J Shmups, a taste of what we don't get

[ZedameX]

We recorded this last night, as embarrasing as it was for me to ram into the end boss and die, it gives you an idea of what these bullet hell shooters are like.

DeathSmilesIIX is much easier than the other shooters from Cave I have played, which actually gives room for those new to the genre to not just suffer from dying every two seconds. The majority of the levels offer a difficulty level option, (1=relatively easy, 3=hard), the final levels difficulty depends on the difficulties you chose and your performance. And good luck with some of their challenges such as reaching the additional boss (no deaths, hardest difficulty, amongst other requirements), I dont think I will ever achieve it myself.

The mode in the video below is Arrange mode. Which overall has more bullets flying at you but you have means of keeping them ALL of them at bay, usually you can only influence a handful of what is on screen.

I am rather addicted to and still trying to figure out how to increase my scores on the leaderboards, its an art. When doing this the game settings are pretty much fixed (makes sense since its competive), you only get one continue which makes the game even more interesting.

I did not upload this, tho I did play it. The video ending up live is more of a side-effect after helping a friend set up a new SAS+drive that is capable of writing reasonably fast (~200MB/s, the original file size of the video in question is 33GB, 60fps uncompressed, don't ask) we're now in the process of playing with re-encodes for various tasks from internet to HD Playback.

Some of the titles that cave has released are region free, unfortunately Deathsmiles is not one of them. Aksys games is releasing the first in America this month but that is also not Region Free, they also mentioned they did not licence for PAL territories. The US release comes with the "Mega Black Label" version as well, which I had to fork out extra cash for as a DLC expansion, this consists of a few rule changes, an extra character and a level 999 difficulty. 'Ouch' doesn't even begin to explain it.

This title is by far my favourite, but if you end up feeling compelled to import one of their region free titles (Mushihimesama Futari / Espgaluda II REGULAR edition), word of warning: importing japanese titles is a bit of an over-expensive hobby, expect to be paying up to and over $100 for what looks like should be a $10 XBLA title. DeathSmiles IIX is the first title that actually takes up the whole screen, the rest are just like XBLA titles in that regard.


720p available

For further reading on DeathSmiles IIX

[emetic]

me want

[8-bit]

I've been playing some Deathsmiles recently.
IIX looks pretty cool.

Do you play any non-cave shooters?

[ZedameX]

At this stage I've only been playing caves shooters, the style of gameplay mechanics really seems to stand out and I thoroughly enjoy.

I'll chuck up a video of a level played in IIX mode soon, which is more "normal" to play unlike arrange shown above. Arcade mode seems very lackluster in comparison, no chosable difficulty levels, less characters to chose from and if your picky, the graphics are that of the original arcade cabinet (not as good) either... Amusingly because Arcade mode is SD its a heck of a lot harder to survive as you have less retail space to work with as well.

Curious that 8-Bit has played some Deathsmiles, how did that happen?

[8-bit]

I bought the platinum collection version for my 360.

I have to agree that cave make some of the better shooters out there. I'm hoping to buy a few more in the future. I was thinking about trying a Grev game next, but I might have to get DeathsmilesIIX.

I'm looking forward to seeing your other video.

[ZedameX]

Interesting, you have an NTSC-J console Oo? Or "other means"...

In any case, after having spent more time with Arrange mode I've just come to realise how hard scoring high really is. It makes the idea of high scores in games like Geometry Wars childs play.

Geometry wars is pretty much about close up accuracy in order to collect everything as well as survive...

Well deathsmiles IIX arrange rules has a lot more to think about at once than that.
You can shoot all the enemy bullets to create paths which is new, usually you have to dodge, this makes it easy on a basic level, however... In order to score big
You need to hold off using your own attacks against the enemies, and use your familiar, when you power up and use your familiar it starts draining the points at the bottom left of the screen (reaching 1000 = power up where all the bullets turn red and slow down etc)
From there its a battle to collect faster than your power up drains
At a basic level, defeating enemies with your own attacks during this hellish mode generates retalation bullets which can be directly collected by your familiar, however theres a more advanced way of doing it.
You can use your familiar to convert nearly all bullets (not just the basic retaliation ones) into more valuable rings, this means you want to hold off until the enemies start firing at you heavily before wiping them, also, wiping enemies with the familiars lock on attack generates those red skulls that chase straight after you, advanced retaliation bullets!
These red skulls can not be cleared by your familiar (have to be shot down by yourself) and also emit even more bullets, so you want them to chase you for as long as possible in order to generate more on screen at once, every bullet you clear increases your multiplier after all.
But if you waste too much time you will fall out of the hellish power up mode and return to normal, this will also wipe all bullets off screen without giving you any points so essentially you never want that to happen. If your trying to do this, you have to get into a good rhythm or you'll fall out of the hell mode really quickly and inevitably just die with terrible scores.

If you just "run and gun" and never die, you might be lucky to get a score up to 2 billion, but applying tactics above successfully you will be looking at getting up closer to 10 billion due to the nature of the score multiplier having no limit in Arrange mode. I havent even come close yet, the top players have also been milking the boss battles in ways sending their scores up into the 20 billion, its nuts.

My friend just uploaded the first level in XII mode (current best run)
All the rules I talked about above don't exist in XII mode

Here when you reach 1000 items at the bottom left you can chose to enter power up mode, its activated by using your familiars lock on ability, making you have to decide when to use your familiar when you hit 1000 points. In arrange you power up immediately after hitting 1000 items, but the counter doesn't start decreasing until you use your familiar.
During power, up defeating enemies yourself generates blue bullets that chase after you, you can dispel them at will but the longer you leave it (they start turning red and dissapear however) and the closer you are to them when you dispel the more rings spew out of them. The multiplier caps at 10,000, only counts during power up and returns to 0 once you exit power up mode.
You generate lock on meter (the meter that circles your character) from general combat which if used during power up, instead of red skulls like arrange, generates yellow homing retaliation from enemies as well, which are dispelled once you stop using the lock on mode.
So gameplay is completely different.

In short, complicated.

[8-bit]

Sounds good. I might have to pick it up soon
I have an NTSC-J console.

[Vivasanti]

I love these games, sooo popular over in Jpan

wish they would bring the likes of Raiden, Truxton, DoDonPachi to XBL

[Tel Prydain]

Talk about twitch-gaming! Total chaos! Way too hard for the likes of me....

[ZedameX]

A couple more level videos I'd like to chuck up but that requires my friend to take a recording of my replay. Hopefully this will be done in the next couple of days. I don't have such a set up to record gaming, nor do I want to invest in the amount of equipment dedicated towards splicing and recording.

I've since seen more pro ways of score gathering, I'm on the right path but I need to mix things up a bit more. I have watched the replays of the top scorers and I managed to match their first level run, don't ask how, because I can't even come close all of a sudden. We're talking a good run for me on the first stage is around 550mill before the boss fight, but I managed 700mill once. Timing is so crucial for more than I first realised as taking out enemies can even influence the subsequent enemy entry, i.e if you take to long with certain enemies, follow ups will not show up. You need to learn all these micro differences in order to milk the scoring to the fullest. This is where I have become addicted. "Just one more attempt!" has been said probably about 100 times this weekend...

Yep, I've more than trippled that of my friends performance on the first stage, (yet I'm still to beat their top score, I would've floored it if I didn't die so early during my current best score) once the videos are up you'll see the increase of items, risks taken and bullets flooding the screen in order to achieve this, but I'm still yet to get a better grip on the subequent stages.

To give an indication, I did a survival run (get an achievement for a no-continue finish without choosing level 1 difficulty eve) and only got 400mill points for the ENTIRE run! That tells you just how many factors influence score.

[8-bit]

Hey, I picked this up last week and have been giving it a good play over the weekend.
Its a lot of fun. I've mainly been playing X mode, trying to 1cc level 3.
Arrange mode is all kinds of crazy and haven't really gotten into it yet.

Your scores above are from Arrange mode or X?

[ZedameX]

score discussion from IIX mode, arrange is more of an insane curve due to how the multiplier having no cap.

Still waiting on video record and upload (owner of gear has been busy of recent), slowly getting better at pushing the score up but yeah.

Might have to squeeze in some online co-op. Scores get completely out of sync in online co-op but its still fun.

Patch is on the way to fix some of the replay and boss battle bugs, I found you can cause the images of bullets to dissapear, and well, thats pretty vital to know where they are, which at the moment forces your hand to a certain play style.

1cc level 3 is very difficult due to the difficulty spike on the final stage. The final boss is a nightmare.

[8-bit]

Yeah, I still need to get Satan Claus's patterns down. Although the game is a lot easier than the first one.

Whats your high score at the moment? (I think my highest now is only 3 billion with Rosa).

We should play co-op sometime

I think the game was patched last night? I also think the leaderboard was reset.

[ZedameX]

oh, leaderboards still there, I think you can reset your local ones now, seems the bullet bugs fixed, and some menus moved around a bit.

[8-bit]

Sorry, the leaderboards will be reset tonight.
(according to the development blog)