Death Smiles: Countdown to North America Invasion

[EOJ]

Siliconera isn't giving any more info than GaijinPunch gave nearly a month ago.

Old news.

[Udderdude]

Siliconera isn't giving any more info than GaijinPunch gave nearly a month ago.

Old news.

Does this look like cave-stg to you?

[Thunder Force]

So... um.

DeathSmiles is getting a NA localization?

That's probably the biggest localization surprise since Senko No Ronde...

[Jugiatsu]

It surely is a surprise to some of us, but until we get more info on who is localizing and distributing it here in the states we can only wait with baited breath.

[PsikyoPshumpPshooterP]

Siliconera isn't giving any more info than GaijinPunch gave nearly a month ago.

Old news.

Does this look like cave-stg to you?

+1

[Shelcoof]

So... um.

DeathSmiles is getting a NA localization?

Is the source reliable? If so then... I'll re-buy it to support it.

[BulletMagnet]

I'll re-buy it to support it.

Assuming the localization is good, consider this a +1 from me.

[Elixir]

Greate news, and I will support this if it's region free.

[cj iwakura]

Dang it, now I need a 360.

[evil_ash_xero]

This is a really awesome game. Glad some of my fellow shmuppers will be able to finally play a CAVE game that's more of a change of pace from their others.
Make sure to get MBL.

[AraraSPAMWitch]

Dang it, now I need a 360.

Damn straight! If you're in America, there's now absolutely no reason not to buy this motherfucking game.

I'll probably buy six or seven copies and hand them out to all my friends. I'm sure it'll be priced around a reasonable ten or fifteen dollars...and I can't wait for all the "this should've been on XBLA" reviews, that shit's gonna raise my blood pressure through the roof.

[Schrodinger's cat]

So how do you guys think this is going to be received in the states? Do you think it'll flop, be popular with only the anime/touhou crowd, or gather enough sales/publicity for Cave to interested in localizing other shooters?

**BASELESS SPECULATION** [don't take this too seriously!]
I predict that the game won't do too badly over here, but won't turn too many heads either. You'll get your 6.5-8 review scores from your standard review sites for lame predictable reasons ("game is too short!", "price is too expensive for this type of game!", etc). The average gamer will be turned off by the artwork and will judge it entirely on that alone. However, more players than not will have fun with the game and it will gain a small cult status. It will sell (at $40 a pop) more or less the same amount of copies that Raiden Fighters Aces did, and will pave the way for Guwange XBLA to be released just a few months later. Guwange will be met with moderate success, but probably not enough to make Cave want to release their newer shooters through XBLA. They already spent money on making Mushihimesama Futari region free and won't spend any more money localizing it. Espgaluda II will be proposed but won't fly with the publishers because it contains transgendering fairies. About a year from now DOJ DFK will be announced for US release. As a last ditch effort to make money in the states, DFK will be marketed as "better than Ikaruga", will fully be in HD (oh, look at the pretty lasers!), and will have the schoolgirl boss forms replaced with more threatening generic mechanical forms a la the sprite swap from Probotector/Contra. Cave will make lots of money.

The end

[Elixir]

People will wonder why a 2D game is a fully priced disc release, but praise it for having easy achievements and a neat theme.

[Shelcoof]

can some one confirm whether or not the source for the news is reliable?
I've never heard of that site before...

[EOJ]

can some one confirm whether or not the source for the news is reliable?
I've never heard of that site before...

Not sure about the site but the news is legit. GaijinPunch got it from the horse's mouth, at the last Cave festival.

Does this look like cave-stg to you?

Does this look like Siliconera to you?

[Shelcoof]

Thanks for the confirm EOJ.

Guess I'm gonna own myself a 3rd copy of the game. Maybe even 4 if there is an LE out.

[EOJ]

Guess I'm gonna own myself a 3rd copy of the game. Maybe even 4 if there is an LE out.

Me too. Everyone on forums like this needs to buy this. If enough people do, Espgaluda II and future games will probably get localized too.

[Elixir]

can some one confirm whether or not the source for the news is reliable?
I've never heard of that site before...

Siliconera's a massively popular gaming blog site. They get information inside all the time (this is definitely not the first I can think of). But, why bother doing that when you can just browse through a 12 page thread for a single post saying that they *might be* localizing it stateside? Old news.

[neojma]

Guess I'm gonna own myself a 3rd copy of the game. Maybe even 4 if there is an LE out.

Me too. Everyone on forums like this needs to buy this. If enough people do, Espgaluda II and future games will probably get localized too.

I absolutely don't care if future Cave games get localized. I'll be buying the Japanese versions anyway, just like I've been doing with my shooters for well over a decade (just like most people on "forums like this").

That being said... I'll totally double dip if they include the OST. I'm still kicking myself for not springing for the Japanese LE.

[Van_Artic]

>good news
>DS localization?
>something like that

i'm expecting GREAT news

speculation mode on:

if i'm not wrong, in the Cave blog there are 2 new announcements coming, maybe one of the two will be a DS localization, or a region-free re-release
speculation mode off

[Thunder Force]

Re: publisher speculation

This taken from another forum rules out Gaijinworks as the publisher for it...

Death Smiles isn't Gaijinworks. It was on my "to get" list, but I've been too busy with other titles to work it. Glad it's coming over here anyway, and I REALLY hope it gets the localization it deserves. The game ROCKS. One of my favorites from the last 5 years or so. I just hope it's not a Majesco release, which would virtually guarantee a crap localization...

Some folks are speculating Aksys. I wonder if Ignition Entertainment might also be a possibility, although Aksys does seem more likely given their commitment to similar fringe stuff like Cho Aniki. Unlikely best case scenario would be deluxe localization by Atlus USA...

Whoever is doing it will face a marketing challenge, certainly; if their marketing department is smart they'll probably downplay any loli stuff as much as possible, and just promote it as a spooky halloween / Castlevania theme game... that might work to get some sales, if the price is right.

[Van_Artic]

well, glad is confirmed but..

i only hope it won't turn out like Raiden 4

[Phellan Wolf]

I am glad to see that shooting games are released outside Japan but I feel somewhat disapointed because I think that it won't come to Europe. We still don't have RFA and Raiden IV and my guesses is that DS is going to follow the same route. However there still hope that someday some publisher like 505 Games realize that this is the way to go and bring them to the old contient.

[dan76]

Hopefully all the DLC will be included on the disc. Maybe because it's a relatively short game they'll want to add as much content as possible. What are the chances of the US release being region free?

[bcass]

That being said... I'll totally double dip if they include the OST. I'm still kicking myself for not springing for the Japanese LE.

The OST that came with the LE was a bit of a cheap cash-in. There are tracks in the game that aren't on the CD.

[bcass]

Whoever is doing it will face a marketing challenge, certainly; if their marketing department is smart they'll probably downplay any loli stuff as much as possible, and just promote it as a spooky halloween / Castlevania theme game... that might work to get some sales, if the price is right.

Can't see in-game imagery like this surviving the translation...

[Klatrymadon]

Good.

[Observer]

I think I posted it in this thread or in some other thread but you know this will be the official US cover:



It can't be anything else. Although I'm eager to see the reactions of the non-schmukmup population. "Yay, animu gaem!!!!1111oneoneonewwww".

Then they realise it's an "intense retro old school shooter, probably resembling the mechanics of an arcade game" (big lol) and all hell breaks loose. "This Touhou game of the Touhou genre is too short, too lame, too loli, too this, too that. Blah, blah, blah 4/10." Add a smiley for increased effects.

Good news. It might mean that one day, one faithful day even Ketsui might get a localisation?

[AraraSPAMWitch]

one faithful day

"Fateful" is what you're looking for.......

But to those who anticipate problems with the imagery, I don't see the lolicon shit being particularly problematic; after all, Arcana Heart, a game about 14 year old and younger girls in various moe fetish costumes beating each other up, was released without censorship or incident. Similarly, Shikigami no Shiro 3 featured conversations where an adult woman made sexual advances on a little boy, and that wasn't featured on Fox News as threat to the children of America. This game is just too under-the-radar to be controversial--I expect no real changes in content, except maybe Follet's bath ending. But other games have gotten away with similar scenes with similarly young-looking characters (Riviera), so even that should probably be left intact.

[Schrodinger's cat]

Can't see in-game imagery like this surviving the translation...

http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg22 ... menu-1.jpg

Yea, it was always awkward showing the game to my friends for this reason. I always had to give some "don't judge a book by its cover" speech beforehand. Once the game started though, everything was good.