Death Smiles: Countdown to North America Invasion

[P_HAT]

so, no 2nd loop?

[Twiddle]

don't know yet, nobody had the balls to go all 3

[yojo!]

don't know yet, nobody had the balls to go all 3

uhmm... wasn't that 120Mil w/ casper rank 3 all the way ?

[Twiddle]

i actually accidentally deleted it before i can finish watching it via mutorrent (oops) so i'm getting it again

[P_HAT]

don't know yet, nobody had the balls to go all 3

uhmm... wasn't that 120Mil w/ casper rank 3 all the way ?

No.
+player lose 2 life.

[Macaw]

Haha! What a fucking awesome last stage and final boss! This game is instantly awesome now.

BUT WHY COULDN'T MORE STAGES HAVE BEEN THIS AWESOME, i'm not a big fan of Sol Divide length stages.

[Zeether]

After watching a few of the full runs of this game, I'm really not feeling very excited about it any more.

Things I don't like so far:
-The scoring system appears shallow and restrictive, strangely similar to Mushi Futari 1.0's Maniac mode in that regard.
-The cut scenes look too long and drawn out, it really looks structured more like a console game than an arcade game.
-The levels look too short (I'd really prefer one long level instead of breaking up the levels into two parts each), and I'm not a fan of the "choose your own adventure" route. It screams "console game".
-Bullet patterns, even at Rank 3, are not very interesting.
-Difficulty, even at Rank 3, appears way too easy for my taste. Another thing it has in common with a console game.
-The polygon(ish?) boxes used in the boss fights (like in the cow fight) look cheap and were done much better in a game like Shikigami II.
-The lifebar is lame. Some things hit you and only half a block is taken away? And you get it automatically refilled to 3 blocks before certain boss fights? Even lamer. Once again, tell-tale features of a console game.

Things I like so far:
-The graphics are great (I don't like that cow either though).
-The music & SFX are very nice.
-Stage 4 looks to be designed way better than any of the others.
-Character designs are nice and the unlockable characters are a neat feature.
-The last boss looks like the one really good boss fight in the game.

Provided they printed up a good deal of these, I foresee huge price drops for this one within the next 1-4 months. A port to one of the new consoles out there within the next year would not surprise me. It's a hori, and as noted above, it has a bunch of console game-ish aspects already in it.

So this COULD get ported by Arika?

[EOJ]

So this COULD get ported by Arika?

Well just about anything COULD happen. Likely? Really can't tell at this point. For DS to get a port you'll need a publisher that really wants to put it out (Arika or whoever). If there isn't one, then it'll stay PCB only like the rest of the Cave games released in the past 2 years.

[Icarus]

After watching a few of the full runs of this game, I'm really not feeling very excited about it any more.

Things I don't like so far: <snip>

1) The score system does seem quite basic and restrictive compared to previous Cave, but I reckon the main challenge with this game is in maximising your 1k Item Mode time by use of exploits (such as the trick demonstrated in a previous video where you can boost your base counter back up through a carefully timed destruction just as your bonus time runs out) and delaying until the right time. It'll be one of those games where really pushing for score makes the game exponentially harder, like MMPork and PS.

2) Agreed that the stages are quite short and don't really give you much opportunity to work with the shot switching control method or the all-range attacks. If the stages were a tad longer and slightly better designed, then the game would look a lot more interesting. Still looks alright to me for a "score attack" kinda game. The last stage is admittedly the only stage that really grabs me as being challenging, fun and well designed around the control system, though.

3) Don't agree with your comment regarding the "choose your adventure" stage selection thing, however. If you think carefully, it's reminiscent of old Raizing (for want of a better comparison) where careful selection of stage order will see your score increase a great deal. This is even more important with players going the All Rank 3 way, where suicide bullets appear by the fifth(?) stage. The only thing is, the stages are again too short, and it's obvious from observation that the forest stage and the fire cavern stage are the two stages that should be selected last to benefit from the All Rank 3 route.

4) Bullet patterns and difficulty do seem toned down from typical Cave (especially comparing it to the likes of Futari and 'galuda 2) but that was probably Cave's intention to make it more accessible, and also workable given the hori orientation. There's only so much you can do with a danmaku hori before everything becomes a mess, as there are a lot of limitations in effect. The suicide bullets at All Rank 3 do spice up things in later levels, and do force the player to work with the Option to block incoming clouds of bullets, however. If it was implemented earlier (like say, suicide bullets by st3) then it'd be perfect.

5) 3D implementation looks fine to me for a hori at least. I'm not expecting Border Down style 3D, but it works well for providing simple obstacles for the player to avoid.

6) Last boss is probably one of the best hori bosses I've seen, and looks a ton of fun to fight. Shame there weren't more bosses like that in the game. -_-;;

7) Completely off-topic gripe: how come Windia does not sound anything like what her character is supposed to sound like? She's supposed to be a gothloli, but sounds like a 19yr lol, haha. Only Casper and Follett sound loli-ish.

Provided they printed up a good deal of these, I foresee huge price drops for this one within the next 1-4 months. A port to one of the new consoles out there within the next year would not surprise me. It's a hori, and as noted above, it has a bunch of console game-ish aspects already in it.

Maybe. I don't see it dropping at the speed Ibara did, but it might. I think the character designs and accessibility of this game will help keep the price quite high, however.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Before Death Smiles was finally released, there was speculation was what kind of hardware it would be running on. Eventually, on the big released date, it was found out that it was running on SH-3 based hardware.

Would you say that the SH-3 PCB platform is the "new" CPS-1/CPS-2 platform to develop for (and of course, with better security encryption schemes this time around to foil the bootleggers)?

And have any other current Japanese arcade developers developed games running on that particular SH-3 platform (besides Cave Co. Ltd.)?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[EOJ]

And have any other current Japanese arcade developers developed games running on that particular SH-3 platform (besides Cave Co. Ltd.)?

No, because it's Cave's own hardware. No one else is using it. It will likely remain that way.

[GaijinPunch]

don't know yet, nobody had the balls to go all 3

I saw a guy do it yesterday (no 2nd loop)
this guy apparently does too, although I've not watched it yet.

It'll be one of those games where really pushing for score makes the game exponentially harder, like MMPork and PS.

From what I've seen, this is not the case. Rank 3 all the way indeed makes the game harder but not overly so until the 5th stage or so, and even then, it's not really "Cave" hard as you can suck the suicide bullets. There's also no risk in carrying your 1000 point counter for a while either. People are clearing it left and right w/ all Rank 3 already.

I'm still wondering if more stages will be unlocked later.

[Icarus]

From what I've seen, this is not the case. Rank 3 all the way indeed makes the game harder but not overly so until the 5th stage or so, and even then, it's not really "Cave" hard as you can suck the suicide bullets. There's also no risk in carrying your 1000 point counter for a while either. People are clearing it left and right w/ all Rank 3 already.

People were clearing Espgaluda left and right as well from what I can remember, and yet it's one of the most popular games for point squeezing. Perhaps Death Smiles is in the same style: easy but great for score attacks?

I'm still wondering if more stages will be unlocked later.

A great deal of the map seems unused which makes this a possibility. Whether it's code unlocked (which is quite silly), time-unlocked (which is even sillier) or conditions met - like a no-miss, no bomb on All Rank 3 - remains to be seen.

[EOJ]

don't know yet, nobody had the balls to go all 3

I saw a guy do it yesterday (no 2nd loop)
this guy apparently does too, although I've not watched it yet.

Did the guy do a no miss no bomb clear? Maybe that's a requirement. Or a
certain score benchmark combined with that?

Knowing Cave these days, it's probably just a time-released thing
or you have to enter some overly complex code at the title screen.
They're really big on these codes nowadays.

People were clearing Espgaluda left and right as well from what I can remember, and yet it's one of the most popular games for point squeezing. Perhaps Death Smiles is in the same style: easy but great for score attacks?

Doubtful. If you want something "great" for score attacks, you should play Mushi Futari 1.5, Galuda 2, or MMP. Again, the scoring system looks too shallow and restrictive in DS for that.

I wonder if it's too early to expect a Death Smiles ver 1.5?

[BulletMagnet]

I wonder if it's too early to expect a Death Smiles ver 1.5?

I'm sure the batch on here who ordered DS kits would just love that.

Personally, I'm tempted to just take Cave at their word, insofar as they said they intended this title to have more "mainstream appeal" or however they put it...maybe they just made sure it was fun to fly around and blow stuff up, and didn't go for anything more "epic" than that, or whatever term you'd care to use. And they didn't even have to beg people to play it on their website.

[system11]

There are options for difficulty, life capacity, and damage taken from both enemies and bullets. The latter are on 4 and 5 respectively, so almost maxed out. The normal difficulty is 2 of 4. If you drop the life capacity to 1, and decrease the damage settings to 3, it plays rather more like the standard 3 hits = dead style games.

[EOJ]

Personally, I'm tempted to just take Cave at their word, insofar as they said they intended this title to have more "mainstream appeal" or however they put it...maybe they just made sure it was fun to fly around and blow stuff up,

Yeah, that's probably true. The game does look like a lot of fun just to fly around and blow up stuff. And after watching that Rank 3 ALL vid, there seems to be more room for scoring possibilities if you play with Rank 3 from start to finish.

Anyway, I'll have to wait until I play the game. Watching videos is one thing, but usually you can't really tell if you'll like a game until you lay hands on it.

[GaijinPunch]

People were clearing Espgaluda left and right as well from what I can remember, and yet it's one of the most popular games for point squeezing. Perhaps Death Smiles is in the same style: easy but great for score attacks?

Possibly, but at this point it doesn't seem so. As stated be EOJ, the score system is somewhat basic and hard to squeeze (unless there are some hidden ways to get items that nobody's aware of).

A great deal of the map seems unused which makes this a possibility.

Top left-hand corner. Even has a banner up there like the other stages.

Did the guy do a no miss no bomb clear?

Nope

maybe they just made sure it was fun to fly around and blow stuff up

The developers said in interviews at least once, if not more, that "our focus is usually on dodging. This time, it's on shooting".

[EOJ]

Here's a rather in-depth beginner's guide to Death Smiles:

http://www.h7.dion.ne.jp/~icewind/yuki- ... h/top.html

Warning: if you can't read Japanese it will be of little use to you. The hand-drawn pics on that page are pretty rad, regardless. He says the pics are there to help 11-13 year old players who can't make it to the final level, and people who can't clear the game on 1 credit yet.

[Icarus]

Signature material at it's finest.

[GaijinPunch]

Here's a not-so-indepth one, much easier to understand, but unfortunately w/ no pictures.
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=16884

[Shion]

The game definitely looks nice. A bit on the easy side it seems, but nothing wrong with that.
Stage 4 is Castlevania-tastic

[sven666]

umm so.. 2 item extends and 2 point extends coupled with one extend before the last boss brings it to 8, each life takes 2 hits so thats 16 (!) hits you can take in one game in total.

each life has 3 bombs which do not seem to hold any bonus or penalty at all which means you have 24 (!!!) bombs in one game.

theres no boss milking whatsoever, neither player gets a single point during any of the boss battles, even including the last!?

sheesh.. the game looks great and all but those are kinda dissapointing facts imo..

i think the itembased scoring looks kinda interesting tho, it is obvious from these early vids alone that learning when to use it to the max is key to scoring (well duuh ), one player more than triples his score on stage 4 alone.
theres a nice bulletcancel when you activate the bonus mode which i suspect can be used to rack up points pretty quickly, the vines in the forest and the waves in the cave stages come to mind for instance.

[Icarus]

theres a nice bulletcancel when you activate the bonus mode which i suspect can be used to rack up points pretty quickly, the vines in the forest and the waves in the cave stages come to mind for instance.

Bullet cancelling is a good way of driving up the bonus counter as you start your timer running.

Unfortunately, those objects you mentioned come towards the end of their respective stages, and max item mode is wasted on the boss as you don't get any items from shot impact like you do on regular enemies. Max item mode is best triggered at particular parts in particular stages, unless you're adept at exploting the timer to boost the item count, in which case you can probably shift into bonus mode more than once in certain stages.

[sven666]

still this game seems to hold alot of secrets and id be very surprised if the unlockables end with 2 extra characters, im guessing a harder mode or something will surface.
as mentioned before there seem to be atleast stages we havent seen yet..

if not a Black label version with revised scoring/difficulty might not be that far fetched.

[Icarus]

if not a Black label version with revised scoring/difficulty might not be that far fetched.

And would be a major kick in the nuts for those who bought this PCB at release price.

[sven666]

if not a Black label version with revised scoring/difficulty might not be that far fetched.

And would be a major kick in the nuts for those who bought this PCB at release price.

never stopped cave before, and who knows they might offer to upgrade the ones they sold like with futari 1.5.. never said anything about it having to be a limited release or anything, actually if general consensus is the game is flawed in some way a limited release of an upgrade is higly unlikeley.

[PsikyoPshumpPshooterP]

I like what Cave said

Cave verts were for dodging, and this game is for shooting

[Macaw]

Now I remember what that last boss reminds me of.

Cave has been playing Actraiser.

[GaijinPunch]

each life takes 2 hits so thats 16 (!) hits you can take in one game in total.

If you hit an enemy, it takes half. If you hit a bullet, it takes a whole block.

each life has 3 bombs which do not seem to hold any bonus or penalty at all which means you have 24 (!!!) bombs in one game.

I don't think they all give you three. I got to the last boss yesterday w/ 3.5 life bars and 3 bombs. I was already late for work, so I just figured I'd bomb him to death. I wasn't looking, but I swear I hit the bomb button 3 times on my last bar and nothing happened (I then died and had to scram).

and max item mode is wasted on the boss as you don't get any items from shot impact like you do on regular enemies.

For the face in the ground, you get the extra skulls until his life meter fills. This is good for quite a few points, but there's other shit flying around you'll either have to ignore and dodge, or kill and lose potential points.