Deathsmiles


Deathsmiles is a horizontal side scrolling shoot 'em up arcade game by Japanese developer Cave, released in late 2007. It is notable for its aesthetic style, featuring heavy occult and gothic influences. It is the second Cave shoot 'em up to be played using a horizontally-oriented monitor. It was the first Cave shooter released in North America on a console, and the first one in Europe. Cave has also released it for iOS. A sequel, Deathsmiles II, was released to Japanese arcades on May 14, 2009.

Gameplay

Releases

Mega Black Label

Mega Black Label is a limited arcade edition of the game released in Japan. It added Sakura as playable character, as well as the Crystal Shrine stage, and Level 999 difficulty level. There are other scoring changes.

Xbox 360 release

An Xbox 360 port was released in Japan on April 23, 2009 in both regular and limited editions.
The Limited Edition includes a Manabu Namiki Selection Deathsmiles Premium Arrange Album soundtrack CD. New game modes include an Xbox 360 mode and Ver 1.1 mode. The player can also adjust the screen brightness, background frame, game screen position and zoom level.
Downloadable content for the Japanese market included the "Mega Black Label" and a full voice download card for preorder and limited edition users. A "Mega Black Label Ver.1.1" was later made available as DLC.
Hori produced a controller for the Xbox 360 game that was an Amazon Japan exclusive.
On April 8, 2010, the Platinum Collection re-release came out in Japan, containing both the main game and the Mega Black Label downloadable content on the disc.
Aksys Games has released the game in North America on June 28, 2010. A Limited Edition was released that includes, along with the game, an exclusive Xbox 360 faceplate and a "Premium Arrange Album" soundtrack CD. As with the Japanese Platinum Collection re-release, the North American port integrates the Mega Black Label content, providing a total of 6 game versions selectable from the front-end menu: Arcade, Ver 1.1, Xbox 360, MBL Ver 1.1, MBL Arcade, MBL Xbox 360. The additional playable character, Sakura, is available in the MBL versions.
Rising Star Games released the game in Europe on February 18, 2011 as "Deathsmiles: Deluxe Edition". This contained a soundtrack CD and a CD intended for use on the PC including desktop themes. Originally the soundtrack CD was misprinted and was released as a data CD including the music as.wav files. Rising Star sent out correct audio CD versions to customers for free. The European release contains Arcade, Ver 1.1, Xbox 360, MBL Ver 1.1, MBL Arcade, MBL Xbox 360 as per the North American release.
In "Ver 1.1" mode, players can independently control familiars via the Xbox 360 controller. Lock shot and powerup shot are located on different buttons. Other changes include:
Xbox 360 mode includes following changes:
Cave released a port of Deathsmiles on the Apple iOS App Store in 2011. The special features to this version included:
On July 22, 2013 the game was released for Android devices.
On September 9, 2019 Cave updated the game's port for compatibility with recent iOS versions, along with the other games that have said ports.

Media

On the back of the arcade game poster, there is a template for a skirt blowing game. In the game, the player attempts to blow up the skirt or petticoat of the model to see her underwear. The player scores 30 points for blowing up a skirt and 50 points for blowing up a petticoat. Points are deducted if a pumpkin or tombstone is knocked over.

Adaptations

The game received "favorable" reviews according to video game review aggregator Metacritic. In Japan, Famitsu gave the X360 version a score of three sevens and one eight, for a total of 29 out of 40, while Famitsu Xbox 360 Monthly gave it one eight, one nine, one seven, and one eight, for a total of 32 out of 40.