Given that it turned out it was actually only the final boss I was struggling with in Puzzle! Mushihimetama when I was reviewing Puzzle Uo Poko, I've changed my mind a little about Toshiaki Tomizawa's second bubble shooting game. It might have been harsh to call it a bubble hell, when it wasn't anything but a little more challenging and I could finish it on my second attempt within a good hour when I was more awake. I might even become tempted to try a 1cc one day, because it should be totally possible.

Having that out of the way, Puzzle! Mushihimetama is obviously the successor of the more obscure Puzzle Uo Poko with the Mushihimesama theme added, so other than the Pachinko vs. Puzzle Bobble gameplay, it finally has an anime girl with the Princess from the Shoot'em'up. She doesn't do much though, except for some cute sounds and poses when you free the bug babies to finish the puzzle instead of erasing all bubbles like in the predecessor.

The presentation appears more wholesome than Puzzle Uo Poko though, which was something I criticized in that game. In fact, with that bug theme included it of course makes sense to implement the bosses from Mushihimesama to create a new challenge. Coming from the more relaxing and forgiving Puzzle Uo Poko though, I wasn't expecting Puzzle! Mushihimetama to require that much velocity, reaching its peak in said final boss. You really have to hit relentlessly to succeed.

With the credits rolling, I must admit it was more about me than the game though. I was exhausted after failing to beat the final boss in Varth, had finished Puzzle Uo Poko for recreation and expected Puzzle! Mushihimetama to be just another game to chill before I finally go to bed. Had I not known the predecessor and been alert enough for the pace, I might have enjoyed Mushihimetama instantly. The only real downside is that you've got to push your lever up between stages instead of having you pull as well like in the game, which to me feels more awkward than satisfying.

In conclusion both games have their limitations drawn from their puzzle game niche, but also their individual strengths in that I might still pick Puzzle Uo Poko with my brain in zombie mode and Puzzle! Mushihimetama if I'm up for the more arduous sequel that's also far from unbeatable once you've zoned in. It's just a little more struggle compared to the rewarding emotion of cleaning up in Uo Poko and it might be my OCD is triggered by the fact I can't always remove all bubbles before the stage is done.

Just learned about this when seeing what other CAVE Interactive games are available to try out, and it's pretty neat! This seems to be a spiritual successor to their 1998 title Puzzle Uo Poko, wherein the goal is to launch corresponding balls onto the ones on the other side of the screen via the joystick or keyboard in my case, whittling them away until you can rescue the little Koujuu babies, Kabutans, when they have at least one opening space. You start off with an arc telling you where they'll land after catapulting them with the amount of force, but this dwindles away after enough time has past, and only reappears once a life has been lost. Majority of the obstacles and setup are pre-made, so the real gist of the scoring system here are timing both the combos clears, as well as making use of the launcher's bounce to do counter hits with the ball, and fit them onto their places either approximately or exactly on the spot. When you get it going it can be rather euphoric hearing all those blasts and ascending decibels explode onto my ears. In terms of what's going on in the plot, it's actually a prequel, taking place to when Reco was a child nodding away in the Shinju forest, The presentation is rather great too, with lots of nice spritework and coloring to sell you back into the forest of Shinju, and even including the bosses from the first game as the same ones to battle against here! It doesn't seem like Tomoyuki Kotani has returned to be the illustrator for Reco, seems to be it was Sanae Ikeda this time, but she's just as bubbily and expressive here as she was in the shmup. She was already a heroine that quickly settled on being an all-time favorite, and seeing the various animations and poses she can be set as thanks to contributions by Team Tilldawn, and hearing this at the demo crawl has vindicated this further. Just more reasons we have to protect out forests, folks 🫡

Unfortunately, the meat side of the meal is undercooked. There's no real twists or shakeups to the formula after the first two stages, so the challenge increase just devolves to "give the player a number of junk objects to deal with while they do the basic objective". You have the usual suspects of perma-blocks, counter blocks that decrease with each chain done on top of them, pieces that can change from being inactive to active from doing the same thing to them, so it ends up feeling rather predictable and tiresome cause of it. About the only cool innovation and element to spice it up is that, because of the crystallization of the Koujuu's life force being established, this also means some pieces on the board can be similar in style to that, and you can create a chain reaction of smashing them with force of any degree. Different routes can crop up to increase replayability, but I'm not sure how much they really impact the experience, nor am I really sure how you're able to cross over since I tried holding the arrow keys stick up and down to no avail. Also, because all these stages are mainly pre-determined, only things changing is the order in which the balls are presented to you, there was no real incentive to try and wing out the scoreboards, which is a shame since I wouldn't entirely mind the shmup philosophy of that transitioning to this style of play. They already had a bomb that can appear every now and then for piece clearing, so it's not like I'm super insane about this, you can trust me! It's a fun 30 or so minutes, but by the time I hit the fourth stage out of five, I was already checkin out. The only major thing I got out of this was that I finally took the time to figure out the enigma that is setting up MAME, so that'll mean tighter and more available system accuracy when it comes to playing arcade games compared to FinalBurn Neo (which, mind you, is still a perfectly suitable and good emulator regardless). All things considered, I recommend Azumanga Daioh Puzzle Bobble if you want a nice, easy to emulate puzzler backed by great presentation.