Why do companies keep making games for systems they don’t belong on? If you can control a game with taps and gestures stick it on the iPhone/iPod, but if you need buttons and sticks, put it on something else. Anything else. Xbox, PC, Toaster Oven, I don’t care just don’t make a crappy virtual controller just so you can market it to the cult of Steve Jobs. No matter how good a job you do the system is doomed to fail. And that’s exactly what happened with Cave’s latest iOS release, Mushihimesama Bug Panic. That’s not to say that the game has bad controls, in fact it has some of the best on the platform, but they’re inherently flawed.

Being a dual analog shooter players control Princess Reco using two virtual sticks. The stick on the bottom left controls movement, while the stick on the right is responsible for aiming and charging your attack. By default both sticks are locked in place, but you can switch to free mode where the left stick follows your finger, or Auto-Correct, where the stick appears under whatever you touch. Personally I prefer Auto-Correct as it feels the most like slide control and is the only control option that allows you to vary Reco’s speed. Regardless of which scheme you choose, you’ll still suffer from the same fundamental problem; being unable to tell when you’ve gone off the screen until it’s too late. At least with the Nintendo DS there’s a bit of raised plastic to let you know you’ve hit the edge, but on the iPhone/iPod everything is flush so you’ll just be plodding along and all of a sudden Reco will stop dead. Often quite literally. During boss battles where bullet patterns are as thick as a proper shooting game this becomes extremely frustrating and on more than one occasion has resulted in an iPod going flying across the room.

Assuming you can get a grasp on movement you’ll probably want to start killing things. To do so simply swing out your aiming cursor with the right stick, let it lock on and let go to fling a shot. Because the attack mechanic is based around a target-lock system and not precision aiming it doesn’t suffer from the same flaws as movement. You can switch to a direct aim system if you want, but I wouldn’t recommend it. If you find enemies aren’t going down fast enough you may want to try holding your shot a little longer. Doing so will fill the charge meter and allow you to release a powered up attack that deals significantly more damage. You may even start a chain reaction amongst enemies similar to Every Extend Extra. When certain enemies die they will leave behind a small power up. Collect enough of these power ups and you’ll earn a bomb. Though useful for dealing massive damage against stage bosses, in regular play they are quite useless as you must fill the charge gauge twice in order to release one. This takes a considerable amount of time and makes it nearly impossible to use them defensively for screen clearing.

Being a Cave game and a shooter you can probably guess there’s a bit of scoring going on. Like the other games in the Mushihimesama series killing enemies will produce gems that when collected increase your item counter. There’s also a chain system in place that increments when enemies are killed within a few second of each other. Due to the size of the maps it can sometimes be a bit tricky to hit the next enemy in time. Thankfully small fly like creatures are spawned regularly that don’t count towards your chain, but reset the countdown and allow you to keep the chain alive indefinitely. I have no idea how these two counters actually affect your score, but given how easy it is to keep both high it shouldn’t be too hard to maximize your potential.

Like Cave’s other iOS releases Bug Panic is broken down into two distinct modes of play: Adventure and Score Trails. In adventure mode players will progress through five worlds, each containing several levels and one climactic boss encounter. Score Trials mode, unlocked be completing the first world, turns the game into a more standard arena shooter where players are forced to continually do battle until they run out of either time/live. There are different leaderboards available for each score attack stage making online competition significantly easier than comparing stage totals in Adventure mode.

For a first attempt at an original iOS game Mushihimesama Bug Panic isn’t bad. The virtual control system does work significantly better than I would’ve expected, but at the end of the day it’s still limited by the hardware. Were Cave to port this to XBLA or PSN where it belongs I’d say buy it in a heart beat, but on the iPhone/iPod it’s the kind of game you need to play to know if you’ll really like it.

Verdict: Play it first