Mushiking: The King of Beetles

***Mushiking: The King of Beetles*** (甲虫王者ムシキング, *Kōchū Ōja Mushiking*, lit. Beetle Ruler Bug King) also called **Mushiking: Battle of the Beetles**, is a combination arcade game and collectible card game developed by Sega and released in Japan and other Asian countries such as Malaysia. The game involves battles between cards describing various beetle species. The cards can be scanned in by a Mushiking arcade machine, which will both carry out battles and dispense new cards.

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. Mushiking has inspired several arcade card games, creating a new genre of arcade games.

## 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.

## 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.

The following things can happen during a battle:

* If a player chooses the winning move, the winning player's beetle shall execute the skill learned for that type of move.
* If both players pick the same move, a tie will result and both players' beetles lose 10% of their total stamina.
* If a player has chosen a move and the other player has not selected a move within the time limit, the other player's move will automatically lose.

Tournament mode is a 2-out-of-3 match between two players, and Tag Battle mode allows players to cooperatively play two beetles as a tag team against an opponent, where they can perform joint attacks if they are compatible types.

## Cards

The cards for *Mushiking* have lengthwise barcodes for players to scan into the arcade machines, and come in several types. Later versions, however, changed this to a single crosswise bar code at the bottom of the card, before the bar code was removed from the front entirely. This was presumably to prevent people from simply printing out an image of the card online, and scanning the bar code on the reader.

Beetle cards represent the beetle characters the player can control. Each beetle card is marked with information on the beetle's species (name, Latin name, description, etc.) as well as the card's stats such as strength in the three move types and stamina as well as their base power, which is usually determined by the size of the beetle and rarity of the card. The Finishing Move indicates the beetle's "favored" move, which can cause major damage to the opponent if the player wins through a Finishing Move. Rare beetle cards are printed with a holographic background and is colored in either Bronze (for 160 Base power), Silver (for 180 Base power) or Gold (for 200 Base power). Several different editions, such as the Parallel Edition cards and the Adder Collection, have been released of the same cards.

Skill cards represent the abilities a beetle can use. A player can only scan one skill card per skill type. Every skill card requires a certain skill point number; if the number is equal to the beetle's skill point level, the result will be a perfect compatibility. If the beetle's skill point is greater than the skill, it results in a "good" compatibility. If the beetle's skill point is less than the skill point of the card, it will worsen the effectiveness of the skill used by that beetle.

Special Skill Cards are skill cards that may give a player the advantage over the opponent aside from an elaborate, damaging move. The skill point of Special Skill Cards is marked with an Exclamation Point ("!"). Special Skills are activated when certain conditions have been met, such as pressing a move on the first count of the countdown, experiencing a tie, etc. There are also rare, "upgraded" skill cards with certain low-level beetles' Finishing Moves. If the right skill card is scanned with the right beetle, the result will be a "Super Max" Compatibility and will deal tremendous damage if used. The upgraded skill cards are moves used by beetles with a Base Power range of 100 to 120, which gives them an advantage against rarer, stronger cards with a higher Base Power rating.

License cards can be scanned prior to the battle, which cause the machine to read off a certain title for the scanning player. These cards are normally awarded by Sega and other officiary bodies to winners of major *Mushiking* championships or tournaments, and are not dispensed by machines.

## Versions

There are several revision of Mushiking, with each version changing many elements of the game, in the Japanese version, they go by Years, while the English version goes by roman numerals

### Japanese Versions

* Mushiking 2003
* Mushiking 2004 1st
* Mushiking 2004 2nd
* Mushiking 2005 1st
* Mushiking 2005 2nd
* Mushiking 2006 1st
* Mushiking 2006 2nd
* Mushiking 2007
* Mushiking 2008

English Version

* Mushiking (Retroactively known as Mushiking I)
* Mushiking II
* Mushiking III
* Mushiking III+
* Mushiking IV
* Mushiking V
* Mushiking VI
* Mushiking VII (Unknown if exists, rumored to be unreleased localization)