Deathsmiles

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Deathsmiles Logo.png
Deathsmiles
Deathsmiles Title.png

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.

Branching Paths Through The Game

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

The 6 'Chapter and Verse' (C/V) stages have a selectable Rank of between R1 (easiest) and R3 (hardest), and your choices in these stages influence the difficulty of the Castle and Gorge stages.

Choosing 5 stages at R3 (N.B. the Non-EX Castle counts as R3 for this purpose) will cause your 5th R3 stage to introduce suicide bullets when enemies are defeated. This is known as Death Mode, and has its own rank levels depending on your path. Choosing the Gorge always adds +1 to your existing Death Mode rank from the C/V stages, so the Gorge ALWAYS has suicide bullets. *If* you choose to visit the Gorge, the Castle always adds +1 to the Gorge Death Mode rank!

The paths are as follows:

NON-EX

1) <4 C/V stages at R3 means Death Mode will not be activated at all, and the Castle will therefore have no suicide bullets.

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


EX

3) <5 C/V stages at R3 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 R3 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

  • 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.