Cave is currently performing an experiment: their next release on the 360,
Mushihimesama Futari, is going to be region-free. They've received tons of requests from overseas fans to do this, and they are testing the waters to see if it's worth doing for other titles. International sales of the game will directly influence their decision one way or the other on this.
For those who don't know, Cave is a company well-known among shmup fans for being behind such franchises as
DoDonPachi,
Mushihimesama,
Espgaluda, and others... one of the only companies around that still makes shmups for commercial release, and theirs are considered to be unusually high-quality. The problem is that, until now, they've only released their games in Japan, so even if you import them, you need a Japanese console to play them. But if it's region-free, that won't be the case, and any 360 can play it.
Mushihimesama Futari is one of their more popular games (the 360 version is a compilation of the various arcade versions), and notorious for having the so-called
"hardest boss in all of gaming" as its finale on the highest difficulty, so this could be very good indeed for Western shmup fans. I, for one, plan on getting it, as I've always wanted a chance to play one of their games. Release date is... November 26, 2009, if you're interested.
