The game's tone is about as tongue-in-cheek as you'd expect from a story about talking bugs, with a plot that doesn’t take itself too seriously while it blends sci-fi genetic manipulation, loose-cannon cops, and a film noir mystery. While things start off looking predictable, double crosses are added in to keep players guessing. The characters showing up out of nowhere to advance the plot and the story exposition shoehorned into forced dialogues can get clumsy at times, but are mostly forgivable. Clearly, an effort was put into establishing the characters and their backgrounds, as files full of background information are created in the pause menu for everyone that Chrys talks to, even if they only serve a brief purpose in a single stage.
The graphics are good, managing to convey the grim feel of the corruption and decay present in Insecticide's gritty, futuristic city of bugs. Although some levels are only introduced with text that accompanies still imagery, it's a device that is used sparingly, and the cinematic sequences at the beginning and end of the other stages involve players in the story and use the rendering capabilities of the DS to good effect. Images are cartoonish and some aspects of the bugs (and the city’s remaining humans) are exaggerated for comic effect.
The recurring "splat" noise, used to confirm menu selections and meant to sound like someone stepping on a bug, is the most memorable sound effect in the game, but none of the audio effects seem particularly out of place. The music, like the graphics, does a good job of setting the film noir mood without becoming irritatingly repetitive. None of the tracks will end up stuck in your head for hours after you have turned off the DS.
Unfortunately, there is no in-game save feature. Players save their progress in one of three "profiles" that record which levels have been cleared. If the game is turned off in the middle of a level, all progress for that level is lost, but the game can be resumed at the start of any one of the previously beaten levels. While undesirable, the 19 levels are short enough that having to quit half or even three quarters of the way through won't pose an insurmountable setback. A standard action level takes from one to ten minutes for skilled gamers to beat, and inexperienced plodders shouldn't need more than 40 minutes for a stage. Some of the adventure levels almost feel too short, involving only one or two major puzzles.
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