Death Smiles: Dead franchise?

[Nico Yazawa]

Death Smiles has ALWAYS been my favorite Shmup. Like.. it was my drug back from 2011-2013. I recently got back into the series on my Xbox 360 and it still amazes me how fun it is! Though, I fear the franchise is dead.

I'll ask the Shmup experts: Is it dead or is there still a slim chance at a sequel?
By the way, anyone want to play?

[BulletMagnet]

Cave said some time back that they wouldn't mind doing a third Deathsmiles game, but the company looks a lot different now than it did then, so most any new shooter from them at this point would be a surprise.

[Squire Grooktook]

Yeah, the question at this point is not so much if Dead Smiles is dead...but is Cave as a whole dead or not.

[Shepardus]

That one smartphone shmup, Gothic wa Mahou Otome, is kind of Deathsmiles related - I'm not sure to what extent, but it does feature characters from Deathsmiles.

As Squire Grooktook and BulletMagnet said, any new shmup from CAVE, besides smartphone games and ports of existing games (speaking of which, Deathsmiles is getting ported to PC), would be a surprise. If they were to make one, though, then continuing the Deathsmiles series is one of their more likely choices given its popularity.

[Strikers1945guy]

Dead franchise? I certainly hope so. Not the worst games in the world but Cave have so many other shooters that need new installments. And you know, ships > lolis.

Ketsui 2
True Progear sequel (Sorry Akai Katana)
Where is my Dangun Feveron Black Label

Scrape some money together from the cell phone games and whatever else cave has been doing. Develop Ketsui 2 for nescia and make sure it's balls to the wall hard and actually quality like SDOJ. Would be a huge success in Japan anyways. Almost everyone here would buy the inevitable (PS4) port then straight to Steam for a double package of Ketsui & Ketsui 2.

[ryu]

Let's not kid ourselves here, they'd release it on Xbone and go bankrupt.

[Strikers1945guy]

Let's not kid ourselves here, they'd release it on Xbone and go bankrupt.

Well one could hope after Raiden V sells all 11 copies on Xbone they might see the writing on the wall.

[Bananamatic]

Dead franchise? I certainly hope so. Not the worst games in the world but Cave have so many other shooters that need new installments. And you know, ships > lolis.

Ketsui 2
True Progear sequel (Sorry Akai Katana)
Where is my Dangun Feveron Black Label

Scrape some money together from the cell phone games and whatever else cave has been doing. Develop Ketsui 2 for nescia and make sure it's balls to the wall hard and actually quality like SDOJ. Would be a huge success in Japan anyways. Almost everyone here would buy the inevitable (PS4) port then straight to Steam for a double package of Ketsui & Ketsui 2.

I already suck at ketsui but give me another one to suck at

[iconoclast]

I think I remember reading that Cave was going to make "Deathsmiles for 2012" at first, but decided on making a Daioujou followup instead (Saidaioujou). Dodonpachi and Deathsmiles are Cave's most popular series, so I'm sure they would have made a new game by now if they could afford to it.

[ctr]

Deathsmiles was always Junya Inoue's baby. He actually left the company before the sequel was finished but kept working on it as a freelance. I don't think Cave would release another one without him.

[Strikers1945guy]

Dead franchise? I certainly hope so. Not the worst games in the world but Cave have so many other shooters that need new installments. And you know, ships > lolis.

Ketsui 2
True Progear sequel (Sorry Akai Katana)
Where is my Dangun Feveron Black Label

Scrape some money together from the cell phone games and whatever else cave has been doing. Develop Ketsui 2 for nescia and make sure it's balls to the wall hard and actually quality like SDOJ. Would be a huge success in Japan anyways. Almost everyone here would buy the inevitable (PS4) port then straight to Steam for a double package of Ketsui & Ketsui 2.

I already suck at ketsui but give me another one to suck at

Yes thanks Xoxak for the imput

[SMC]

mushi 3 pls

[Strikers1945guy]

mushi 3 pls

But we already have the amazing MushihimeTama

[Kollision]

mushi 3 pls

o yes

[cave hermit]

Pork Planet: Muchi Muchi Pork Sorekara

[Mr Halibut]

edit: oops wrong thread

[Nico Yazawa]

Let's not kid ourselves here, they'd release it on Xbone and go bankrupt.

As long as I get DS 3, that's okay

Anyway, I appreciate the responses everybody and remember: Casper is best.

[copy-paster]

Windia is best.

Fixed.

[Nico Yazawa]

Windia is best.

Fixed.

Windia? I'd put Windia at 5th out of the seven and say she's ahead of the Follett and the trap from 2x.

So, wanna fight?

[Some-Mist]

True Progear sequel (Sorry Akai Katana)

yaaaaaaaas!!

that would be the most incredible news. keep the scoring mechanics in tact please!

[supergrafx77]

True Progear sequel (Sorry Akai Katana)

yaaaaaaaas!!

that would be the most incredible news. keep the scoring mechanics in tact please!

And CAPCOM as the publisher.

[MR_Soren]

Casper is best.

Casper was my favorite, but she's definitely not the easiest to learn for survival. I used to have the highest Casper score on the North American 360 port and the 5th best overall. Haven't checked in a while.

Ikeda has stated that he wants to do a Deathsmiles III, but I don't know if that is realistic anymore. If they ever have the opportunity to do an original game for PC/Steam/Nesica, DSIII seems a likely candidate. The 2.5D in Deathsmiles II was atrocious, but perhaps they could do something more like the graphics in Guilty Gear Xrd or Odin Sphere for Deathsmiles III. I feel like perfectly flat 2D just isn't going to cut it anymore.

Junya Inoue would have to be involved (his art* really makes the game), but the fact that he isn't at Cave is not a big deal in terms of business/logistics. He left Cave well before the original Deathsmiles and was either a temp or a freelancer on that project. Whether he has the desire and time to work on Deathsmiles III is the real question.


* I'm talking about all of the art, not just the controversial character designs. The monsters and backgrounds are fantastic. Combined with the music, the game's presentation is really "together".

[d0s]

Death Smiles: Dead franchise?

We can only hope

[Doctor Butler]

Where is my Dangun Feveron Black Label

Oh god yes.

I think every CAVE franchise is dead at this point. They've gone whole-hog into the smartphone app business.

[Despatche]

With Mahou Otome and Ichimebanchou, Deathsmiles and DonPachi are the only CAVE series that aren't dead right now.

[evil_ash_xero]

I loved DeathSmiles.

If they did make a sequel, they better get it back on track. 2 was a mess, in terms of presentation, and some other things.

But, I don't know if CAVE is going to make another shmup, anytime soon.

[Mero]

They ain't going to do anything but mobile from now on.

[gs68]

I'm sure Deathsmiles can come back from well, death.

...in the form of an arranged version of DSII that's a stat grind-a-thon where you only play the -1 stages, start off with a peashooter, and have an inexplicable deep manry announcer voice in the menus.

[casualcoder]

The original Deathsmiles was a surprise hit... sold something like 400K copies when they expected 40K at the most. The art style and gothic theme was more palatable to western audiences so it was Cave's breakout title in the West. They rushed Deathsmiles II as a result, wanting to hopefully cash in on a preceived gothic lolita 'craze' and that never materialized.

Nonetheless Cave knows that DS is the title most likely to catch on if they threw their hat in the ring again. If the Steam version sells very well they could easily consider a DSIII. Companies and trends go in cycles so I do think Cave will come back with a worthy shmup title if the opportunity comes up and the mobile pie continues to shrink and split into smaller pieces.

[gs68]

I'm surprised people got over that awful back-of-the-box tagline and the game being initially sped up from the JP version (though to be fair, most Western gamers are not aware of that bit).