Death Smiles: Countdown to North America Invasion

[CptRansom]

IT DEFINITELY MAKES A DIFFERENCE. I MEAN, IT'S STILL NOT AS PRETTY AS 360 MODE, BUT THE SMOOTHING MAKES IT GOOD. WISH THEY HAD AS MANY GRAPHICS OPTIONS AS FUTARI. OH WELL.

[Domino]

Why using Gayniggers From Outer Space as your avatar?

[CptRansom]

WHY NOT?

[NR777]

WHY CAPS LOCK?????!!!!! WHYYYY??????!!!

[professor ganson]

The guy beat Mars Matrix! He can use caps lock if he wants.

[KindGrind]

The recharge on the volcano is indeed a pain in the ass, but gives an extra 35M or so...

Also, I see no reason NOT to go to the volcano on the 2nd stage, as to "get it out of the way". Once done, all the other levels are a walk in the park.

*Edit, of course my sentence doesn't make sense without the not. MBL is indeed very different.*

[dan76]

Playing for score in arcade mode - If you do volcano last and screw up the recharge you've wasted your time in the previous 5 levels as you won't be able to score too well without it. It's different in MBL though.

[Exarion]

Any word on North American sales numbers yet?

12

Try 31442, at least according to VGchartz, which means we managed to break into the top 20

[apple arcade]

as much as i want to believe that. there is no way DS sold more here week 1 than it did in japan.

[roker]

as much as i want to believe that. there is no way DS sold more here week 1 than it did in japan.

there are more people here though, it is possible

[njiska]

as much as i want to believe that. there is no way DS sold more here week 1 than it did in japan.

there are more people here though, it is possible

Consider the facts:
- NA has a significantly larger install base than JP
- Aksys has developed a great reputation and gathered a following
- It's reviewed unusually well
- The LE is cheap and has a face plate
- Just because it sold, doesn't mean it hasn't been traded in.
- 31000 is still a piss small sales number for the NA region

It's more than possible, it's actually quite probable. The really question is, "Is this a good result?". The number is large for the genre, but is it strong enough to warrent further investment in shmup ports?

[moozooh]

there are more people here though, it is possible

Actually I think any single large Japanese city has more shmuppers than the entire USA combined. Total population doesn't mean much because not all people are the target audience for this type of games, or any games at all. I find it hard to believe it sold more than in Japan, also considering that some Americans are already satisfied with the Japanese version of the game, but if it's true, then it's really great.

[roker]

It's more than possible, it's actually quite probable. The really question is, "Is this a good result?". The number is large for the genre, but is it strong enough to warrent further investment in shmup ports?

exactly.

[Exarion]

It's more than possible, it's actually quite probable. The really question is, "Is this a good result?". The number is large for the genre, but is it strong enough to warrent further investment in shmup ports?

exactly.

Assuming a 50k print run, 31k first week sales are good. Selling 19k more in total is possible, at which point more ports will come out here.

[t0yrobo]

Continued sales will be the thing to watch. It could very well go from 30k this week to under 5k next week.

[MachineAres 1CC]

Assuming a 50k print run, 31k first week sales are good. Selling 19k more in total is possible, at which point more ports will come out here.

I love this completely unsupported, questionable logic being stated as pure fact

[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.

I take that back... every mode is off, including Arcade! I just popped in the Japanese version after having spent the last week and a half playing nothing but the US version and the slowdown differences in Arcade were staggering. In the initial 6 levels, the differences were mild but noticeable.. where the US version might dip to 50% speed, the Japanese would dip as low as 25% for longer periods of time... it made timing some of the recharges a bit easier. The main thing is that the Japanese version initiates slowdown as soon as the player activates a load of point items... in the US version, the slowdown just seems set by zone. Where the difference becomes significantly more apparent though is in the Castle stage. There are numerous key points in the level where slowdown becomes active in the Japanese version such as: the first appearance of the large bat-eyes (with the little bat-eyes surrounding them), the Mary clone, the large red ogres (especially when they die), most of Jitterbug's patterns. In the US version, these areas either don't slowdown at all (the first appearance of the bat-eyes) or have partial slowdown (the red ogres only trigger about half the slowdown as they die and once they have finished exploding the US game moves back to full speed whereas the Japanese version remains at about 25% until most suicide bullets, crowns and purple bullets have been absorbed/removed from the screen). Also, triggering Fever Mode with suicide bullets active initiates slowdown in the Japanese version, but in the US version it's sporadic slowdown at best (think PS2 Mushi).

As a result, the US version of DeathSmiles is a more difficult game than the Japanese version. I had been struggling to improve my 235 million run in the US version but as soon as I popped in the Japanese version I broke 254 million using the exact same routes... the major difference was that I didn't have to bomb through bullet-heavy portions of the castle stage.. so I was able to remain in Fever Mode much longer and dodge more complex patterns.

[Zero Gunner]

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.

I can't seem to get my score to upload. I've tried score attack and XBL mode and nothing....I'm thinking there might be a glitch with the boards.

[iluvmonsterz]

This 360 visuals are pretty bad, blurry, awkward, pre-rendered sprites and low-res backgrounds. If they're going to move away from bold, hand drawn pixel art they need to step up the quality. I like the game, but I honestly can't stand looking at it. The problem's not so much in the design, but the presentation. Do the "enhanced" visuals in Futari and Espgaluda fare any better?

I have no idea what you're talking about since nearly every Cave game in existence uses pre-rendered visuals.

I don't agree on the sprites - I think they look fine. It's not the best modeling work ever but they do great considering the small team and small budget they run on. I do think the fact the sprites are so much larger in Deathsmiles than their other games hurt them a bit, especially when they didn't really model them with more than 240p resolution in mind.

Futari and Espgaluda 2 are exactly the same in the regard that they use higher resolution foreground sprites but the original low resolution backgrounds. They still look fantastic.

i agree, the game looks amazing. when i got it i straight up credit fed it to the end just to see all the shite going on without having to concentrate. same on mushi... i dont have espG 2 yet as i hate ordering from out of the states. as soon as one pops up on ebay in the U.S. it ll be mine!!

[apple arcade]

This 360 visuals are pretty bad, blurry, awkward, pre-rendered sprites and low-res backgrounds. If they're going to move away from bold, hand drawn pixel art they need to step up the quality. I like the game, but I honestly can't stand looking at it. The problem's not so much in the design, but the presentation. Do the "enhanced" visuals in Futari and Espgaluda fare any better?

I have no idea what you're talking about since nearly every Cave game in existence uses pre-rendered visuals.

I don't agree on the sprites - I think they look fine. It's not the best modeling work ever but they do great considering the small team and small budget they run on. I do think the fact the sprites are so much larger in Deathsmiles than their other games hurt them a bit, especially when they didn't really model them with more than 240p resolution in mind.

Futari and Espgaluda 2 are exactly the same in the regard that they use higher resolution foreground sprites but the original low resolution backgrounds. They still look fantastic.

i agree, the game looks amazing. when i got it i straight up credit fed it to the end just to see all the shite going on without having to concentrate. same on mushi... i dont have espG 2 yet as i hate ordering from out of the states. as soon as one pops up on ebay in the U.S. it ll be mine!!

http://ncsx.com/

within the states

[gs68]

The non-sprite objects (foreground, background) aren't redone in HD, but I tend to disregard that during play. Besides I imagine it's a tough enough job on the artists, redrawing sprites for an originally-240i game in a much higher resolution.

Also, Level 999 is quite brutal. If you can't handle it, not only will you die fast, you can't even score for crap.

[GaijinPunch]

The non-sprite objects (foreground, background) aren't redone in HD, but I tend to disregard that during play. Besides I imagine it's a tough enough job on the artists, redrawing sprites for an originally-240i game in a much higher resolution.

They're not redrawn. Or ever drawn for that matter. They are all computer-generated and broken down to sprites via software. Upside is that high res versions are a simple re-rendering of the initial assets. The downside is you have some ass-monkey jump in here from time to time and whine.

[dmauro]

For people suspicious about vgchartz's numbers, there is a Penny Arcade thread that is staying relatively active. That seems like a decent litmus test for what Joe the Gamer is buying/enjoying.

[BulletMagnet]

Totally unrelated to anything being discussed ATM, but this made me chuckle.

[evil_ash_xero]

That's hilarious.

[Zuhzuhzombie!!]

Considering that most shmups tend to average around 15K for disc based releases, if this did sell 30K in the US, then that's not a terrible number.

I imagine Cave has lowered their previously thought to be unreasonable licensing. Nice to know MS has allowed Guwange to come to Live as well.

[evil_ash_xero]

Didn't the recent Raiden releases just hit around 40k?

[roker]

just give me Ketsui for the US and I could care less about every other shmup release for the next few years (barring some sort of Raizing compilation ... though I highly doubt this)

[StarCreator]

I just returned my extra copy to GameStop (as the one I got from Amazon was cheaper). It just got added to the stack of 4-5 copies that were sitting behind the counter.

Here's hoping this doesn't turn into another Beatmania US...

[PsikyoPshumpPshooterP]

just give me Ketsui for the US and I could care less about every other shmup release for the next few years (barring some sort of Raizing compilation ... though I highly doubt this)

Roker you are my best friend here. you read my mind.