5 Characters to Explore Gilverado: Choose your favorite gothic Lolita and discover their past before they came to this mysterious land. Will you choose Windia, the foppish English girl, Casper, the sassy German, Follett, the cautious French girl, or Rosa, the California valley girl? Travel down the roads of Gilverado and discover hidden dialogues among the angels. Mega Black Label: Test your supernatural powers against the onslaught of the Ice Palace and its forgotten protector! Put your skills to the test with a new scoring system which demands more but pumps out even more explosions of shiny point items. Fully Selectable Progression and Difficulty Level: You can choose your own route through the game’s stages and set the difficulty for each, from a level of 1 to 3. These levels allow you to customize the bullet count and boss toughness. Watch out if you choose level 3 four times though. Save and Playback Replays: Save replays of your own games to watch later for your own enjoyment. Players can also download the top 20 scoring runs on the leaderboards.
Features include:
•Online two-player co-op play option available via Xbox LIVE •Limited Edition extras including an exclusive Deathsmiles Xbox 360 faceplate, a CD soundtrack and special boxart •Play as one of four playable characters as you test your supernatural powers against the onslaught of the Ice Palace and its forgotten protector •Choose your own route through the game?s stages and set the difficulty for each, from a level of 1 to 3, allowing you to customize the bullet count and boss toughness •Save replays of your own games to watch later for your own enjoyment. Players can also download the top 20 scoring runs on the leaderboards
Features:
•
Online two-player co-op play option available via Xbox LIVE
•
Limited Edition extras including an exclusive Deathsmiles Xbox 360 faceplate, a CD soundtrack and special boxart
•
Play as one of four playable characters as you test your supernatural powers against the onslaught of the Ice Palace and its forgotten protector
•
Choose your own route through the game?s stages and set the difficulty for each, from a level of 1 to 3, allowing you to customize the bullet count and boss toughness
•
Save replays of your own games to watch later for your own enjoyment. Players can also download the top 20 scoring runs on the leaderboards
Average Customer Review:
( 17 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 34 found the following review helpful:
Absolutely ExcellentJun 30, 2010
By J. B. Shoopman I can't stress enough how excellent this game is(provided you like the genre). Cave has long been known as one of the kings of bullet hell type games, but this is surprisingly the first Cave game to be localized for a US release on a console. The only other I know of to get on shore at all is Espgaluda II, which was released on iPhone and is also an excellent port.
Synopsis
There are basically 6 different versions of the game. They are split up into the original arcade port, a version 1.1 arrange version and an xbox 360 specific version. There are 2 versions of each of those, the normal and the MBL(mega black label) version. MBL versions are a special edition of sorts. In that version there is 1 extra character playable and 1 extra level.
Anyway, you are presented with a choice of 4 different girls to play and you play through an other world where you are attacked by monsters and spirits typical of a Halloween setting. You will fight flying pumpkins, ghosts, goblins and Death himself. As you progress farther the difficulty increases and you eventually reach the your goal. Don't worry about whether or not you'll make it here. There are different difficulty levels selectable per level, and you can continue after deaths. Difficulty levels range from a relative easy to blisteringly hard so you can suit that to your own tastes. There's even a "Level 999" option if you really want to hurt yourself.
As far as controls go, they are spot on. You'll never feel like you're fighting the game to do what you want. Everything is fluid and solid.
Finally, there are several nice extra features. You get online leaderboards, a score attack mode, replay saving so you can watch how you did and a practice mode for attacking a specific level until you get it right.
I really can't recommend this title enough if you enjoy these types of games. We don't often even see bullet hell shooters on US soil. It would be a shame to pass up one of the best ones.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Old school funSep 27, 2010
By flywheels If you grew up playing old school 2D shoot 'em ups like I did and hate to see that Japan is getting all the new old school games then you'll be happy with this U.S. release of Deathsmiles. It features side scrolling 2D action with very tight controls. Designed by Cave, modern "bullet hell" masters. This game even on harder settings didn't feel too difficult. You'll want to play through the various game types more than once - which is needed if you want to unlock the various Achievements. The bonus soundtrack and faceplate is a nice touch since this limited edition retails for less than more new releases.
4 of 6 found the following review helpful:
Best Shoot'em'up released in the USA... so farJul 26, 2010
By M. Link Excellent game. Cave has outdone themselves yet again.
Deathsmiles is an excellent port of the arcade game, but it also includes the Mega Black Label DLC already on the disk. This means that you get 6 game versions on one disk.
Hopefully Aksys releases more of Cave's games in the future!
Very disappointed..Apr 15, 2012
By Luna I was really excited for this game.. I even bought the limited edition. Sadly, after about 30 minutes, I had already beaten the game, and seen all the levels.
The music and art in the game were really good, but I had an extremely hard time even really seeing the art or the monsters I was fighting because there was sooo much chaos and attacks, and lights, and explosions covering the screen. Even the tutorial went by really fast.
Sometimes when you're on certain levels, you get a cutscene with dialog, and it says to press the "A" Button to continue the dialog, but if you don't hit the "A" button right that moment it pretty much presses it for you and makes you fly through the text.
Overall, I feel like the game, the levels, the boss fights, and all of the dialog just kind of fly by you super fast and you really have no idea what's going on, other than the fact that the game is already over. It felt extremely A.D.D, and it was impossible to see the screen or what I was doing on multiplayer with me and my friends lasers shooting off as well as our companion animals lasers flying at the same time all over the screen. We had like 4 lasers flying everywhere without even counting the enemy lasers. It was soo hard to see the screen.
This game also gives you a timer for just about everything. A timer to pick which stage level you want to go to next, a timer to read dialog, a timer to choose what you want to say next. It was very annoying.
I really wanted to love this game. :( I really did. But it was just, waay to fast and crazy.
Incredibly Fun and Highly ReplayableJan 19, 2011
By Rocco J. Carello Deathsmiles is a shoot 'em up arcade game from Japan that has been ported to Xbox 360. The basic premise is very simple: you choose one of four "angels" who fly around, dodge bullets, and use magic to destroy a variety of Halloween-themed monsters. Single player and co-op modes are available.
The game is suitable for players of all skill levels due to selectable difficulty before most stages and unlimited continues. Deathsmiles is short, taking about 25-40 minutes from beginning to end, but it also has high replay value due to the variety of characters, game modes, and difficulty settings available. Plus you can try unlocking the achievements, beating the game without continuing, and climbing the online leaderboards.
The hand-drawn artwork and soundtrack are quite enjoyable, the controls are very responsive and precise, and the game is pure joy to play. Don't miss out!
Also, for arcade purists, Cave and Aksys are working on a patch that will make the game's deliberate slowdown (during hectic sections) more closely mimic the original arcade game.
based on 17 reviews
( 17 customer reviews )
