, known as Mushiking: The King of Beetles or Mushiking: Battle of the Beetles outside Japan, is a collectible card arcade game developed by Sega and released in Japan and other Asian countries such as the Philippines. The game involves battles between cards describing various species of beetle. The cards can be scanned in by a Mushiking arcade machine, which will both carry out battles and dispense new cards. It is the second trading card arcade by Sega following World Club Champion Football.
As of 2008, more than 100,000 tournaments have been held, and 20 million cards have shipped. The game has made it into the Guinness World Records with the highest numbers of tournaments held for an arcade game. It has inspired several children's card games in arcades released by Taito, Sega, Konami, Bandai Namco, Takara Tomy, Atlus, and Square Enix.
Plot
A long time ago, there was a forest full of trees inhabited by insects and fairies. A fairy named Popo was a friend of the insects of the forest. He refers to the Japanese beetle as "Mushiking". One day, giant beetles from parts unknown arrived in the forest to wreak havoc, under the control of Adder, a wizard exiled from the forest who wishes to conquer it. Popo enlists the player's help to fight against Adder.
Characters
Popo is one of the fairies of the forest and is one of the main protagonists. He is responsible for leading the player throughout the events of the games and is a close friend of Mushiking. He is kind and is willing to help and heal other beetles, even if they serve Adder. In the story, he is able to trace and imprison Adder initially with the help of the player, and he imprisons Adder. Though Adder escapes, Popo heals the beetle that helped Adder, and they defeat him again in his fortress. After Adder's supposed death, Popo moves elsewhere to another forest as Adder had burned down their previous one. When Adder is revealed to be alive, Popo continues to have the player and Mushiking stop Adder's plans.
Adder is a wizard previously banished from the forest, and acts as the game's main antagonist. Prior to becoming a wizard, Adder was a doctor that treated insects of the forest. However, an accident took the life of Adder's son, and the grief-stricken man became evil shortly afterwards. He mutates other beetles by injecting red fluids into their bodies, making them more aggressive, powerful, and submissive only to him. The effects of this mutation is evident by the red, glowing eyes of his beetles. During the games, he returns from his banishment, bringing a wave of foreign and powerful insects to attack the forest. Though he is defeated by Popo and the player, he uses a beetle whistle to escape confinement. After another defeat, Adder proceeds to set the forest on fire. Unfortunately for him, Mushiking had already evacuated the insects of the forest, and he is confronted by the player, Mushiking and Popo, and he is presumably killed at the end.
He later reappears, having survived the attempt with a new plan to mutate beetles in their pupa state, with the hopes of making them even stronger than they normally are, and corrupting them before they can even develop properly.
Mushiking is a Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle who is good friends with Popo who considers him as the strongest beetle in the forest. During Adder's invasion, Mushiking is unable to fight off all the invading insects, and doesn't appear until much later in the game's story. Once Adder sets the forest on fire, Mushiking appears to save Popo and joins him and the player in confronting Adder for the final fight. He later assists Popo in foiling Adder's new plan of corrupting beetle pupa.
During gameplay, Mushiking was initially treated as a standard Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle, but with extra power. By version 12, however, Mushiking was given his own exclusive card, along with his skill level and super finishing attack being readjusted to fit the change.
Gameplay
Mushiking is a rock-paper-scissors-style battle game that can be played by one player against CPU-controlled beetles, or with two or more players against each other in Tournament mode or Tag Battle mode. The game is played with cards representing beetles and skill cards related to three move types-- "Hitting", "Pinching" and "Throwing". Players scan their cards with the card scanner in the middle of the machine, and choose one of the three move types to execute within a given time limit. The first player whose beetle reaches 0 stamina points loses.