Welcome to danmaku
One thousand bullets: not in the game itself, mind you – but on the screen all at once. Welcome to danmaku.
Danmaku, literally meaning “bullet curtain,” is a type of arcade top-down or side-scrolling shoot-em-up that pits a player against wave after wave of screen-filling orbs of doom, allowing little room for error. In many cases, the gaps between the bullets are so small that the only way to survive is to commit each wave to memory, ensuring the player’s ship is in the right place at the right time to avoid the torrential downpour of instant death. There is only one goal in a danmaku game: to achieve the highest score possible. Doing so also means that being able to complete the game without continuing (called a 1CC or “one credit clear”) is required, as using a continue generally resets a player’s score to zero.
It takes a special kind of gamer to play danmaku games, but those who do say the adrenaline rush is unlike that experienced in any other type of game. Danmaku games are classic arcade games in every sense of the word – short, sweet, and difficult – and meant to be replayed over and over again in pursuit of a higher score.
No modern studio is more known for high-quality danmaku titles than Cave, a small Japanese developer and creators of last year’s niche release, DeathSmiles. Their latest arcade-to-360 release, Muchi Muchi Pork & Pink Sweets, has been made region-free – allowing players all over the world to take these two wacky arcade titles for a spin.
Game: Muchi Muchi Pork & Pink Sweets (IMPORT) 
Publisher: Cave
Developer: Cave
Genre: Danmaku/Shoot-em-up
Price: Varies by importer, Japan MSRP 7100¥
Verdict: Two quirky arcade ports on one disc. Region-free, playable on all Xbox360 consoles.
Cons: No HD graphics, overpriced for included content, “Festival Mode” DLC not accessible without JP Xbox LIVE account, bare bones.
Purchased by Reviewer
Muchi Muchi Pork & Pink Sweets is a small collection of arcade ports, containing two revisions each of Muchi Muchi Pork and Pink Sweets, an arrange mode for each game, a downloadable Matsuri (Festival) mode that combines stages from Muchi Muchi Pork with bosses from Pink Sweets, and a few limited extras and leaderboards.
Though both Pink Sweets and Muchi Muchi Pork are top-down danmaku shooters, their gameplay differs substantially. In both cases, the gameplay revolves around moving a small ship through hordes of enemies that fill the screen with tons of bullets, with a drawn-out boss fight capping off each stage. In Muchi Muchi Pork, the scoring system revolves around collecting pigs (that either fall out of defeated enemies or are found on the ground of each stage). As pigs are gathered, a gauge called the “Lard Meter” fills up. As long as the “Lard Meter” is not empty, the player’s ship can unleash a gigantic laser known as the “Lard Attack.” When enemies are destroyed using the “Lard Attack,” medals are dropped instead of pigs. These medals increase in value the longer the “Lard Attack” is deployed, from 100 points up to a maximum of 10,000. When the screen gets too busy, the player can also deploy a bomb that transforms all bullets and enemies in its path into lard-licious piggies that can refill the Lard Meter for another score-boosting attempt at gathering medals. The game’s rank, or dynamic difficulty level, will fluctuate based on how well the player is doing (making the game more difficult if the player has lots of lives in reserve). Though Muchi Muchi Pork is widely considered one of the easier shooters from Cave, that doesn’t make it easy in any sense of the word. An inexperienced player will die early and die often.
Pink Sweets‘ mechanics are entirely different, revolving around strategic deployment of a bullet-busting shield called the “Rose Cracker.” Because of this advantage given to the player, a lot of Pink Sweets’ gameplay revolves around rote memorization – knowing when the bullet patterns will require deployment of the shield. There are also several types of power-up items that enhance the player’s shooting mechanics (including rapid-fire and wide-shot power-ups). Unfortunately, unlike Muchi Muchi Pork, the rank for Pink Sweets does not drop as the player loses lives, and many actions the player performs (including firing a weapon, collecting a power-up, using the Rose Cracker, and gathering score-increasing items) will actually increase the player’s rank. Other gameplay actions do not decrease the rank of the player. This perfect storm of ever-increasing difficulty makes Pink Sweets one of Cave’s most difficult shooters to clear without continuing.
I have not played the arcade versions of Muchi Muchi Pork and Pink Sweets extensively, so I cannot speak to the arcade authenticity of the slowdown/bullet patterns/enemy patterns in the Xbox 360 ports. Based on the research I’ve done, some of the modes are more 
accurate than others, though this shouldn’t dissuade those interested in importing this collection. However, when comparing this collection against some of Cave’s other releases such as DeathSmiles, Espgaluda II, and Mushihimesama Futari, these ports are fairly barren. The graphics have not been upgraded to high definition as with many of Cave’s previous ports, but a sprite smoothing filter is included.
One of the most glaring problems with this collection stems from a lack of features and polish, though the “cute-em-up” look of the games may also turn off some potential consumers. Additionally, the download code included with the game that unlocks a special version of Muchi Muchi Pork is only redeemable from a Japanese Xbox Live account. The biggest problem for potential overseas customers, however, isn’t a matter of the quality of the games themselves, but a matter of the collection’s price point (approximately $85 US). To people outside of Japan, these titles may look like Xbox Live Arcade or PlayStation Network games (rather than a full-price retail release). Only fans of Cave’s titles – or hardcore danmaku fans – need apply.
Though not one of Cave’s strongest Xbox 360 releases, Muchi Muchi Pork & Pink Sweets provides the chance for gamers outside of Japan to experience two of Cave’s lesser-known shooters. Though not arcade-perfect, they provide an authentic danmaku experience with no quarters (or 100-yen coins) necessary.
GrE Grade: C
Popularity: 5% [?]
