming as a whole, Cave's shmups are a breath of fresh air with their different scoring mechanics, which the genre never really had much to offer in that department. Most shmups before Cave were just dodging and shooting affairs, with not much else to it other than rapidly pressing the fire button until the player's finger gives in. While that's nice, it's nice to have a company differentiate from the norm.

I also think Cave's newer games are much more interesting than their older ones. As hard as it is compared to the original, I personally prefer both Dodonpachi Dai-Ou-Jou and Dai-Fukkatsu Black Label(also a Yagawa game) over Dodonpachi. ESP Ra. De. isn't as fun as ESPgaulda I & II. Although I like them, both Dangun Feveron and Guwange are considered forgettable games from Cave's fanbase; Mushihimesama and Deathsmiles, on the other hand are successful games.

Also, I feel the attack on Cave's games based on artstyle is quite lame duck reasoning; play the games before judging them for their looks. Besides, it isn't entirely Cave's fault for their artstyle choice; Japan is very obsessed with that look, they just cater to that fanbase, hence the success of Deathsmiles.

[Discoalucard]

I'm actually liking recent Cave games more than their older output. Their home ports, while still maybe too pricey, are much better than we were before. The leaderboards do an excellent job of contextualizing your score, which makes scoring more rewarding, since you've got some barometer of progress instead of an arbitrary number. Being able to download expert replays easily is fantastic too.

In general their games have become more approachable as of late, so I don't feel like I need to be a super 24/7 shmup snorter to get anything out of them. It's been a good long while since I played the original DDP, but I've enjoyed Deathsmiles, Muchi Muchi Pork and Akai Katana more than I remember liking DDP when I first played it.

It's true that they feel kind of same-y, but they've been branching out a bit to hori scrollers, which I approve of, and the changes in mechanics might seem subtle at the outset, can drastically change the way they play, sometimes in between the same game. I can't really stand the original version of Pink Sweets, but I love the Arrange mode, even though they use the same assets and the same general functions.

You can blame Touhou for the influx of moe-ness to the shooters, although when it comes to Cave the sentiment is overblown - the only games that really suffer from it are Deathsmiles and Muchi Muchi Pork here (and the giant transforming robot girlie bosses in Daifukkatsu are weird but not quite the same thing) - and even outside of a few unfortunate promo/cutscene images there's really nothing salacious about the games themselves.

EDIT:

Aug 24, 2011 8:50:14 GMT -5 retromjm said:

I love this one! I've played and loved most of Yagawa's games, but I think I prefer his work from Cave than his Raizing work, but that's just me. Have you considered doing an article on the NES action game, Kickmaster? He worked on that one.

Looks like we posted at the same time and basically said similar things!

I had no idea he worked in Kickmaster...but I guess it makes sense. I knew he worked on Recca, and that was made by the same company. I started an article on that company, KID, awhile back, but it didn't get any further than a few paragraphs on the NES GI Joe games. It'll come some day though - they had some interesting output.

[retromjm]

Thanks, Kurt. Most of my post wasn't directed at you though. I just wanted to give opinion on the other posts in the thread. Nice article, btw.

[killer]

Yeah, thanks for putting that up. Collected information on this game is rather thin.

[BulletMagnet]

I was wondering whether or not you'd be bundling Yagawa's Cave work into a single article...guess that answers my question. A few thing I noticed:

- There should probably be some mention made that boss milking via bombs/suiciding is a big part of high-level scoring, though like the rest of the score system it's optional (and risky, thanks to the rank).

- You might want to make the "medaling" section a bit clearer - "repeatedly" could suggest just blasting a big group of baddies in one shot, as opposed to the short bursts needed to raise the medal value quickly.

- When your lard meter is empty, hitting the "lard beam" button results in a straight-ahead shot which spawns extra pigs to collect and refill your gauge faster.

- "Gage" is an in-game typo, but I don't think "diggiculty" is.

- This one comes down to personal opinion, but I know that some shmuppers wouldn't call the port's inaccuracies "small", so be prepared for a bit of backlash on that front.

- The same might go for the graphics (I've always liked the game's look, personally) - on a related note, if you're going to criticize one thing about the sound, it oughta be the constant squeaks and screeches that emanate from your character every time you fire off a lard beam or get close to a bullet (Pink Sweets did it first, but it's even more grating here IMO).

-...and if you're gonna mention that ridiculous theme song you definitely hafta link to the even more ludicrous promo dance that went with it (there's fuller footage of it someplace).

Hopefully I'll have some updates for the Deathsmiles and Espgaluda articles soon.

[Discoalucard]

Ah, thanks! I've never seen that promo vid before. (EDIT: "so this is what the death throes of capitalism looks like." Best Youtube comment I've ever read.)

I don't hate the way it looks, but for as bizarre as the premise is, visually it's just very middle of the road for a Cave game. All of the screaming and screeching just bounces me at this point too - I can't say it bugged me more than any of their other games

As for the port quality...the way some expert shmuppers swear by 100% arcade accuracy always struck me as kind of pedantic - it makes sense if they're uber concerned about competing with top Japanese players, but most aren't, so centering an analysis focusing on an extraordinarily small segment of the player base and whatever issues they have because a small wave of enemies is misplaced in one section isn't something I'm too concerned with.

[Mullenkedheim]

Nice article! Now, waiting for DonPachi/DoDonPachi series article! =D \o/