Death Smiles: Countdown to North America Invasion

[xris]

I love the backgrounds in Espgaluda2, very cool. The enemies are dorky though. It's the opposite for Futari, the enemies are rad. Stage 5 is just all around awesome, one of the best stages ever, imo.

[Strider77]

Same here. Curious about what screen it's being played on... and how anyone would prefer it over Arcade mode.

LCD from K-mart.. wait I just dated myself.

LCD from Wal Mart... picture via RF cable

[Square King]

Not saying you're wrong, I think I'm a little bi-curious is all.

For the love of God I can't find the clip of Tobias buying the wig from the tranny.

This will have to do, then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnLwHOVXkWE

[dmauro]

Saw this post on Penny Arcade and thought it was funny/interesting:

So I dropped into a random Gamestop today, and I saw they had like 20 copies. The guy behind the desk said apparently because the first six they got (4 pre-orders and two shelf) sold in two days, Gamestop's distribution center for that area put it on their "popular games" list for that store. Too bad I lack a 360.

[Vectorman0]

Any word on North American sales numbers yet?

12

Last night I checked the online scoreboard for Score Attack (360 mode, EX Off), and there were less than 400 entries. Even though it's an option most people probably don't try right away or at all, I still think it's a pretty sorry number.

[xris]

Yes, the scoreboards aren't filled out yet.. I have 3rd on the EX, just for surviving it without continue...
3rd on no EX, with a 1st week score...
I would rather have a global board.

[KindGrind]

Some of us play offline though. I may connect once to upload my scores... but then again, much hassle for not much.

[TaygetaVendetta]

Mygamercard.net, which only tracks a small portion of the total 360 population (all you have to do is enter your gamertag for it to track you, if anyone wants to look at it), has 900 different tags on it already for Deathsmiles NA.

[StarCreator]

I was under the impression you have to play online in order to place a score on the leaderboards (and that interrupting the internet connection during the run actually ends the run).

[MachineAres 1CC]

Mygamercard.net, which only tracks a small portion of the total 360 population (all you have to do is enter your gamertag for it to track you, if anyone wants to look at it), has 900 different tags on it already for Deathsmiles NA.

I'm seeing a lot of posts on different sites of people just saying their usual crap like "I rented this from GameFly, returning it tomorrow." So I don't think either looking on leaderboards or MGC.net are very telling of how many actual sales there were.

[KindGrind]

I was under the impression you have to play online in order to place a score on the leaderboards (and that interrupting the internet connection during the run actually ends the run).

It may be... I have no idea.

[Exarion]

Has anyone else found a glitch that causes you to be stuck in the ground on the graveyard stage? I have a replay of it happening to me, which resulted in me getting killed by the boss while I could not move. Also, the volcano stage is worth way too many points if you go in ready powerup and have a good counter. I've managed to get both extends off of just that stage.

[GaijinPunch]

This will have to do, then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnLwHOVXkWE

Well, the tranny asked, "Are you gonna buy something this time, or are you still just curious?" to which Tobias, of course, said, "I guess you could say I'm buy-curious".

[dan76]

Has anyone else found a glitch that causes you to be stuck in the ground on the graveyard stage? I have a replay of it happening to me, which resulted in me getting killed by the boss while I could not move. Also, the volcano stage is worth way too many points if you go in ready powerup and have a good counter. I've managed to get both extends off of just that stage.

How can it be worth too many points? Isn't that a good thing (by the way you can get a lot more points than just the 2 extends). It means you can face the rest of the game with a full life stock and play all rank 3 with a good chance of a 1CC and a half decent score.

As for the glitch, I've been playing the japanese release for over a year and haven't had anything like that. There seems to be a few glitches being mentioned with the U.S. release.

[drunkninja24]

Well, the glitch I posted about earlier seems to be resolved after installing the game, so maybe my DVD drive is just on the fritz.

[CStarFlare]

Since I'm not really set up to record videos for comparison, tonight I played the forest stage (level 3) on the US and JP versions of MBL 1.1 back to back with a stopwatch, starting from the moment I selected my difficulty to the boss's entrance.

JP time was 2:16
US time was 1:31

My consistency isn't perfect, but I powered up at the same places and generally made the same path in each play. My JP run netted me about 10k more on my counter, though on MBL 1.1 even a small difference in the quality of the play could result in a 10k difference. Still, I think scoring on the US version is significantly impaired. I broke 100bil easily on my first run ever on the Japanese release, while I game overed on my first Extra Stage with 71bil on my first run on the US release.

I'm sure slowdown issues will be less problematic in the other modes since there's less of it in the first place, but MBL 1.1 is really, really bad.

[Kiken]

Since I'm not really set up to record videos for comparison, tonight I played the forest stage (level 3) on the US and JP versions of MBL 1.1 back to back with a stopwatch, starting from the moment I selected my difficulty to the boss's entrance.

JP time was 2:16
US time was 1:31

My consistency isn't perfect, but I powered up at the same places and generally made the same path in each play. My JP run netted me about 10k more on my counter, though on MBL 1.1 even a small difference in the quality of the play could result in a 10k difference. Still, I think scoring on the US version is significantly impaired. I broke 100bil easily on my first run ever on the Japanese release, while I game overed on my first Extra Stage with 71bil on my first run on the US release.

I'm sure slowdown issues will be less problematic in the other modes since there's less of it in the first place, but MBL 1.1 is really, really bad.

Actually, I think every mode, except for Arcade, is off. The US version feels generally feels sped up all over the place.

Maybe it's time I did some capturing myself for comparison.

[sh00g]

Is it really that different? Thats really lame.

[professor ganson]

I was shocked to find that my local Gamestop had two L.E.s in stock. Who do they expect to buy this? The guys working at the store were asking me what kind of game it was.

It's nice to have the game mechanics explained in English, and I love the face plate. The first few tracks of the soundtrack seemed pretty bland but it also seemed to be picking up in interest a bit by the fourth track.

[Slump]

I was shocked to find that my local Gamestop had two L.E.s in stock. Who do they expect to buy this? The guys working at the store were asking me what kind of game it was.

It's nice to have the game mechanics explained in English, and I love the face plate. The first few tracks of the soundtrack seemed pretty bland but it also seemed to be picking up in interest a bit by the fourth track.

Same deal at my Gamestop! Couldn't believe they had it. Not only that the assistant manager said he preordered one for himself. I guess Ohio country does have some taste. Enjoyed what little I've played so far.

[professor ganson]

Yeah, I'm in Ohio too. There do seem to be a lot of shooter fans in these parts, so maybe they sent a few extra copies our way.

[t0yrobo]

Half the gamestops in my area got it in for some reason. The only I've been to lately had 4

[MachineAres 1CC]

Why is everyone "surprised?" Its obvious at this point that Aksys sent copies to pretty much every GameStop in the continental US, even if there weren't pre-orders. Its a retail video game and they sent copies to the largest video game retailer in the entire country *shock and awe* They're not that particular and choosy about which regions of the country they send it to. They give one large distribution run and distribute as many as they've printed, then see how it sells, and decide accordingly on how to proceed.

[evil_ash_xero]

What would be "good" numbers, for a game of this kind? 40 thousand?

[Slump]

Why is everyone "surprised?" Its obvious at this point that Aksys sent copies to pretty much every GameStop in the continental US, even if there weren't pre-orders. Its a retail video game and they sent copies to the largest video game retailer in the entire country *shock and awe* They're not that particular and choosy about which regions of the country they send it to. They give one large distribution run and distribute as many as they've printed, then see how it sells, and decide accordingly on how to proceed.

Mostly because Raiden IV and Raiden Fighter Aces were non-existent at my local gamestop. I realize it's a different publisher so different distribution numbers and such but it's still nice. We're mostly excited more than surprised I suppose (or I am anyway) because we live in areas where there is little to get excited about.

[gs68]

There's been a Raiden IV box at GameStop in Santa Clara for possibly months now.

[CStarFlare]

deathsmiles must be pretty boring if you guys want to talk about what the fucks at gamestop are doing instead of about the game

[Momijitsuki]

deathsmiles must be pretty boring if you guys want to talk about what the fucks at gamestop are doing instead of about the game

ok

Been playing for a little while now. It's pretty nice.

[CptRansom]

deathsmiles must be pretty boring if you guys want to talk about what the fucks at gamestop are doing instead of about the game

Easy to clear, difficult to score well (vanilla). Trying to learn/practice the volcano recharge(s) with Rosa. Easy in theory, pain in the ass in practice. I'm sticking to Arcade mode since 360 mode apparently sped shit up (and it doesn't look that much better than Arcade, even on my LCD).

There, talked about the game.

[StarCreator]

Hmm... I need to try Arcade mode again, because originally Arcade looked like ass on an LCD. The new smoothing option (which wasn't present in the Japanese release) might make a difference...