DEATHSMILES - Hi-Scores

[mjmjr25]

I think what I love about this game:

Graphics - so wonderfully drawn, so much background (and the background has depth) and such cool enemies.

Boss fights: On top of just being so very different, they are freaking awesome, the head getting madder and madder, graphically it is much fun each time, a bull charging you from the opposite end your used to in a hori shmup. The patterns aren't terribly challenging...but they are. It never feels cheap, you always feel like you have a chance. The bullet patterns don't swallow the screen like a DDP or Galuda, but with the bosses being so huge and sending such huge things (apples, blocks, scythes) at you, it is so different, it blocks off 70% of the play area at times.

The difficulty and added enemies: You can play a 6 stages, 3 different ways, the boss and the enemies adapt to difficulty, it isn't a typical rank system with more bullets flying faster, there is that, but there is literally NEW stuff on the stage when you play at 2nd and 3rd difficulty. In essence, there are 18 stages to play, plus the final and extra stage for 20 total

The Choose Your Own Path: Some Psyikyo stuff has the random path of course and some Taito stuff has an either / or path, but nothing like this. This is really effective and getting rid of the "i'm so tired of playing stage 1 over and over."

Easy survival: It isn't terribly hard to survive, so it makes us non-pros feel like we can compete without putting 6 months into the game. At the same time, there are plenty of tough spots on difficulty 3 and with things coming literally from all 4 angles, you are always on your toes and have to be able to react quickly.

Depth enemies: This game adds enemies you can see, and no you have to take out, but you have to time when they are in your path - this is a neat thing and very difficult to adjust to. Primarily in the swamps, the red dragon face ghoul things that jump up, sorta float, then land on you.

The Music: On the vertically scrolling down stage, that metal / rock in the background as you descent into hell. The different intro music to the stages and the intro scenes are all great, with the orchestra pianos building up drama, and then the sound of a dragon-bird cawing, just great stuff.

The intensity of the Final Stage, scrolling horizontally, then vertically, then forward, then back, all the while enemies from all 4 sides.

The scoring system, so damn simple...so damn complex, and it really is a thinking man's scoring, not overly involved, but knowing where you are on your chain, knowing what's coming up on the stage, etc.

I initially thought it was going to be just a really really cool game to look at, it has become a top 5, maybe my number 1, shmup.

[noiseredux]

I think what I love about this game:

Graphics - so wonderfully drawn, so much background (and the background has depth) and such cool enemies.

yup. And if you play 360 mode the look even better.

Boss fights: On top of just being so very different, they are freaking awesome, the head getting madder and madder, graphically it is much fun each time, a bull charging you from the opposite end your used to in a hori shmup. The patterns aren't terribly challenging...but they are. It never feels cheap, you always feel like you have a chance. The bullet patterns don't swallow the screen like a DDP or Galuda, but with the bosses being so huge and sending such huge things (apples, blocks, scythes) at you, it is so different, it blocks off 70% of the play area at times.

Good point on the bull charging from the left. It is kind of jarring. And you're right -- you learn the patterns, know what to expect, but you still get surprised or caught off guard. A good example is the Buried Baron's rope/knife things that come up diagonally at one point. I mean, I know they're coming but you can still fuck up and not be in a safe spot when you're trying to dodge the pink floaties.

The difficulty and added enemies: You can play a 6 stages, 3 different ways, the boss and the enemies adapt to difficulty, it isn't a typical rank system with more bullets flying faster, there is that, but there is literally NEW stuff on the stage when you play at 2nd and 3rd difficulty. In essence, there are 18 stages to play, plus the final and extra stage for 20 total

Another good point. I'd say that playing a level on 1 and on 3 is almost like playing two totally diff levels. Sometimes I'll get used to a level on one difficulty and then switch it up and forget what to expect.

The Choose Your Own Path: Some Psyikyo stuff has the random path of course and some Taito stuff has an either / or path, but nothing like this. This is really effective and getting rid of the "i'm so tired of playing stage 1 over and over."

Yeah this was something I had to get used to. At first I just went in presented order. But there's really so much strategy to the level order -- much of which is based on how the player plays. It's crazy just figuring how to maximize your score through level order on a playthrough.

Easy survival: It isn't terribly hard to survive, so it makes us non-pros feel like we can compete without putting 6 months into the game. At the same time, there are plenty of tough spots on difficulty 3 and with things coming literally from all 4 angles, you are always on your toes and have to be able to react quickly.

Word. Maybe that's part of why I've stuck with it so much since I got it. It didn't take long for me to feel like "maybe I could 1CC this." Y'know?

The Music: On the vertically scrolling down stage, that metal / rock in the background as you descent into hell. The different intro music to the stages and the intro scenes are all great, with the orchestra pianos building up drama, and then the sound of a dragon-bird cawing, just great stuff.

I love the soundtrack in this game. I'm really really glad I got the LE so that I could have the soundtrack. I've said it before but shmups are the one genre where I really really pay attention to the music. This soundtrack rules.

The intensity of the Final Stage, scrolling horizontally, then vertically, then forward, then back, all the while enemies from all 4 sides.

Yeah that last level is so chaotic. It's like being thrown in a washing machine.

The scoring system, so damn simple...so damn complex, and it really is a thinking man's scoring, not overly involved, but knowing where you are on your chain, knowing what's coming up on the stage, etc.

Exactly. There's is so so much to think about when playing for score on this game. On the surface it looks like it's just "shoot stuff for score," but it's so much more than that. I mean, I honestly don't even feel like I really understood the scoring until this week which is probably evident in how I jumped my high score from 11M to 25M in a span of a couple days.

I initially thought it was going to be just a really really cool game to look at, it has become a top 5, maybe my number 1, shmup.

SERIOUSLY.

And thanks for helping put into words a lot of what I was struggling to explain when dsheinem asked why I liked it so much.

PS, did you ever get DS2? I'm certainly planning on downloading it, though I guess I'm not in a rush as I'm still so focused on the first and have a sizable backlog of shmups to pop in still.

[fvgazi]

If you're expecting DS2 to be like 1, you're in for a disappointment. Watch some videos of it first. It's okay in terms of gameplay, but I found it way too easy and the art style was... meh. There were a few funny moments, though. The bosses are ridiculous.

[ZenErik]

Figured I would play a little DeathSmiles today. Haven't played any shmups in quite a while. And I suck, haha. Didn't help that I got a life up when I had full life and then preceded to lose 2 1/2 bars of life on the boss seconds later.

So. Rosa level 6 18,000,000 or so. Didn't save my score. Somewhere in that range. I'll post something more official eventually.

[mjmjr25]

This run started out so terrible, played difficulty 3 on the first 2 stages and entered the third stage at 2mil and 1/2 a health bar. Stuck with it since no reset button of course - glad I did. I swore dude was dead - thought I had my hi-score and the ALL, he would not die, damn.



42,723,702 - mjmjr25 - Stage 7 (boss) - Rosa - Arcade

Here's what i'm realizing - you don't need to be on a level 2 or 3 to chain like crazy and use the A/B power shot. When you do that, it turns things that aren't normally points...into points. So on this run, I had the level 3's out of the way, had my chain about to start, on level 6 (vertical fire-hell stage) which I played 3rd. I immediately used my power shot, and all those rocks that normally are nothing but a pain you need to blow up or they hurt you, now become big points, and since it's power shot, they die in one shot instead of multiple per rock.

Also, if you are on a tough boss, you can active your power shot then and take him down in literally 1/2 the time.

Still so much room for improvement! Glad I put this back in!

EDIT: After ^that run, went back and wanted to put in one more for the day. My best run by far, everything went to plan, got chains on 5 of the first 6 stages and have 4 full health bars entering the Final Stage. Made the boss w/3 health bars...fought that bastard for dunno, felt like 7 minutes? Couldn't bring him down. You have to earn the ALL in this game - last boss is just a dink.

50,395,887 - mjmjr25 - Final Stage (Boss) - Rosa - Arcade

[Shogun]

Really enjoying this game. I haven't been playing much in the way of shmups lately but this is really pulling me back in. I need to read up where all the bonus health is because right now I rely pretty heavily on the one you get by shooting the crashed car in the swamp level. Definitely need close to full health to make it through the crazy last level.

37,201,237 - Shogun - 4-2 - Windia - MAME

[noiseredux]

38,757,183 - noiseredux - Ch 2-2 Boss - Casper - 360

^not done for the night, but moving from 5th place to 2nd place on our hi-score thread, I had to post this score.

[xan_racketBOY_fan]

Damn, nicely done folks! I need to play again as soon I get back home from vacation. Vast improvement, noise!

[fvgazi]

Damn you, Noise!!!! I just beat your Shienryu score only to find this!!!

Nice fricken' score BTW!

[ZenErik]

Did a couple of runs this morning. Apparently I haven't figured out the secrets to scoring well yet.

34,108,801 - ZenErik - Stage 7 (final boss) - Rosa - 360