Death Smiles: Countdown to North America Invasion

[Rebel Ninja]

Kotaku review is up.

http://kotaku.com/5587795/deathsmiles-r ... up-complex

[charlesr]

Is that a review? It doesn't seem to contain any real info apart from the usual mumblings about "should have been on XBLA".

[charlesr]

Oh forgot the link: http://www.ntsc-uk.com/review.php?platf ... eathSmiles

[evil_ash_xero]

I've always preferred NTSC-UK's reviews of shmups to any other websites. I have to admit this one is a little over-gushing, they seem like they usually don't overrate or underrate most shmups.

Here's another one: http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/xb ... eathsmiles

[NR777]

Rob's comment on the Kotaku review cracked me up. I'm going to have to approve it to see how butthurt fans of RDR get.

[Rob]

RDR is a huge amount of boring.

Has anyone had success with the online co-op? I think this is the first 360 shooter popular enough to find an occasional match. A few decent games and one with absolute grinding slowdown and second player sprite jumping all over the place. It was strange. The other two quit when the continue countdown popped up, which is pretty lame. It's co-op, loosen up a bit.

Is there any combination of buttons to make the dialogue go away? Did we learn nothing from Shikigami?

[Octopod]

I enjoyed RDR a lot personally.

[evil_ash_xero]

RDR is a huge amount of boring.

Has anyone had success with the online co-op? I think this is the first 360 shooter popular enough to find an occasional match. A few decent games and one with absolute grinding slowdown and second player sprite jumping all over the place. It was strange. The other two quit when the continue countdown popped up, which is pretty lame. It's co-op, loosen up a bit.

Is there any combination of buttons to make the dialogue go away? Did we learn nothing from Shikigami?

You enjoying this game, Rob? I was curious as to your opinion of it.

[Rob]

Yeah, it's great. I could do with less content, though. So many leaderboards.

[drunkninja24]

Ummm...any truth to this review?

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2YSQ1UTAW ... Q1UTAWZ01C

The Japanese original is one of my all-time favorite shooting games. The Japanese Xbox 360 port is very accurate compared to the Arcade original - indeed, Arcade Mode is nearly 100% identical to the Arcade original. However, in this US version, they needlessly messed up the slowdown/game speed, which is very important in a game like this. In many parts the slowdown is not slow enough, and towards the later stages they just completely removed large chunks of slowdown, making the game run too fast. After all, these games are made for scorers, and when you alter the speed from the original, the scores between the versions are no longer comparable. For this reason I give this game 1/5 stars. I'd give the Japanese X360 version 5/5 stars. It's such a terrible shame that the localization team ruined the game in this way, for no apparent reason! I hope they do not ruin any other Cave games that might make their way to the US. After this poor US version, I will definitely not buy any future US versions of Cave games before renting them first to test their accuracy.

For the casual gamer, they will likely be happy with this US version. However, anyone who really loves these games, and particularly those who enjoy competing for high scores, would do best to buy a Japanese X360 and the original Japanese version of this game.

I mean, I haven't really noticed much different between the US and Japanese versions, but I never played the Japanese version much.

[dannnnn]

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.

[Exarion]

7770 second week sales.

[Matsunaga]

If that's true, then that's close to 40k in the first 2 weeks.. That should be enough to encourage more shmup ports in the US.

[SGGG2]

It turns out my 360 was set to 1080i, my westy has a FW bug that disables the 1080p option in devices like a 360. Found a workaround, and it's looking pretty good. Decent to fantastic, I'd say. Still think some of the pre-rendered sprites look odd.

[Octopod]

7770 second week sales.

So it is doing better in the US than it did in Japan. I guess that can just be attributed to the higher population though.

[Warp_Rattler]

So can we get an actual comparison of JP and US version slowdown minus the high-pitched fearmongering and "1/5 stars!" hyperbole that seems to accompany the few reports of huge discrepancies? Granted it's been a few years since I laid hands on the PCB, but I was able to pick the US version up, get a few runs in to reacquaint myself, and basically pick up where I left off, score-wise. Granted, I'm no top scorer, but wouldn't a difference of such magnitude in the slowdown/game speed drastically alter the feel of things? Besides, what reason would there be for Aksys to tinker with the game itself? Working Designs has been dead and buried for years.

[Daigoro]

Yeah, it's great. I could do with less content, though. So many leaderboards.

i like having all of the extra content (not that ill play all of it regularly, ill prob just stick to 2 or 3 different modes once i settle), but the way the leader boards are all scattered about is annoying.

and yes it is annoying that we cant skip the in-game text. shit is tedious.

So can we get an actual comparison of JP and US version slowdown minus the high-pitched fearmongering and "1/5 stars!" hyperbole that seems to accompany the few reports of huge discrepancies? Granted it's been a few years since I laid hands on the PCB, but I was able to pick the US version up, get a few runs in to reacquaint myself, and basically pick up where I left off, score-wise. Granted, I'm no top scorer, but wouldn't a difference of such magnitude in the slowdown/game speed drastically alter the feel of things? Besides, what reason would there be for Aksys to tinker with the game itself? Working Designs has been dead and buried for years.

well we have Kiken's comparison posted above. dont see any reason to doubt his experience, he is obviously very familiar with the game.

its annoying to think that there might have been some changes made that affect the gameplay.

[Sobek]

7770 second week sales.

So it is doing better in the US than it did in Japan. I guess that can just be attributed to the higher population though.

Or perhaps because Japanese shmup players already got their hands on it in the arcade, while US players didn't?

[TonK]

So can we get an actual comparison of JP and US version slowdown minus the high-pitched fearmongering and "1/5 stars!" hyperbole that seems to accompany the few reports of huge discrepancies? Granted it's been a few years since I laid hands on the PCB, but I was able to pick the US version up, get a few runs in to reacquaint myself, and basically pick up where I left off, score-wise. Granted, I'm no top scorer, but wouldn't a difference of such magnitude in the slowdown/game speed drastically alter the feel of things? Besides, what reason would there be for Aksys to tinker with the game itself? Working Designs has been dead and buried for years.

Think of it this way.

You're used to playing Level 3 on each stage on the PCB.

You have your patterns memorized - 1 slip up and you just blew any chance of scoring you had.

So you practice and practice on the PCB, and come up with some decent scores.

There are some tricky spots on the PCB, and you need that slowdown to get past them.

Enter the U.S. version...

You start your normal route...

MBL mode...

Level 3, train...

Everything is cool so far...

"Whoah, how the hell did I almost get hit by those 4 dogs?, better pay attention."

Here comes Mary - "Man this feels a tad sped up... oh well."

Level 3, canyon...

"Hey, slow down, why is this stage scrolling so damn fast? 30m? WTF?"

Level 3, forest...

"Wow, they really fucked this game up - this stage is flying by"

Here comes the forest boss... you JUST make it past the red apples, then the silver apples come out... you have your pattern ready to go and BAM! you just got hit! "WHY DID THAT GO BY SO FAST?"

Now, you took a hit from a boss, which docks you 1 health and the counter you need to score with drops.

I can go on and on - but its little things like that.

I'm not going to relearn the game, as I'm no expert.

The scores I have are from HOURS and HOURS of practice, yelling and broken stools.

I'm not going to drive myself crazy with a $50 port.

[honorless]

Besides, what reason would there be for Aksys to tinker with the game itself? Working Designs has been dead and buried for years.

Back in 2009 they chopped half the content out of Tantei Jingūji Saburō DS: Inishie no Kioku and released that as Jake Hunter: Detective Chronicles. They later remedied this mistake with a re-release, but that's at least one precedent I can think of for Aksys messing with game content. I'm...pretty sure there are others. Though this could have been an order from Cave, too.

The 'why' (I'm guessing) is because outside of boards like these, less slowdown (lag) in a game is seen as an improvement.

...I never spent much time with the JP version of Deathsmiles so it's no big deal to me, but I can understand other people being pissed about it.

[brentsg]

Well the big deal comes in when you've played the PCB to death and/or you want to compare scores across platforms. Aside from that, meh..

But yeah I'm sure a uber western FPS player or something might consider a shmup unplayable with all the slowdown, not being familiar with the genre and history.

[StarCreator]

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I don't think Aksys really had anything to do with the slowdown inaccuracy. I might be reading into old Cave blog entries too much, but I thought Cave did the entire localization themselves, with Aksys only distributing and possibly providing the script translation. And Cave doesn't exactly have a squeaky clean track record in terms of breaking their own games...

[njiska]

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I don't think Aksys really had anything to do with the slowdown inaccuracy. I might be reading into old Cave blog entries too much, but I thought Cave did the entire localization themselves, with Aksys only distributing and possibly providing the script translation. And Cave doesn't exactly have a squeaky clean track record in terms of breaking their own games...

My understanding from with Aksys is that they only do the localization aspects, i.e. the text translation, voice work, etc., not redevelopment of the game itself. Pretty sure CAVE is to blame for this and based on the weird shit that happened with DS IIx, I can't say i'm wholly surprised.

UPDATE: Offical comment from Aksys - http://www.aksysgames.com/forums/topic/732

"I'm not sure what the reason is for this, but all of the programming for our release of Deathsmiles was done by Cave, and so far as I know this wasn't some we asked for, nor were informed of.

As for a possible fix, I really can't say. I've talked the appropriate people, but there's no word at this time. "

[Rob]

Would it have been hard for Cave to include wait (slowdown) on/off? Again, nothing learned from Shikigami.

There is still a lot of slowdown.

[Exarion]

Level 3, canyon...

"Hey, slow down, why is this stage scrolling so damn fast? 30m? WTF?"

Level 3, forest...

"Wow, they really fucked this game up - this stage is flying by"

Here comes the forest boss... you JUST make it past the red apples, then the silver apples come out... you have your pattern ready to go and BAM! you just got hit! "WHY DID THAT GO BY SO FAST?"

Now, you took a hit from a boss, which docks you 1 health and the counter you need to score with drops.

I can go on and on - but its little things like that.

I'm not going to relearn the game, as I'm no expert.

The scores I have are from HOURS and HOURS of practice, yelling and broken stools.

I'm not going to drive myself crazy with a $50 port.

You mean those stages weren't so nightmarish in the Japanese version, and Whroon's silver apples weren't on the level of a Futari Ultra pattern (I can actually dodge those occasionally, I can NEVER dodge that attack)? Can we please have a patch to make the game slowdown more?

[evil_ash_xero]

Just wondering, who exactly was the main programmer on DS, since I know it wasn't Ikaeda.

Also, who made the second one?

[tommyb]

Here's to hoping IIX gets ported to America. I think I'm the only person on these boards besides Spadgy who likes the game, and I'm hoping DS's warm reception and sales will warrant that release.

[PurpBullets]

i picture when aksys translated the text that they shouldnt have, they somehow fucked it up.
who knows, cave or aksys, its pitiful. no excuses.

[TonK]

Here's to hoping IIX gets ported to America. I think I'm the only person on these boards besides Spadgy who likes the game, and I'm hoping DS's warm reception and sales will warrant that release.

I would REALLY love to play the game.

[Aru-san]

Here's to hoping IIX gets ported to America. I think I'm the only person on these boards besides Spadgy who likes the game, and I'm hoping DS's warm reception and sales will warrant that release.

I would REALLY love to play the game.

AND have voice acting courtesy of Bang Zoom Entertainment.