Originally making its debut in arcades back in 2004, Cave's classic bullet hell shooter Mushihimesama has gone on to inspire a bunch of ports, remasters, and even a sequel since it was first released.
But what you not know is that the series also ended up getting a couple of different mobile entries too, with only the latter of these, Mushihimesama Bug Panic, for Android and iOS, ever getting a release outside of Japan.
Now, though, thanks to a member of the Keitai Wiki Preservation Discord named Yuuki, it seems that Bug Panic's predecessor Mushihimesama Gaiden, which was released exclusively for Japanese phones, is now thankfully preserved and more widely available, with the title being playable via the newly developed Keitai World Launcher app (thanks RockmanCosmo).
As you might expect getting release information on old Japanese-exclusive mobile games isn't exactly the easiest, with a lot of these releases pretty much going unremarked on by the media.
However, as far as we've been able to tell Mushihimesama Gaiden seems to have been released for EZWeb phones back in 2005 and was also made available at some point for i-Mode compatible devices too.
It isn't a bullet hell shooter, as you'd probably expect, but is instead an on-foot exploration game focusing on the Insect Princess Reko, who becomes lost in the forest and finds herself fighting against swarms of bugs with the use of bombs (a mechanic which was later recycled for Bug Panic).
There were rumours back in 2022 that G-Mode might be releasing a version of the game on Nintendo Switch, but sadly, from what we've been able to gather, this never ended up happening, with there currently being no official way of purchasing the game.