Mushihime-sama Futari

Mushihime-sama Futari (虫姫さまふたり), a bullet hell shooter by Cave, was released in arcades on October 27, 2006 and is the sequel to Mushihime-sama. Also referred to as Mushifutari and Mushihime Futari. On the 21st of April 2009 it was announced at Microsoft's spring press conference in Japan that Mushihime-sama Futari would be released on the Xbox 360 in Japan on November 26, 2009.

Version 1.0
Selectable game modes include Original and Maniac, with unlockable Ultra mode.

Version 1.01
Debuted in 2006 Cave festival. It includes game system in 1.5, but uses barrages from 1.0.

Version 1.5
Includes Bug fixes. Item and game system was changed. Unlocked Ultra mode.

Arcade Black Label Release
A limited edition arcade release of the game. Only 150 black label boards released which included the following changes:
 * Stages 2, 3 and 5 have a different color palette.
 * No shot type selection. The resulting shot type is a mixture of Normal and Abnormal modes from previous games, and is much more powerful than in other versions.
 * Scoring system changes. The score system for close range attacks is changed. Multipliers in Maniac and God mode now carry over between stages. Gold gems are far more abundant in all modes, allowing for much larger scores.
 * God (極弩) mode. Replacing the Ultra mode, it uses a slightly modified Maniac mode score system, and preserves most of the bullet density of the replaced mode, but with new enemy arrangements and barrages. It has much more slowdown compared to Ultra mode and it is also much easier compared to Ultra mode, in fact most players consider Ver 1.0(1)'s Maniac mode to be harder than God mode.
 * A new True Last Boss, Spiritual Larsa was added. She can only be reached by completing God mode without dying. She is considered easier than Ultra mode's True Last Boss.

Xbox 360 version
The Xbox 360 release includes Arcade Version 1.5 and Xbox 360 Arrange game modes. In addition, the Black Label arcade game mode can be downloaded for 1200 Microsoft Points from the Xbox live marketplace. The limited edition release for Xbox 360 came with a code to download the original version 1.01 mode from the arcade release as well as an arrange soundtrack CD, an Xbox 360 faceplate and either a version A (Reco) or version B (Palm and Aki) telephone card.

The game was released region free, allowing those who showed interest outside of Japan a chance to play the game. Cave's Makoto Asada also stated that, depending on the level of uptake outside of Japan, sales of the game will affect their future decision to localise other shooters they are planning. In February 2010, Asada confirmed that the regular edition of Espgaluda II would be region free.

Arrange Mode
The Xbox 360 exclusive arrange mode allows 1 player only to play through the game with special rules. If a player is a hit they do not die and instead a bomb is launched on contact (unless the player does not have any bombs), the player is allowed to switch between controlling Reco or Palm, with the non-active character ghosting alongside the active one while shooting, changing also generates a temporary shield. Selecting shot type is NOT available in this mode however.

Characters
An extra character is added to this game.

Reco
Kiniro's pilot. Fires spread shots.

Palm
Aki's younger brother, and Hirow's pilot. Fires concentrated shots.

Kiniro
Reco's fighter.

Hirow
Palm's fighter.

Larsa
The mother of Palm. She is the main antagonist of the story, she seeks revenge on Reco for the death of her son "Aki". Pilots stage 5 boss, Dragon Emperion. The final battle against Larsa is considered by many to be one of the hardest bosses in video game history.

Reception
Japanese video game magazine Famitsu's "Famitsu Xbox360 monthly" awarded the game a score of 8/8/7/6. Weekly Famitsu gave the game a score of 8/7/7/7. Oli Clarke Smith of NTSC-UK rated the game 9 out of 10.

Soundtrack
The Mushihimesama Futari original soundtrack was released on CD on May 30, 2007 in Japan and was published by Cave. This soundtrack has since gone out of print.