Deathsmiles

Deathsmiles

Title Screen

Developer:	CAVE
Music:	Manabu Namiki Noriyuki Kamikura Miki Ito Dota Ando Yasuko Yamada Takayuki Hirose Natsuko Naitou Ryoji Uezu Daisuke Matsumoto Yukihiro Masaki
Program:	Takashi Ichimura Yuji Inoue Tsuneki Ikeda
Art:	Atsushi Aburano Toshiyuki Kuroiwa
Designer:	Hiroyuki Tanaka Akira Wakabayashi
Release date:	Arcade: October 9, 2007 Xbox 360: April 23, 2009 (JP) June 29, 2010 (NA) February 28, 2011 (EU) March 10, 2011 (AU) Windows: March 10, 2016 PS4, Xbox One, Switch: December 15, 2021 December 16, 2021 (JP)
Previous game:	Muchi Muchi Pork!
Next game:	Mushihimesama Futari Black Label

Deathsmiles is a horizontally scrolling shooter developed by Cave. It is notable for its manually selectable difficulty ranks for each stage, which create branching paths in the game's difficulty.

Later, a special version of the game called Deathsmiles Mega Black Label was released.

For replay videos, visit the Video Index.

Gameplay Overview

Deathsmiles uses a different life system than is typically found in other shmups. Instead of dying and respawning, you have a life meter which depletes when taking damage. The game makes a separation between bullet damage, which loses 1 bar, and contact damage, which only loses half a bar. Taking damage from any source with half a bar will only do half a bar of damage. Two extends are available from scoring, which both increase your life meter by 1 bar.

Controls

• A (Press): Left shot
• A (Hold): Left laser
• B (Press): Right shot
• B (Press): Right laser
• A + B (Hold): Lock-on shot, activates power-up mode when the item counter is at 1000
• C: Bomb

Power-up mode increases speed and damage dealt, grants invincibility to contact damage, and erases all bullets on screen on activation.

Bombs grant temporary invincibility and erase all bullets on screen for their duration.

Unlockables

These codes are only applicable to the vanilla arcade release. The console releases, as well as Mega Black Label, have everything unlocked from the beginning.

Unlock Follett:

2P: Hold A + B + C

1P: ↑, ↑, ↑, ↑, B,B,A,A, ←, ←, →, →, C, C, C, ↓, C

Unlock Rosa:

2P: Hold A + B + C

1P: C,B,A,C,B,↑,A,→,C,←,B,↓,C,B,A,A,A

Unlock Gorge (Extra) Stage:

2P: Hold A + B +C

1P: C,C,C,A,↑,←,→,↓,B,C,C,C,↓,↓,A,B,C,B,A

Characters

Casper

Windia

Follett

Rosa

Generally considered the strongest character, with a somewhat slow speed but very high damage.

Familiar: Locks during shot, follows during laser. Its laser attack does high damage and is homing.

Sakura

Exclusive to Mega Black Label.

Familiar: Follows during shot, locks during laser. When following, it will move and shoot behind her, allowing you to shoot in both directions or concentrate fire when locked. She also has two familiars rather than one, which gives her much greater protection from revenge bullets.

Stages

Deathsmiles consists of 8 stages (9 in Mega Black Label).

The initial 6 stages are the Chapter & Verse stages. They are divided into the lower row (X-1, Verse 1) and upper row (X-2, Verse 2). You will start by choosing a lower row stage, and then an upper row stage. This consists of a Chapter. After your first Chapter, you move to Chapter 2, which is the next two stages you play, and finally Chapter 3. The chapter in which you play a stage mainly affects which items will appear in it, such as bombs or life-ups.

In the C/V stages, you can select your rank (difficulty) from Level 1 to Level 3 (easiest to hardest). Level 1 and Level 2 can only be selected once per row of stages, meaning you must play at least two stages at Level 3. The console version removes this restriction.

If you play at least five stages at Level 3, Death Mode will be activated, which introduces revenge bullets into the game and has its own rank system.

Mega Black Label also introduces Level 999, which is extremely difficult, and must be completed in all 6 C/V stages as part of the conditions to challenge the True Last Boss of MBL.

Extra/4-A: Gorge

Extra stage. Can be skipped if desired.

Extra/4-B: Ice Palace

New extra stage exclusive to Mega Black Label. Both extra stages must also be played as part of MBL's True Last Boss conditions.

Items

Skull: Worth 100 points.

Heart: Worth 800 points. Splits into two Skulls upon hitting the ground.

Crown: Worth 2,000 points. Splits into two Hearts upon hitting the ground.

Small Life-up: Restores half a life bar. Worth 100,000 points.

Medium Life-up: Restores 1 life bar. Worth 200,000 points.

Large Life-up: Restores 2 life bars. Worth 500,000 points.

Magic: Adds 1 bomb. If you are carrying 6 bombs, it awards 300,000 points instead.

Item/Stage Table

Stage	Location	Chapter 2		Chapter 3
		Level 2	Level 3	Level 2	Level 3
A-1	Small Cyclops	x	x	x	Small Life-up x2 (Death Mode only)
B-1	x	x	x	x	x
C-1	x	x	x	x	x
A-2	Small Cyclops	x	Small Life-up	x	Bomb
B-2	Old Car	Small Life-up	Bomb	Small Life-up	Bomb
C-2	Small Cyclops	x	Small Life-up	x	Medium Life-up
Extra	Beast Dog (midboss)	Bomb
Final	Jitterbug (boss)	Large Life-up (must no-bomb Jitterbug)

Death Mode

Vanilla

There are 4 paths possible through the game's Rank system: 2 avoiding the Gorge stage, and 2 including the Gorge stage.

The paths are as follows:

Without Extra

1) <4 C/V stages at L3 means Death Mode will not be activated at all, and the Castle will therefore have no revenge bullets.

2) >=4 C/V stages at L3 means you will activate Death Mode L1 in the 5th R3 stage. The castle will therefore definitely have Death Mode L1 revenge bullets

With Extra

3) <5 C/V stages at L3 means Death Mode will not be activated in the C/V stages. Your existing Death Mode rank is therefore = 0, Gorge adds +1 so will be at Death Mode 1. Castle adds +1 again, to reach Death Mode 2.

4) >=5 C/V Stages at L3 means you will reach Death Mode 1 in the C/V Stages. Gorge adds +1 so will be at Death Mode 2. Castle adds +1 again, to reach Death Mode 3, the highest rank in the game.

Console Release Notes

Xbox 360/Steam 2016

• Physical Release? - Yes
• Region Locked? - Yes, but available in all 3 regions
• Arranged Modes - Yes: Version 1.1, Mega Black Label, Mega Black Label Version 1.1
• Online Leaderboards? - Yes
• Tate Option? - N/A - Hori
• Original Arcade Graphics - Yes in 'Arcade' mode (and Xbox 360 can be forced to output 4:3 ratio at 480p)
• Internal Scanlines Generator: No :(
• Graphical Filters: Smoothing On/Off
• Training mode - Yes
• Save Training mode config? - Yes
• Training Mode Configuration:

- Save States - No
- Level Select - Yes
- Customise Resources - Yes, all.
- Save multiple sets of training configurations - No
- Boss Fight Select - No :(
- Mid Boss Fight Select - No
- Save Training Run Replays - No

• Replay Mode - Yes (& can download high scoring replays from Leaderboards)
• Replay Options:

- Can slow playback to 1/16 speed.

Deathsmiles I & II (Steam, PS4, XB1, Switch 2021)

• To be added