Death Smiles: Countdown to North America Invasion

Post by **system11** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:34 am

Still waiting for mine, no tracking update since the 20th. I suspect customs shenanigans.

Post by **Icarus** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 2:21 pm

bloodflowers wrote:Still waiting for mine, no tracking update since the 20th. I suspect customs shenanigans.

They're probably playing on it.

henry dark · Post by **henry dark** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 2:37 pm

The graphics do look horribly pixalated, esp. on the first stage.

I'm certainly liking it a lot more than Muchi Muchi Pork (which did nothing for me).

I played it on level 3 all the way and it was a lot of fun- the bosses patterns get infinity more interesting. It's still quite easy though.

CIT · Post by **CIT** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 2:43 pm

henry dark wrote:The graphics do look horribly pixalated, esp. on the first stage.

That's just because it got upscaled in the video.

yojo! · Post by **yojo!** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:31 pm

henry dark wrote: I played it on level 3 all the way and it was a lot of fun- the bosses patterns get infinity more interesting. It's still quite easy though.

Is there any difficulty setting in the setup menu to make the game more interesting ?

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:37 pm

yojo! wrote:
henry dark wrote: I played it on level 3 all the way and it was a lot of fun- the bosses patterns get infinity more interesting. It's still quite easy though.
Is there any difficulty setting in the setup menu to make the game more interesting ?

lol.. special mode anyone??

Post by **system11** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:41 pm

Icarus wrote:
bloodflowers wrote:Still waiting for mine, no tracking update since the 20th. I suspect customs shenanigans.
They're probably playing on it.

No, I imagine they're turning it inside out and damaging the packaing and artwork looking for drugs and/or a sales invoice.

markedkiller78 · Post by **markedkiller78** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:53 pm

That poster is awsome. I really like the artwork in this game.

Time to make more space on my wall

Gwyrgyn Blood · Post by **Gwyrgyn Blood** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:34 pm

Who are the other two characters on the poster anyway? Player 2 characters?

CIT · Post by **CIT** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:57 pm

I think those are your friends you need to rescue.

SuperPang · Post by **SuperPang** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 5:14 pm

rtw wrote:Very nice, any chance of a closeup picture of the PCB

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:00 pm

henry dark wrote:The graphics do look horribly pixalated, esp. on the first stage.

That's any one of 3 stages. I assume the graphics could look pixelated as there are some rather large sprites. Saying they look horrible makes me vomit with laughter.

Is there any difficulty setting in the setup menu to make the game more interesting ?

Probably, but selecting Rank 3 will make the game very hard in latter stages. On your 5th Rank 3 stage, enemies will shoot suicide bullets.

Who are the other two characters on the poster anyway? Player 2 characters?

They are the main reason people think there's an unlockable stage or difficulty. They don't appear in the 4 stages thus played.

Gwyrgyn Blood · Post by **Gwyrgyn Blood** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:55 pm

I don't suppose anyone has tried having both players select the same character? Or does it not let you do that? I would have just guessed they were alternate versions of the playable characters but I guess something hidden would be much cooler.

PsikyoPshumpPshooterP · Tue Oct 23, 2007 11:04 pm

if this game is really that "easy" , maybe DeathSmiles will have a 2 or 3rd LOOP

Damocles · Post by **Damocles** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 11:26 pm

From watching the vids, it looks like DS has an obscene level of animation. Watch the Reaper when it swings the scythe.

CIT · Post by **CIT** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 11:32 pm

Yip, yip, it uses almost twice the video RAM as Mushihimesama Futari!

sneek · Post by **sneek** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 1:44 am

sven666 wrote:nice, NICE!

tho it would have been nice if they could have sent a little somthin somthin along i think (flyers, soundtrack or whatnot)

Mine came with the flyer... *shrugs*. Would have been nice to see something else cool though.

Awesome game though... im enjoying it

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 6:15 am

SuperPang wrote:Very nice, any chance of a closeup picture of the PCB

Excellent piccie, I see that the optional FLASH positions are still unpopulated.

Yet they claim that the game data is twice the size of Futari.

Are there any loading screens or delays ?

I'm going to ask for one more thing, could you please snap a piccie
as the game boots ? I.e. the counters and suchlikes. I want to see
if there are some memory size values there.

rtw

mrkotfw · Post by **mrkotfw** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 7:27 am

I too am interested in the specs for the new Cave boards.

I wonder, what are they working with? Besides the obvious: SH-3, etc. What does the GPU have to offer?

rtw · Post by **rtw** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 7:37 am

Piratero wrote:I too am interested in the specs for the new Cave boards.

I wonder, what are they working with? Besides the obvious: SH-3, etc. What does the GPU have to offer?

Knock yourself out

http://www.world-of-arcades.net/Cave/Ha ... rdware.htm

Let me know if you discover anything which is not on the page and
I'll update it.

The GPU looks like it's implemented in an FPGA, so theoretically they
can change the GPU between games!

rtw

henry dark · Post by **henry dark** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 12:08 pm

CIT wrote:
henry dark wrote:The graphics do look horribly pixalated, esp. on the first stage.
That's just because it got upscaled in the video.

Er, yeah. Except I've actually been playing the game in the arcade.

GaijinPunch wrote:
henry dark wrote:The graphics do look horribly pixalated, esp. on the first stage.
That's any one of 3 stages. I assume the graphics could look pixelated as there are some rather large sprites. Saying they look horrible makes me vomit with laughter.

Right, OK. Maybe you have an appreciation for the pixels that I don't?

I say the first stage, as the fire stage looks rather nice. That levels boss is cool too, what with the falling and rising blocks of stone and all.

SuperPang · Post by **SuperPang** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 12:10 pm

rtw wrote:
Are there any loading screens or delays ?

I'm going to ask for one more thing, could you please snap a piccie
as the game boots ? I.e. the counters and suchlikes. I want to see
if there are some memory size values there.

rtw

No loading
I'll try snap a pic later in the week, if its possible to get everything in a couple of pics, I wasn't paying attention. Seems to go few a few things in a couple old style ROM check screens.

SuperPang · Post by **SuperPang** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 12:15 pm

Its no more pixellated than any other SH-3 game. Your characters sprite is relatively large though with lots of glowy particles around, is that what you're getting at?

henry dark · Post by **henry dark** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 12:24 pm

Maybe. It's just something that jumped out at me as soon as I started to play.

It's not something that affects my enjoyment of the game though (and I am enjoying it)

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 3:29 pm

I say the first stage, as the fire stage looks rather nice.

Once again, that's one of three stages. Are you referring to A-1, B-1, or C-1?
Have you played any other games on this hardware? It's arguably the best looking stuff they've put out.

You could be playing on a shit monitor... that definitely can't be dismissed.

Back on track:
One thing I forgot to mention in terms of differences between the AM Show/Loke test version and the final one: In the earlier versions the powered up mode starts automatically when the counter hits 1000. In an interview, even Inoue said he'd expect skilled players to not collect point items until a high scoring area. In the final version, A+B triggers it (and you can even raise the multiplier a bit before kicking it off).

Post by **undamned** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 3:59 pm

Got my promo goodies, yesterday

The little skeleton is great. I didn't realize that he had "teeth chattering" action when I first saw it!
-ud

Post by **system11** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:40 pm

Playing it now

It's certainly very enjoyable although I'm not feeling heavily pushed. I'm also not scoring very well and the two and very likely linked. Audio is good but more compressed than I'd like - I've got to try it on my better cab later (doesn't emphasise that so much and actually has some bass). It's very pretty.

Bi directional shooting FTW by the way - that's something I've really missed.

Quick edit: some first stages are -much- harder than others. A-1 on 3 is a walk, while B-1 is not.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:42 pm

I'm not feeling heavily pushed. I'm also not scoring very well and the two and very likely linked.

Choose rank 3 across the board. Suicide bullets appear on the 5th rank 3 level (and will appear in all of them after I believe, including 4-1 and 4-2.

Post by **system11** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:44 pm

Do you know what the character select screen does? Obviously two characters, but each has some selectable thing which is up or down.

The boss 'Jordan' is impossibly awesome. Edit: also it's nice to see Cave worked out how a horizontal game should /feel/, Progear felt like a vertical tipped on it's side. This feels like it was designed to play this way.

Strider77 · Post by **Strider77** » Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:49 pm

so envious.... would love to have this.