Mushihimesama (2004)

Mushihimesama is the best entrypoint I’ve found to the bullet hell shmup genre. Its waves of bullets are excitingly choreographed, at first to an overwhelming degree, but different difficulties and modes offer a fair enough ramp up in the intensity if you spend some time in Practice Mode. Despite the chaos, it’s all very readable, and starts from a pretty approachable place from which it continually escalates while challenging you in different interesting ways.

Your tiny hitbox makes weaving through the enemy onslaught feel great, with many near-misses and nice opportunities for riskier play. Maybe the flashiest thing you can do is cancel the bullets on screen by killing specific enemies or parts of enemies, which encourages aggression in a fun way particularly on bosses or in the last stage. There’s a high skill ceiling for getting great scores and surviving without continues, but the game can be enjoyed without a lot of memorization and grinding out of attempts.

The music is great here, as is the colorful art. Your foes are all a bunch of different giant bug monsters, an unusual theme for this type of game, but one that’s executed very well. Individual designs of creatures get the job done as far as being recognizable and visually clear, and the overall visual density feels pretty spot-on. The individual stage backgrounds are also pretty distinct while not being distracting.

I can easily recommend this for someone curious about this style of game. It sits in a perfect spot of challenge and accessibility, fun at the start, and a ton of fun once you graduate to harder modes. I happily replayed it over and over and have always found it fun to go back to even if I haven't played for a while.