Deathsmiles 1 AND 2 coming to PS4/Xbone/Switch in 2021

[jehu]

Good news, finally ! I was disappointed by the Cotton Saturn Tribute, but this release appears to be pretty solid, can't wait to receive my copy from Play-Asia.
BTW, I can understand this idea may seem unacceptable to some purists, but is it possible to stretch the image of DS1 to have the game full screen on a 16: 9 TV ?
So there is no scanlines filter, is that confirmed ?

1. I tested the zoom, and sure enough - you can fill out the whole screen if you want to. Looks like shit, but it's possible. This is on Switch, by the way. PS4 zoom features seem incomplete at this time.

2. Yep, no scanline filter - confirmed. There is a smoothing filter and that's about it.

[lovecraft]

1. I tested the zoom, and sure enough - you can fill out the whole screen if you want to. Looks like shit, but it's possible. This is on Switch, by the way. PS4 zoom features seem incomplete at this time.

2. Yep, no scanline filter - confirmed. There is a smoothing filter and that's about it.

Thanks for your reply

[el_rika]

Slowdown is never (rarely) programmed in.

There is an abundance of evidence suggesting that the last gen Cave games use certain graphical effects (or even colours, white being the preffered one) for the porpose of creating slowdown.
Sometimes these create intense slowdown on their own in speciffic segments (big enemy ships/bosses flashes, certain shot effects from both player and enemies/bosses, etc), sometimes they create slowdown when they overlap (explosions, lasers).
I'd say 80% of the slowdown we encounter in a playthrough is purposely created. The rest is just superplayers pushing things to the extreme.

[Buffi]

Slowdown is never (rarely) programmed in.

There is an abundance of evidence suggesting that the last gen Cave games use certain graphical effects (or even colours, white being the preffered one) for the porpose of creating slowdown.
Sometimes these create intense slowdown on their own in speciffic segments (big enemy ships/bosses flashes, certain shot effects from both player and enemies/bosses, etc), sometimes they create slowdown when they overlap (explosions, lasers).
I'd say 80% of the slowdown we encounter in a playthrough is purposely created. The rest is just superplayers pushing things to the extreme.

I believe basically every single statement here is incorrect which is pretty impressive ngl.

And that's even without considering the fact that Deathsmiles 2 was on its own hardware unrelated to any of their other games

[Rastan78]

Actually white bullets create way too much slowdown. Black doesn't create enough. Pastel colors are just right. It all makes perfect sense now.

[jehu]

Actually white bullets create way too much slowdown. Black doesn't create enough. Pastel colors are just right. It all makes perfect sense now.

Scientifically accurate. Using the language of the layperson, every pixel must be 'convinced' to display all colors at once, hence white. However, pixel persuasion is a very RAM + CPU intensive process, so it takes time - especially as these white bullets sweep across the whole screen. For black pixels you can just turn off that pixel, freeing up more pixel persuasion power for the other colors on screen. Heady stuff.

In other news, a few of the Gothic wa Mahou Otome DLC characters just fucking shred bosses with the right strategies. Is this really a problem? Do they afford scoring advantages or just survival advantages? Will there be a balance patch? The world waits with bated breath.

[Udderdude]

You're not buying a DLC add-on with even more girls for balanced gameplay.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Each character's on its own scoreboard anyways, and the "bad" characters are still perfectly usable. Case in point: Sakura in MBL has two familiars vs everyone else's one familiar, which really helps for blocking bullets in lv 999 but people are still playing the other characters. As long as the weaker characters are still good, that's all that matters.

It's not like Raiden Fighters where everyone plays as Slave because it's the only one that doesn't have a relatively chunky hitbox.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Happily I've had the whole day so far to play this on Switch, and I'm ready to declare it a triumph.


Damnit, you just cost me $50...

[Buffi]

Actually white bullets create way too much slowdown. Black doesn't create enough. Pastel colors are just right. It all makes perfect sense now.

Scientifically accurate. Using the language of the layperson, every pixel must be 'convinced' to display all colors at once, hence white. However, pixel persuasion is a very RAM + CPU intensive process, so it takes time - especially as these white bullets sweep across the whole screen. For black pixels you can just turn off that pixel, freeing up more pixel persuasion power for the other colors on screen. Heady stuff.

In other news, a few of the Gothic wa Mahou Otome DLC characters just fucking shred bosses with the right strategies. Is this really a problem? Do they afford scoring advantages or just survival advantages? Will there be a balance patch? The world waits with bated breath.

I mean Rosa is already pretty broken compared to the others before this so who cares really

[el_rika]

Slowdown is never (rarely) programmed in.

There is an abundance of evidence suggesting that the last gen Cave games use certain graphical effects (or even colours, white being the preffered one) for the porpose of creating slowdown.
Sometimes these create intense slowdown on their own in speciffic segments (big enemy ships/bosses flashes, certain shot effects from both player and enemies/bosses, etc), sometimes they create slowdown when they overlap (explosions, lasers).
I'd say 80% of the slowdown we encounter in a playthrough is purposely created. The rest is just superplayers pushing things to the extreme.

I believe basically every single statement here is incorrect which is pretty impressive ngl.

And that's even without considering the fact that Deathsmiles 2 was on its own hardware unrelated to any of their other games

Oh didn't realise it's about DS2, which i haven't played and yes, its a different matter entirely, as it's on a different machine.

Regarding my explanations, i don't think i'm wrong, except i can't speak in tehnical terms that i don't know obviously. I say it how i see it.
But while, of course, the actual color white doesn't do anything to the slowdown, there are many many instances where certain elements in the game turn white for a certain amount of time, causing an obvious deliberate slowdown. That's just an example, there are many.

[jehu]

You're not buying a DLC add-on with even more girls for balanced gameplay.

I mean Rosa is already pretty broken compared to the others before this so who cares really

Each character's on its own scoreboard anyways, and the "bad" characters are still perfectly usable.

The people have spoken.

Damnit, you just cost me $50...

You won't regret it! Hope the new port will stir up a little more activity in DS2 scoring for awhile. I put up another 1CC in DS2 this morning - thought the score was alright - go to the old forum leaderboard, and turns out I'm in like 20th place out of ~25. There's still work to do.

Browsing old threads, I noticed in like 2013 there was a wave of people re-assessing their initial impressions on the game, and finding it to be a lot more fun than its reputation would suggest. Makes a lot of sense to me - that initial wave of negativity when it came out. If Cave put out a new game like DS2 now, I think we'll all be somewhere between disappointed, angry, and confused. But once you get used to the idea that its a little lovably shit and shouldn't be judged under the same criteria as the rest of the Cave library, there's a lot to like.

But while, of course, the actual color white doesn't do anything to the slowdown, there are many many instances where certain elements in the game turn white for a certain amount of time, causing an obvious deliberate slowdown.

haha just giving you a hard time, rika.

[Jonpachi]

DS2 is a perfect lazy weekend afternoon shmup. If I want to just dodge some big, slow waves of bullets and shred through bizarro enemies and environments it's a good time.

[m.sniffles.esq]

I put up another 1CC in DS2 this morning

Heh, just now I fired it up just to try it out, and ended up 1cc-ing it. Guess I'm good at dodging sperm...

[evil_ash_xero]

So, does the PS4 version have any more lag than the XBox 360 versions? I wouldn't mind getting these on something a bit more modern, but I can't abide by added lag in a shmup.

[JJHLH]

I downloaded the PS4 edition and had an absolute blast playing it. Cave games are so darn fun! Their imagination, humor, music, and beautiful pixel art are video gaming at its finest. I had never played Deathsmiles 2 but started there since it’s the Christmas Season and what better way to celebrate then to see Satan Claws.

I thought the port was very solid and look forward to playing it more. No noticeable lag that I could discern. I zoomed my tv to fill the screen, which was simple to do.

[Siontis]

I bought the digital PS4 version, the controls are sharp and responsive . It looks, feels and plays great, solid port, nothing to complain about.

[jehu]

So, does the PS4 version have any more lag than the XBox 360 versions? I wouldn't mind getting these on something a bit more modern, but I can't abide by added lag in a shmup.

Assuming you mean input lag and not slowdown - no, from everything I've seen, there's no indication that input lag is a problem here. EOJ bought the PS4 version and you can read about his impressions here: http://cave-stg.com/forum/index.php?topic=1808.0. The long and short of it is - the port is very responsive, apparently handles the DS1 Black Label slowdown better than any version so far (I've never played the MBL PCB, so I'm not personally in a position to judge), but there's a distinct lack of slowdown in DS2 making it far more difficult. Given that the Switch version has the slowdown, the lack of it in the PS4 port is probably unintentional and will likely be patched in. But for now, it's something to keep in mind.

Heh, just now I fired it up just to try it out, and ended up 1cc-ing it. Guess I'm good at dodging sperm...

Give the Arcade original version a spin - it's no Mount Everest, but it's more difficult than XII. I actually like the look of the original Arcade a little better than the remastered version. Leans in to the janky charm of chunky 3D polygonal space a bit more - similar feeling to playing OG G-Darius or R-Type Delta.

With City Connection's recent record, I'm just glad we actually got an STG rather than another one of their STIs.

[To Far Away Times]

Someone aught to sig that last line, that is pretty great.

[evil_ash_xero]

Why can I not increase the picture size to fill up the screen vertically?

[Ms. Tea]

Why can I not increase the picture size to fill up the screen vertically?

If you're playing on PS4, that's a known issue and it sounds like they're planning to fix it. See the first post in this page and other posts in this page mentioning PS4.

[evil_ash_xero]

Why can I not increase the picture size to fill up the screen vertically?

If you're playing on PS4, that's a known issue and it sounds like they're planning to fix it. See the first post in this page and other posts in this page mentioning PS4.

Ah, OK. Seems like a weird oversight.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Give the Arcade original version a spin - it's no Mount Everest, but it's more difficult than XII

Yeah, I just fired up the default console version, and level 1'ed straight through. But still. there was a bit of "Am I actually going to...? Yeah, I guess I am..."

[jehu]

Give the Arcade original version a spin - it's no Mount Everest, but it's more difficult than XII

Yeah, I just fired up the default console version, and level 1'ed straight through. But still. there was a bit of "Am I actually going to...? Yeah, I guess I am..."

Uhh, right then... well give the 'Arrange' version a spin as Casper with Right Shot disabled - it's no Mount Everest, but...

Edit: Oh, in all seriousness, I should mention that there's a TLB in Deathsmiles 2 with really opaque access requirements.

Here's a description of what to do taken from Edward's STG blog (I'll link the page below):

"Even when going for full level 3 rank selection the game does not sting that hard. Satan Claws surely is the toughest boss in the game, but you can also pursue a last fight against true last boss Pidgeon Blood Jitterbug. To earn the honor of facing him you need to go through the extra stage (thus playing all seven levels), beat every boss by using lock shot (it must be the final attack on the boss) and also pick up the large cake released by Satan Claws when he dies. If possible, try matching a boss kill lock shot with the activation of power-up mode. Since counter/multiplier values get transported to the next stage you'll then start it in full throttle to rack up a whole lot of points."

Source: http://1cclog.blogspot.com/2019/06/deat ... x-360.html

[hamfighterx]

Anyone played the Xbox version? I'm especially curious to hear whether DS2X is better than the kinda shaky PS4 version. I haven't played them back to back yet, but PS4 felt worse (and certainly looked worse) than the X360 from the couple stages I played. I'll give the 360 version a spin this week though, I almost always play it on or around Christmas.

Also... is the DLC only for Deathsmiles 1? Didn't see an option for the extra characters in DS2, but I admittedly didn't really dive into it in great detail yet.

[BIL]

Although I've never been into DS, I'm relieved to hear the input response is sharp (and from an absolutely uncompromising source like EOJ, particularly). The more devs that get this shit under control, the better - knowing how to approximate the input response of ancient hardware shouldn't be an obscure skill possessed by only a handful. Picked it up just for the hell of it, not got a working 360 atm.

[To Far Away Times]

Give the Arcade original version a spin - it's no Mount Everest, but it's more difficult than XII

Yeah, I just fired up the default console version, and level 1'ed straight through. But still. there was a bit of "Am I actually going to...? Yeah, I guess I am..."

Yeah, Deathsmiles IIX is basically just a novice arrange mode under a different name. I had that same exact internal monologue and it was disappointing AF. The damn game 1CC's itself. Arcade mode is a bit harder, somewhere-ish around Deathsmiles 1's level of difficulty, but then you run into the problem that you're still playing Deathsmiles II instead of any other CAVE game.

[pegboy]

I recently did a (shitty) run of the real arcade Deathsmiles II PCB (not the 360, PS4, ect) if anyone wants to see what it SHOULD look and sound like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHV7i8OWsyQ

[harborline765]

I recently did a (shitty) run of the real arcade Deathsmiles II PCB (not the 360, PS4, ect) if anyone wants to see what it SHOULD look and sound like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHV7i8OWsyQ

This is great, thank you. Looking forward to doing some eyeball comparisons with the Switch version when my copy eventually arrives (if it doesn't arrive by Christmas I may get the PS4 version digitally...)

[EmperorIng]

I'll probably pick this up digitally once it drops on the 30th.

Deathsmiles 2 looks like a rougher Cotton Rock n' Roll, visually, but it should still offer a good time. I am excited to try it out. I've heard the switch ver. performs more accurately than the PS4 atm, though I don't know how true that is.