JapanVideoGames.com - Find Out What Just Came In!: Stock Update - 360 Death Smiles Regular Edition

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Stock Update - 360 Death Smiles Regular Edition - In Stock 4/24/09

Price - $69.99
Arrival - This Friday
Release Date: 4/23/2009
UPC: 4988648657892
Genre: Shooting
Company: Cave
Version: Japan
-from wikipedia-
Deathsmiles is a horizontal side scrolling shoot 'em up arcade game by Japanese developer Cave, released in late 2007. Its is notable for is aesthetic style, featuring heavy occult and gothic influences. It is only the second Cave shoot 'em up to be played using a horizontally-oriented monitor (the first being Progear no Arashi).

In the August 25-31 2008 issue of Famitsu Weekly, Cave announced a Xbox 360 port of the game.

New game modes include a Xbox 360 mode, and Ver 1.1 mode. In Ver 1.1 mode, players can independently controls familiar, via the XBox 360 controller. Lock shot, powerup shot are located on different buttons. Player can also adjust screen brightness, background frame, game screen position and zoom.

Downloadable contents include Mega Black Label features. Limited edition includes Manabu Namiki Selection Deathsmiles Premium Arrange Album soundtrack CD. Hori produced a controller for the XBox 360 game.

Instead of the typical lives in traditional shooters, player is given a pool of life points (initially 3). 1 point is lost when player is hit by bullet, 1/2 point when colliding with enemy or hit by a non-bullet attack. The game ends when player's life point is depleted. Life points can be restored by items, and the maximum life point is increased when reaching certain scores (default 20 and 45 million points).

When an enemy is destroyed, it fires a yellow counter bullet that is smaller than the regular bullet fired from an enemy. When the familiar is hit by counter bullet, player's item counter is increased, which leads to increase score. However, stage boss does not fire counter bullet.

Characters

Windia: Wind user.
Casper: Phantom user.
Follett: Fire user.
Rosa: Fairy user.
Sakura: Stage B-2 boss. In Mega Black Label, it is also a playable character.

Control

Left shot: Press A button.
Right shot: Press B button.
Auto lock shot: Press A and B button simultaneously. Player fires when familiar chooses a target.
Bomb: Press C button.

When holding a shot button, player and familiar fire different shot pattern from tapping shot button.

Bullets are blocked by walls, but does not injure player when touching walls.

Familiar

Each player has an accompanying familiar, which can fire its own shots and chooses target in auto lock shot. It can also block enemy bullets. It's movement is opposite to player's.

Items

Jewelry can gain points. LifeUp recovers life points. Magic gains 1 bomb.

When player obtains an item, the item counter is increased (maximum 1000). When item counter is full, press A and B button simultaneously causes both player and familiar to fire more powerful shots than normal, while item counter begins to decrease. When player collides with enemy in this state, player does not lose life point. Enemy also drops more item when destroyed by powered shots. The powerup effect continues until item counter reaches 0.

Stages

Stages are arranged in Chapter and Scene format, with 3 Chapters and 2 Scenes per Chapter for the first 6 stages. Player can choose the order of stages by arranging the A, B, C at the beginning. The stage order within A, B, C cannot be changed. When choosing a stage, player can choose difficulty levels between 1 to 3 (or 999 in MBL).

After completing 6 stages (Chapter 3 Scene 2), the FINAL stage (Chapter 4) begins, which is organized in 2 parts. However, player can choose EXTRA stage if certain conditions are met at the end of Stage Chapter 3 Scene 2.