The fantastic bullet-hell shmup Mushihimesama is set to be delisted from the Switch eShop on 10th August 2024.
Announced by publisher Live Wire, the reasoning provided for the delisting is that the licensing agreement for the Switch version has expired. It seems that rather than attempt to renew the agreement, the best course of action for Live Wire at this time is to remove it from sale entirely.
Of course, you do still have a month to purchase the game, at the time of writing. Should you choose to do so, it will remain in your library and you can download it whenever you want. Still, it's a bit of a blow for preservation considering how rare the Limited Run physical edition is these days.
Priced at £15.29 in the UK and $19.99 in the US, the game has been included in multiple sales in the past, so hopefully it'll be discounted again before its removal, but we're not betting on it. We'd probably recommend picking it up if you're a fan of shmups before it's gone forever. The clock's ticking.
In our 9/10 review for the game, we said "it’s weird and colourful, it’s incredibly refined, and the many gameplay modes ensure that both newbies and veterans will be kept busy for quite some time".
Do you plan on picking up Mushihimesama before it gets delisted from the eShop? Let us know what you make of this decision with a comment.
Comments 39
Always sad when games get delisted, but if the licensing expires and can't be renewed unfortunately there's nothing you can do about it.
Will definitely try to get the game before it gets removed and hope it will be discounted again before then as that would guarantee it, but I hope Nintendo Life (or even just comments here although it would be better if there were an article or an update to this one doing so) will remind us of this when we get closer to it!
Oh phew I still have time. Thanks for the notification!
An essential purchase, along with the other cave ports by Live Wire! If one is being delisted, surely the others will follow suit?
I'm still hoping for more switch ports of the Xbox 360 exclusive cave releases, but after quite a long wait I don't have much hope left. I really want to try Espgaluda 1 and Mushi Futari in particular....
That's a shame. It's my favorite shmup ever and I've been considering getting it again on Switch for a while... but I guess I'll have to decide soon now
Not really interested in bullet hells but thanks for letting us know this!
Do we know if Mushihimesama will also be delisted from Steam, or is it just the eShop?
@JohnnyMind there is something you can do about it outside the official eShop.
@StrangerSun Not sure if you're referring to tracking it on Deku Deals which I'm already doing (but won't be that helpful if it doesn't get discounted anymore) or getting the game itself through other means which I'd rather not if I can support the official release while it's still available (although unlike others I won't blame those who genuinely can't).
good thing I got my copy
Hopefully it gets a dirt cheap sale like God Wars did it’s last week before delisting.
If not I’ll pick it up anyway
It's a lovely shooter with a cool theme and it's sad to see it leave the eShop while so much shovelware schlock lingers on forever.
I'll grip my physical copy a little tighter, maybe even double-dip if it goes on sale cheap.
Well, at least that's something but still a bit awkward to adjust to on a month's notice when your next payday is in September. It's like half the publishers review their licenses on a close call basis themselves these days. Even farewell discounts wouldn't be half as topical in this context if you just let people plan ahead like some folks thankfully still do.
To anyone still on the fence, buy it now.
It's one of the best shmups ever made and it's very accessible for beginners due to the less dense bullet patterns compared to other cave games.
Just 3 years? That's incredibly short compared to the Steam release's 9+ years. And since the other 2 Cave shoot-em-ups handled by Live Wire (Espgaluda II and DoDonPachi Resurrection) were also released in 2021, they could potentially be removed not long afterwards.
As a funny note, the Japanese physical version will be released 3 weeks after the game's removal from the e-shop. So, it won't be all doom and gloom... at least, for a while.
Welp better make sure I have all the cave shooters.
I have it, there was this moment a couple of years ago where I was just in a...classic arcade shmup mood, so I bought a bunch of them. A lot of them were...fine, but...eh. (Crimson Clover I still consider the best one, lol)
And this is why I hate Digital games, if you don't get it when available its gone
Physicals all the way, thanks
It blows this is happening to such a great game, but it’s not a hard one to find on any other gaming platform, and if LiveWire can’t renew the license, maybe someone other publisher will pick it up in the future, considering it’s one of Cave’s most popular shmups.
Mushihimesama along with Guwange and E.S.P.rade and E.S.P.galuda 2 are my favorite Cave shmups.
Hopefully a M2 port is on the cards
@Diogmites no love for Ketsui? That‘s usually in everybody’s top 3. ^^
Why would you write the license for only 3 years? I get that the Switch was already... ahem, mature by then, but eshops stay open long after a console's successor hits. And like @dimjimmer asked, are their other Cave ports structured similarly?
@KeeperBvK Never played it! I hope it makes it over to the West on PC or Switch at some point.
@Bunkerneath I loooove your profile picture.
@Joeynator3000
Thank you for the reminder to get the physical version of Crimzon Clover ordered! Never played it before, but I've only ever heard good things about it.
@SpeedRunRocks I just like it because i flat-out suck at bullet hells and those types of shmups...
Despite all the chaos Crimzon Clover has, I'm somehow able to get through it all, which is bizarre. It was even the first one I could get through without using a continue and fight the hidden/secret final boss or whatever. lol
Considering the delisting, the right thing to do would be to put it on -80% sale.
@Joeynator3000
That is rad, I am in the same boat with the bullet hell genre. I want to be good at them, but I'm just not, haha.
Deluxe physical editions can still be purchased off amazon Japan for less than 30€
I don't get when games are about to go poof like this, why they don't try and actually sell them. Say a huge 80-90% off sale? You may get a handful of sales by the weirdos who feel the need to collect everything at full price, but you're going to get way more sales at a couple bucks to go alongside of the news articles than a full priced game before it's gone and you make....nothing?
@Bunkerneath LOL not true at all. It's just simply when a company no longer sells you the item, you no longer worry about the grey area acquiring something you can't buy. The files will always be available online by alternate methods.
This is the digital world of gaming... applauses...
What a shame. I do have the little arcad
Emachine switch holder which is nice for all tare
Games. Great game. Was hopimg this would be a futari announcement
Thankfully I already have it. But when will publishers learn that making your games less accessible only encourages preservation through piracy. Cave is especially guilty of doing this by making so many of their games inaccessible outside of Japan.
Apparently another publisher has taken the reins.
https://x.com/clearrivergames/status/1811352947902566718
Good thing I have the physical copy! This is why digital stinks! Xbox 360 store about to close too!
@JohnnyMind It’s a pretty good port with a nice amount of content - I’d suggest picking up. The only unfortunate thing is that unlike the port it is based on originally (Xbox 360) and the earlier release of this port on Steam (still available at the moment) it doesn’t have any online leaderboards.
A real missed opportunity since many other Switch shmups, even ports of much older ones (like some of the console Darius ones) have online leaderboards. If they’d added those, I’d have been playing the game much more often, much like I do with the sequel on 360.
@farrgazer Good to hear it’s not being abandoned. It would be especially nice if they added the online leaderboards from the Steam version.
@The_Trooper49 @Diogmites I hear you on Futari - I just hope we stop seeing Switch versions release without leaderboards since other Switch ports show they are possible. Was playing Futari for hours on 360 earlier today and really missed the online leaderboards when I went to play Mushihimesama on Switch. So now I’m looking to repurchase a version with leaderboards (either Steam or 360) and regret getting the only recent version without them.
@manwiler Will absolutely try to get it before it gets delisted if I get it digitally (even more likely if it gets discounted before that), but I'll also consider importing it now that I know it's getting a physical release at least in Japan!
The lack of online leaderboards is certainly a missed opportunity, but personally I'm not particularly interested in those so I'll definitely still get it on Switch.
Nevermind the "at least in Japan" part, have just seen the comment mentioning another publisher releasing it physically in Europe so the chances of me getting it that way (unless the digital version gets discounted and significantly so again) are increasing even more!
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