Death Smiles PAL release

johnny_ultimate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPC6O7Bue-4

This beauty is finally getting a PAL release next Friday, pretty much two years after a Japanese release and a few months after the US finally got it. It's the first major PAL retail release by bullet hell masters Cave in quite some time. Been looking forward to a home release since I first played it in an arcade.

There are obviously a tonne of purple and pink bullets to dodge, but Death Smiles makes some effort towards being accessible (not just the gothic lolita style either), and is indeed extremely manageable at lower difficulty levels. Of course, this being Cave, there are a variety of uber-hard modes on the disc for the masochist in you.

It's a fantastic game, one of the best contemporary schmups, and it's only 20 euro online for a cool three disc package including the soundtrack. A fine purchase for anyone looking for something a little different

Now, Death Smiles II please Rising Star?

Retr0gamer

If it came out in any other month I'd be all over it but with my car costing me loads to for NCT and Ys 1 and 2, Radiant Historia and Tactics Ogre out as well I just can't afford it.

pdbhp

Retr0gamer wrote: »

If it came out in any other month I'd be all over it but with my car costing me loads to for NCT and Ys 1 and 2, Radiant Historia and Tactics Ogre out as well I just can't afford it.

Pfffffft excuses!!:pac:

evad_lhorg

not out until the 18th

johnny_ultimate

pdbhp wrote: »

Pfffffft excuses!!:pac:

He's just scared us bullet hell masters will shame him on the leaderboards :P

pdbhp

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

He's just scared us bullet hell masters will shame him on the leaderboards :P

Exactly, us heroes of the shmup revolution will decimate his weak shooter skillz leaving only a puddle of anti Goldeneye goo on the floor:pac:

Retr0gamer

Well I'm not a big fan of bullet hell shooters but after seeing you guys play it in my place I'm willing to give it another chance. Anyway I don't see you guys anywhere near my Ikaruga top score

pdbhp

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Well I'm not a big fan of bullet hell shooters but after seeing you guys play it in my place I'm willing to give it another chance. Anyway I don't see you guys anywhere near my Ikaruga top score

Send me 800 MS points and I'll buy it and give it a bash.:D
I have the demo and can blast through the first level easily especially after watching how you did it at the beers

johnny_ultimate

There was a few nights when I dedicated a good few hours to learning the first few levels of Ikaruga. I can usually get through levels one and two without much bother, but when it gets to ol' spinny staying alive becomes more of a challenge.

The 360 Cave games tend to have excellent high score based modes which lower the challenge in favour of ludicrous high scores, hopefully one of the many modes in DS will have one of 'em. The extreme bullet hell modes are always good for a laugh, but the easier, more accessible modes are what I tend to keep coming back to. Standard difficulty on DS is far more manageable than most other Cave games, and has some really inventive bosses to boot too.

Retr0gamer

Hopefully when march comes around it will still be available so I can give it a bash. Kind of got sick of every shoot'em up being bullet hell and the bad ones put me off. I think I'll just stick to Cave games, they are the masters after all

ghostchant

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Radiant Historia

This is my top priority this month as well

johnny_ultimate

Anyone pick this up?

The bullet patterns are works of art in this one

Mr Trade In

This is €29.99 in HMV at the moment.

Mr E

€24.99 in Game. I was *this* close to picking it up.

johnny_ultimate

Mr E wrote: »

€24.99 in Game. I was *this* close to picking it up.

20 Euro on Amazon.

You know you want to.

Yreval

Picked this up on Friday for £20. While I've mostly been playing MvC3 this weekend, I really like what I've played of this so far. Also, I just want to say that the song that plays during the endings is absolutely fantastic.

It's the first major PAL retail release by bullet hell masters Cave in quite some time.

As far as I know this is the first retail release of any Cave game outside Japan, ever.

Retr0gamer

Yreval wrote: »

As far as I know this is the first retail release of any Cave game outside Japan, ever.

I'm pretty sure a few of their games got released by some small publishers in PAL territory on the PS2. Can't think of any at the moment though!

pdbhp

Pow!!!! just got my copy of Death Smiles:D
Come on bullets!!!!!!!!

pdbhp

Yreval wrote: »

As far as I know this is the first retail release of any Cave game outside Japan, ever.

Hardcore gaming 101 say it is the first official retail release for a Cave shooter outside of Nippon

Retr0gamer

Hopefully not the last.

pdbhp

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Hopefully not the last.

Well if people buy the game in enough quantities then they would see the potential market for thier amazing games in the PAL region.
The problem is that nobody outside us geeks would have heard of it, when I asked for it in the shop the guy looked at me like I had a scabby foot growing out of my eye socket, then he got me the game and told me they had got 5 copies of it and obviously I was the first to buy one also he told me it released with a price of €50:eek: then almost immediately dropped down to €25

blag

Terrific game, stopped me playing MvC3 at all this weekend.

Pity its somewhat marred with some very questionable imagery:eek:

Edit: Has anyone else had issues with score attack where a "disconnected from xbox live" message appears and returns you to the main menu. Strange because it happened a good few times but I was never actually disconnected from xbox live. It interrupted so many good score runs that I just started doing training mode instead.

johnny_ultimate

blag wrote: »

Pity its somewhat marred with some very questionable imagery:eek:

The whole 'gothic lolita' look of the game was very specific to aim to a larger Japanese audience than the typical Cave game. I don't think it's as explicit as it could have been, but there's excess cleavage in some of the menu backgrounds for sure (considering some of the characters are 11 years old!). It's no Muchi Muchi Pork though. (video slightly NSFW)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ckkng-FKEs

Also, anyone played Ice Castle on Mega Black Label? Holy ****. Boss in that is one hell of a bullet sponge.

ondafly

loving Death Smiles so far, even quite enjoyable in multi player ! although there are a couple of bosses I'd struggle to pass without using a continue .

pdbhp

ondafly wrote: »

loving Death Smiles so far, even quite enjoyable in multi player ! although there are a couple of bosses I'd struggle to pass without using a continue .

I've been playing it since Monday and the bosses seem the easiest part it's the levels themselves that I need all the continues I can get on.

johnny_ultimate

It's the difficulty spike in Hades' Castle that makes 1CCing it a tricky prospect IMO. I can get through the main levels fairly easy - not 1CC yet, but only a handful of creds, even on Level 3 - but when it comes to Hades' Castle **** gets rough!

The bonus levels - Gorge and Ice Castle - are the true challenges for the hardcore though.

pdbhp

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

The bonus levels - Gorge and Ice Castle - are the true challenges for the hardcore though.

Hard as hell! but thats the way I like it.

Friend of mine went into Game in the square yesterday (where I bought my copy) and asked for a copy of DS the bloke told him they didn't have nor had he heard of it even though they had 5 copies on monday, what a bunch of idiots. Bet if you asked about Call of Duty or some piece of garbage like that they'd give you a 20 minute spiel about how great it is

johnny_ultimate

Gave this a whirl online earlier, and ended up with someone who a) didn't seem to understand there were more attacks than 'turbo fire' (missing the fact there was in-depth scoring system in the process) and b) would use bombs at the mere sight of pink. I think it was when I was swearing at the TV that said individual wasn't using homing shot on the floating islands or laser shot during the ballroom bit in the castle that I figured out I may have been taking it too seriously :pac:

Also, I take back my statement that the imagery wasn't that objectionable. Hadn't seen the 'Bath Time!' ending at that point :P

blag

Yeah, it was that achievement that prompted my comment in my previous post!

Managed to 1cc Xbox 360 mode, was a lot easier than any other Cave game but still Jitterbug and Tyrannosatan (best boss name ever!) are tricky, wish you could skip straight to bosses in training.

dmcdante

ordered this from zavvi for 20 euro can you tell me whats on the 3rd disc is really looking forward to playing it is it 2 player online only or can you play 2 player on the 1 tv

blag

dmcdante wrote: »

ordered this from zavvi for 20 euro can you tell me whats on the 3rd disc is really looking forward to playing it is it 2 player online only or can you play 2 player on the 1 tv

You can do both local and online co-op.

dmcdante

Thanks blag

ondafly

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Gave this a whirl online earlier, and ended up with someone who a) didn't seem to understand there were more attacks than 'turbo fire' (missing the fact there was in-depth scoring system in the process) and b) would use bombs at the mere sight of pink. I think it was when I was swearing at the TV that said individual wasn't using homing shot on the floating islands or laser shot during the ballroom bit in the castle that I figured out I may have been taking it too seriously :pac:

Also, I take back my statement that the imagery wasn't that objectionable. Hadn't seen the 'Bath Time!' ending at that point :P

I had quite the opposite experience with some random player. Great game, and I nearly managed to score 2million (big score for me) on the final boss, before getting hit my a barrage of bullets. There was also a slight smug factor :pac: when you would manage to duck and dive bullets with the other player getting smacked.

Scavenger XIII

Is it just me or is Rosa blatantly the best character?

Just got the game yesterday and after a quick mess around with each character she seems to obliterate bosses in half the time (on the default difficulty they're lucky to get halfway through their attack pattern) with no obvious downsides.

blag

Scavenger XIII wrote: »

Is it just me or is Rosa blatantly the best character?

In general terms she's the best for sure but she has her drawbacks that become obvious when trying for bigger scores.

Her familiar is pretty weak overall compared to some of the others, especially for her lock shot (you need to face her away from what you need to lock shot for more items from certain ememies/obstacles eg floating islands on forest stage or gravestones in the graveyard).

Scavenger XIII

Ah, so beginner survivalist character then.

I thought lock shot was kindof useless but I did notice enemies that didn't drop good items via spread/focus shots, would have tried it out if I wasn't usually sitting on 1000 for the powerup.

johnny_ultimate

Lock shot is handy against certain enemies - floating islands especially give out a tonne of bonuses when lock shotted - but it's a bit awkward to use for sure. Can be handy against some of the bosses though to take them down quickly.

Don't know who my favourite character is actually, don't know them in-depth enough yet. Would probably go for Casper if I had to choose.

Scavenger XIII

I've been liking Casper for her SLOOOOOOW focus speed as it's handy for navigating dense streams but I seem to end up needing it more as her shot doesn't kill things quickly enough to prevent them from flooding the screen.Even the thick part of her laser pales in comparison to Rosa's ridiculous screen clearling barrage.

The cow in particular seems to take very little damage from her shots, its rather strange.

johnny_ultimate

Can get extremely close to Jitterbug on one credit now, was just a few thousand points away from the second extend. Definitely gotten better - scoring system has just clicked all of a sudden.

Also - Mega Black Label 1.1 is frickin' hilarious. Knocked it up to level 3 and somehow got my score to jump up to like 280 million or something in two levels :pac: Scoring items everywhere. Definitely an easier scoring system to get a grasp off than some of the other Cave games - even after studying replays in depth I hadn't the foggiest how the combo system in Espgaluda II worked!

Scavenger XIII

I've been surviving alright but I can't score at all, can almost 1CC but always end up somewhere in the 30 millions.

blag

If you want to boost your score start at the town at level 2 or 3 (be sure you come out with counter at 1000) then do volcano at level 3, either power up straight away and milk the rocks or power up after the big ogre where there's a central pillar thing and green eyeballs where you can get massive score from the eyeballs and the rocks after.

You should come out of the stage with around 40m, getting an extend at 20m and you'll be close to the second extend of 45m.

johnny_ultimate

Yeah knock it up to level three on any levels you're comfortable with - town is a piece of cake on level 3. Find volcano a bit of a pain in the hole, but even level 2 gives you crazy multipliers.

Forest is the only other majorly tricky core level for me, although locking on to the floating islands gives you excellent multipliers. Vine patterns near the end are a bitch though.

Scavenger XIII

I'd been milking the volcano already but going lvl 3 on more stages helped as most aren't actually that much harder. Got ahead of myself and accidently triggered death mode though. :pac:

Using power-up in areas with a floor to scoop up all the items after they split makes a big difference too, graveyard is great for it.

Scores up into the 50's of millions now, and thats with the death mode screw-up.

Thing is nearly every time I try to play score attack to register my score it just bloody cuts me off, even though the Xbox itself seems perfectly happy that there's been no break in connection. You guys experience anything similar? I'm stuck using wireless but I don't see why the game should register a loss in connection when the console firmware doesn't.

blag

Yeah, I get disconnected from score attack a lot, so much so that I don't bother with it much anymore. I've heard from some other people that it's a fairly common issue.

To avoid activating death mode I usually start at town level 2,volcano 3,forest 2,graveyard 3, lake 3,swamp 3. Yields a decent score without deathmode. Only thing is I've kind of levelled off around 150m so am gonna have to start doing forest 3 and facing the suicide bullets to up my scores.

johnny_ultimate

1cced with Rosa there, 60 million but there were a few level 1s in there. Close call though - got the secret half life bar, no bombs achievement too!

Can't seem to get my scores registered at all. Most of mine are far better than all but the top one on the 360 mode leaderboards!

Scavenger XIII

Bleah, I was on for a Rosa 1CC a couple minutes ago aswell, except I made a couple stupid screw-ups against 'Bug then lost my credit to the very ****ing last bullet of the last pattern from the man himself.

Literally had to press start and hold fire for a second to finish him, sickener. :pac:

Noticed he was a bit harder than before, a couple of his patterns were actually firing off simultaniously which didn't help, does the extra no-miss difficulty apply to your whole first credit rather than just before losing your first chunk of life?

Ah well, 61 million and I know I can do better - progress!

johnny_ultimate

Problem with Jitterbug are his patterns are so frickin' unpredictable. Obviously you could learn them off, but the gaps and patterns are far less clearcut than the other bosses. The unpredictability of the bullets is what gets me, the waves flying all over the place. I ended up using bombs on him because I still had a few energy bars left, felt a bit dirty doing it though Wanted that cake! The pattern that gets me particularly are the weird alternate pink bullet waves he sends at you (the ones that go down the corner and then disperse). I can usually squeeze through the first one or two streams but by the third my reaction times aren't quite fast enough to find that perfect gap through them.

blag

If you use the lock shot against Jitterbug you can usually kill him reasonably quickly.

If you have less than 2 full life bars empty when he drops the big cake you have enough time to bomb tyrannosatan and suicide before collecting it. It doesn't disappear until he starts throwing out the boxes (hate that bit!)

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Can't seem to get my scores registered at all. Most of mine are far better than all but the top one on the 360 mode leaderboards!

If you haven't done canyon you might need to filter the leaderboards by ex: off.

johnny_ultimate

Have being glued to this the past week, specifically v1.1 and MBL 1.1.

Showing gradual improvements in both. Going for the Level 3 all-clear achievement in 1.1 standard, but the Gorge is the troublesome part of the mix! Have cleared the six standard stages on one credit, but keep on getting knocked out in EX

And the boss in Ice Palace is giving me a bit of trouble in MBL. Got to just under 20 billion there but his second set of patterns (last quarter of his health or so) is crazy hard to dodge!