"Death smiles at us all," Marcus Aurelius once said.

Name: Deathsmiles

Developer: Cave

Publisher: Aksys Games

Platform: Xbox 360

Genre: Shmup

Release Date: Available Now!

Price: $50

REVIEW

When I first imported Cave's Halloween-infused shooter, Deathsmiles, back in 2009, I immediately crossed my fingers, prayed to the Heavens above, and wore my pajamas backwards in hopes that such ludicrous acts would ultimately bring about the deserved stateside release of this fantastic, yet largely unheard of side-scrolling shooter. Now, fast forward to a little under a year later, and it seems as if a higher power does indeed exist and has proven such by answering my prayers, begs, and pleads with a fantastic localization, from Aksys Games, of this beloved shoot 'em up that has set the standard so high for all its kind that forthcoming titles of the genre will have step up their game, pun intended, in a big way.

Deathsmiles is a game in a niche genre that fans have been secretly raving about for decades now, dating back to the days of Defender and the ever popular Space Invaders. And like its prehistoric brethren, Deathsmiles is a game that pushes the genre to its limits by showcasing beautiful graphics, reflexive gameplay, epic boss battles, and a difficulty level that takes no prisoners and is not afraid to make you cry and throw your controller in a fit of rage. However, Deathsmiles should be more accurately described as a game in a niche genre of a niche genre. Confused? You should be. Within the elitist community of shoot ‘em ups, or what is more commonly referred to as a ‘Shmup’ by ‘true’ genre enthusiasts, there are various types of shmups, the more popular being the famed ‘Bullet Hell’ shooter. In bullet hell shooters, players face impossible odds of enemy bullets and have to weave in and out of the wall of death-dealing miasma avoiding each bullet perfectly, all the while laying on the attack button to blow stuff up in the most extravagant manner. Players are commended and rewarded for being able to recognize and memorize bullet patterns and for having excellently honed manual dexterity skills that allow them to effectively elude those game-ending, enemy missiles. In essence, bullet hell shooters are the ultimate test of patience as trial and error is truly and sincerely the only way to find success and the light at the end of this very dark and bullet-spewing tunnel.

STORY

So, why exactly is Cave’s Deathsmiles a cut above the rest? Well, let me spend the next few paragraphs telling you why. In all my reviews, I follow a formula in which I discuss a game’s story first. Unfortunately, if you’ve come to the shmup realm looking for a masterpiece in storytelling, you’re going to be sorely letdown and should look elsewhere as these games are not meant to be played for their narrative value. More times than not, most shmup stories are either badly contrived, convoluted, appallingly confusing, or simply nonexistent. That being said, Deathsmiles is a bit of an oddity insofar as it actually has a story that is generally well-developed with solid dialogue, interesting characters, and an emotionally charged plot that will have you shaking your fist in triumph and hanging your head low in sorrow. Alright, so maybe it won’t have you doing either of those two things, but it does have its moments that shine and will more than likely have you smiling or heavy-hearted with its abruptly tender moments. Nevertheless, it truly feels strange to talk about a shmup and a well-conceived, coherent story in the same breath seeing as most other of games of the kind appears written by a toddler or a drunk. No seriously, like I said before, most shoot ‘em up stories make little to no sense whatsoever…no seriously…no sense…at all…none.

In Deathsmiles, players are introduced to a gothic and demonic, early 20^th century Europe-inspired world called Gilverado, where monsters have begun terrorizing cities and citizens mercilessly. It seems as though your character, one of five lolicon (loli, for short) girls whose charm and cuteness is absolutely undeniable, is tasked with the mission to rid this malevolent world of its menacing beasts. Along the journey, you’ll run into new friends and enemies that give way to short cut-scenes comprised of dialogue that allow players a deeper into the characters, all the while pushing the story forward. By the end, you’ll have felt inspired, confused (for better or worse), and perhaps even a bit sad as each of the five girls have two separate endings, giving you ten total, that all have a striking sense of profoundness and heartache. This is what really took me by surprise - not only are the endings rendered in beautiful stills accompanied by a score that is sweeping and even breathtaking at times, but the actual content of these endings can be genuinely heartrending. Moreover, the story as a whole has some nice twists and turns to it, especially depending on which ending you choose for your character once you’ve vanquished the final boss. Overall, you’re not going to get the next War and Peace with Deathsmiles, but you will get some extra layers on a cake that is normally pretty thin.

GAMEPLAY

So, if you’re thinking about picking up Deathsmiles for any reason other than that of dodging an unthinkable amount of bullets and making stuff go boom, then this game probably isn’t for you. However, if you understand good and well that a shmup’s sole purpose in life is to test your patience and anger management skills, then I would feel more than confident in recommending this title. Shoot ‘em ups are all about trial and error and memorization and DS is no exception. While there are only 7 stages, plus two mind-blowingly difficult bonus areas, Deathsmiles can literally be beat in one sitting. However, that’s how shmups are. There are no save points, there are no passwords (what game uses the password system anymore?), you are simply given 3 lives, an unlimited amount of continues, and are thrown into the fray, ending your game only once you explode the final boss (who is a downright heinous tyrant of a beast) or when you eject the game and toss it across the room in a bout of pure, unadulterated rage. This game will bring out the aggression and testosterone in you without a doubt, even if you are a female. There were times when I felt like I had injected myself with a large amount of steroids, and I was roid-raging for minutes on end.

When first firing up the game, you’ll notice that DS is unlike others of its kind in the fact that you’re able to choose one character from a pool of four (or five depending on the mode you’re playing), and then are transported and introduced to an overworld map. Yes, you read correctly – an overworld map. But before you think you’re going to run around, fight random battles to the sound of a catchy tune, and wrangle yourself a Chocobo, let me explain how Deathsmiles interesting, non-linear map works. From the get-go, you’re able to play any stage, in any order, on one of four difficulties (level 1, 2, 3, and the nightmare-inducing 999). At the end of each stage, you’ll encounter a larger-than-life boss. Once you have gone through the six stages initially open to you, you’ll then have the option to take on the final area, or travel down the route of tackling the two extra stages.

But, while there are essentially 9 stages in all, you’ll mostly be doing the same thing in all these areas; dodging bullets and shooting stuff. Each stage has its own unique backdrop, monsters, and of course bullet patterns in which you’ll more than likely have to play over and over…and over if you want to breeze through the game unharmed.

Ah, but here’s where it gets interesting. Most shmups, horizontal or vertical (that just means the orientation in which the screen moves, for all you unknowing ones out there), implore the player to only watch one edge of the screen from which enemies appear. Deathsmiles takes things up a notch and allows enemies to come at you from both sides of the screen. “How in the world does one keep up with all this madness?!” you ask, scared and fearful for your gaming ego. Well, the answer is really quite simple thanks to Cave’s intuitive design. When you play the game there are three essential buttons you’ll need to keep in mind – a button to shoot right, a button to shoot left, and a bomb-button which obliterates everything on-screen in one, humongous, gorgeous cornucopia of colors and bombastic explosions. “But I want more than three buttons!” you exclaim. Don’t fret yet just, o might shmup’er, for your cries have not fallen on deaf ears as Cave has introduced some more complex control elements will keep your fingers busy for days.

See, each character in the game has a secondary fire button. Usually this firing option is the opposite of their primary weapon. That is to say, if your character is typically a slow moving one who uses a giant, powerful shot as her main weapon, her secondary will more than likely be something that is less powerful, but grants her more mobility. This demands that the player use the appropriate weapon given the circumstances and surrounding enemies. But, wait, there’s more! Each character also has side-kick that is, for the most part, out of your control. This sidekick, which is typically an unsuspectingly cute animal of sorts, shoots while you shoot, making for double the explode-y stuff. This Robin to your Batman, however, can be controlled to a small extent. By using the right thumbstick you can shift your furry partner-in-crime’s position. “But why would I want to do this?!” you ask before letting me finish. Well, you would want to do this in a number of scenarios:

1. If enemies are coming from both angles and you don’t have the capacity to shoot in both directions
2. If you’re playing on a harder difficulty

Now, before you go hastily asking another question number 2 up there, let me just tell you I’m going to go more in-depth with that right now. On higher difficulties (namely level 3 and 999), when you kill enemies, they explode and send forth a wave of revenge bullets…go figure. So, not only do you have to watch out for bullets from enemies that you haven’t killed yet, you also have to dodge the death of those you’ve blasted into oblivion. So, where the positioning of your sidekick comes in handy is when these revenge bullets are coming at you and you can’t maneuver out of their way. Instead, what you can do is place your sidekick in their path, almost as if a shield, and it will absorb the bullets without a penalty. It’s brilliant when you think about it…and when you get used to it, because until you do it’s just downright overwhelming. It’s during these times that I felt the game was a little too much. During certain stages, such as the bonus two, on hard difficulties, the bullet-hell is indeed the epitome of its name. It’s a chaotic mess that’s hard to keep up with even if you’re the most seasoned gamer. Does that mean it’s ever unfair though? Absolutely not. Whether if it’s on the easiest difficulty or the hardest, if you die in Deathsmiles, it’s not because the game is cheating – it’s simply because you’re not good enough. And that’s what a shmup is all about. A punishing difficulty that makes you want to replay stages over and over again until you can bob to and fro, in and out, this way and that, without being hit once. Completing a shmup without having used a continue really is the ultimate bragging right.

The gameplay in Deathsmiles is also made more intense by another element Cave added to set its beloved loli-shooter apart from the crowd. When you kill an enemy in the game, you receive counters, or item tokens, that help build up an Item Counter. Once you have killed enough baddies to warrant a score of 1000 on this so-called Item Counter, you can utilize a two button press to unleash pure bedlam upon your opponents. When unraveling this 1000-point ability, you shots are powered up to an absurd level and you can lay waste to even the toughest boss in the matter of seconds. However, once this ability has been activated it lasts only as long as it takes for that 1000-point meter to count down to zero. Once it’s bottomed out, you’ll have to start killing again to build it back up. This adds another fantastic dimension to a game that is very much like an iceberg; on the surface the game doesn’t seem all that complicated, but once you take a look underwater, you see that the game truly is massive with intricacies and nuances that take the game to a whole new level.

MODES

Deathsmiles, like its gameplay, doesn’t skimp in the amount of modes available. And while each mode is essentially a variation of the other, there are still certain challenges and enemies that are exclusive to each game type. Some modes allow you play as certain characters that aren’t otherwise playable, while others grant access to one or both of the extra stages. In the Xbox 360 mode, non-background graphics have been redone and optimized for the console’s HD capabilities. All in all, there are 3 modes, all of which are unforgiving and equally as exhilarating, and a score attack and a much-needed training setting. Fortunately, there’s the ability save your replays which allows you to go back through to see just how much you suck so you can only be marginally better the next time around.

For those looking to share the experience with a friend, DS sports 2-player splitscreen, and fully featured Xbox Live support, complete with leaderboards and 2-player co-op, which means you and your buddy from across the country can team up and get in on the bullet-dodging pandemonium together.

SOUND

Developers who take the time to create a good audio presentation always impress me. More often than not, a game's sound is seemingly something a lot of gamers view as a passive attribute to the larger, more obvious components of the product. I find this to be truly unfortunate as a soundtrack can really make or break the overall gaming experience. A well-composed, placed, and utilized orchestral score can create a sense of emotion and attachment to a game's story and its characters in a dramatic way. Fortunately, Deathsmiles has not let anyone down in this regard. The score here, composed by Manabu Namiki (Espgaluda, Mishihimesama Futari, Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi), is radiant and breathes life into the world of Gilverado. Namiki is no stranger to these types of games, having composed scores for several staples of the genre, and it is apparent that his understanding of the brand has allowed for a grand soundtrack that sets the mood almost perfectly. With heart-pounding beats during the boss battles, ambient and gothic melodies when traversing the game’s grim set-pieces, and a moving, melancholic ending theme, Namiki is at his best here. And moreover, if you can find a copy of the Limited Edition, you are given the chance to jam along with his tunes with the included Premium Arrange Soundtrack which features 15 songs from the game.

Aside from the orchestral score, the sound effects aren’t too bad either, although they’re what you may expect from a game that involves shooting and blowing up a lot of stuff. You’ll hear crisp explosions, monster roars, and the puppy-dog-lip-inducing shriek of your cute loli girl whenever she gets tagged by a bullet. There are times though when the audio gets a little repetitive though (I’m looking at you, Sakura boss battle). Hearing the same mocking-laughter from a boss is never a fun thing and it doesn’t make me want to kill it any faster, rather simply mute the game so I don’t have to hear the repetitious laugh-track over and over.

THE NOT SO GOOD STUFF

Deathsmiles has some truly excellent components, but much like the most attractive runway model, it has signs of a cocaine-provoked eating disorder, so things aren’t as perfect as they appear. First and foremost, the game’s graphics are extremely inconsistent. While it trumps every other shmup in almost every way, the game showcases some odd pixilation of sprites, which are made even more apparent by the beautifully rendered backdrops in the exclusive Xbox 360 mode. The set-pieces have been redrawn for this mode, but unfortunately the characters, monsters, and animations have not – so what you have here is the equivalent of a 7-year old drawing in their own changes to van Gogh’s Starry Night. It simply looks disjointed and bad at times. Yet, at other times it looks fantastic. Moreover, the game doesn’t fill the screen entirely which can be bothersome at times. Because the game was originally designed to be seen and played on an arcade, the screen size has not be altered much, leaving giant bars on both sides void of anything other than some nonsensical filler art. Now, to those that are familiar with playing shmups on any console, this won’t be a big deal because nearly every game of its kind is presented to the player in this fashion…however, just because all those before have done it, doesn’t make it any less awful.

Secondly, while two-player cooperative splitscreen and Xbox Live is more than welcome, it feels postscript. The two-player works by all means, but that’s the problem, it just simply works. It’s not great, it doesn’t make the game experience better, nor does it make things on the screen any less chaotic. If anything, having a second player flying about and shooting wildly only adds to the panic making a hard game even harder.

And last, but certainly not least, I come to the cut-throat-ness of the shmup genre and how it is certainly not for everyone. Deathsmiles is very much like its predecessors, which means it’s an extremely difficult game. As I’ve iterated a number of times already, DS and those of its kind take an exorbitant amount of patience and trial and error to complete successfully. You will pull out your hair trying to memorize bullet patterns, so that you can avoid being hit in your next play through, and you’ll scream, illogically like a cave man when you make it to the end without using a continue only to be blind-sided and consequently killed by a bullet you didn’t see coming because you were too busy dodging the other hundred. You’ll die and you’ll die again, of this I guarantee. And while I personally find solace and comfort in a game that is this grueling, many will find it off-putting and downright exhausting. As I said before, shmups are a niche genre, and they’re a niche genre for a reason. Most typical gamers can’t hang (nor do they want to) with the strenuous nature of eluding seemingly endless waves of bullets.

CONCLUSION

In the end, Deathsmiles is a game about wits, good hand-eye coordination, and a masochistic desire to die over and over again for the purpose of proving, to your friends and yourself, that you have the patience and balls to take on a game that will eat you for breakfast and laugh while doing so. This title is a throwback to games that have been long since forgotten by the mainstream, and is essentially a love note to all those out there who passionately love a genre that rewards its players in a big way if they are willing to stick it out till the very end and make some sacrifices, i.e. their sanity. Deathsmiles does more than the average shmup and should be looked at as something of an achievement for the genre. It made a retail release on the most popular console of this generation, it sold fairly well, and it captured the hearts of newbies and veterans alike. It boots a beautiful story, wonderful music, gameplay that is white-knuckled, pulse-pounding fun, and has a slew of options to keep you coming back for more. If Deathsmiles is the future of shoot ‘em ups, then the future is looking very bright. Cave is a company that is exclusively devoted to quenching the thirst of shmup fans, and with their humble but ambitious gothic, loli-toting shooter, they have shown to the world that a little game can make a big impact. Here’s hoping the marriage between Aksys Games and Cave is long and fruitful, if for nothing else than so we can see more quality titles like this one for years to come.

I’m happy about the:

• Visceral, take-no-prisoners difficulty
• Easy to grasp, but difficult to master nature of the game
• Complexities and subtleties of the shooting mechanics
• Unique and vastly different boss battles
• Diversity in the challenging bullet patterns
• Well-developed story and characters
• Multiple, at times heart-wrenching endings
• Graphics which are (at times) great in comparison to games of its kind
• Beautiful soundtrack
• Amount of replayability and modes

I’m shaking my head in disappointment because the:

• Genre isn’t for everyone
• Difficulty may prove to be too much for some newcomers
• 2-player co-op feels like more of an afterthought
• Repetitious nature of some of the audio work
• Inconsistency in the graphics
• Price tag, which may seem a bit steep for those unfamiliar with what the genre offers - while $50 gets you the Limited Edition complete with a soundtrack, gorgeously hand-drawn Xbox 360 faceplate, premium packaging, and the game (which may be a good price for genre enthusiasts who are used to shelling out close to $100 for their imported shooters), $40 would have been a bit more appropriate for a North American retail release

Check it out if you like games such as: Border Down, Castle of Shikigami, Ikaruga, Mars Matrix, Triggerheart Exelica

What beer you should be drinking while playing this game: Rogue's Dead Guy Ale: A light to medium bodied beer, with a barly and spice nose. The heavy malt flavor upfront fades into a brief surge of hops that give way for the malts to come back in the aftertaste. This combination creates a magnificently balanced craft beer with a smooth finish.