Be Excellent To Each Other

Well, with Muchi Muchi Pork/Pink Sweets currently winging its way towards me, the last thing I really want to hear right now is that another shmup is being released region-free.

Oh, hello Bullet Soul. You're region-free, you say? Damn.

Yeah, man. Last week I bought Deathsmiles, and over the next month or two, I hope to be picking up Eschatos, MMP & PS, Raiden Fighters Aces (if it hasn't been canned) and Seisou Kouki Strania, and the first two are going to cost about £55 each. I am currently unemployed.

Deathsmiles' 360 mode is definitely the nicest one, but the changes to the slowdown mean that the Item Counter recharging technique can't be used in the same way in certain areas, so Arcade is still the one to use if you're playing for score.

So MMP and PS, I've heard of them but I don't know the deal. Are they Cave games and up to the usual high Cave standards? Also, jap text all over the shop or reasonably easy to follow?

All I've really heard about them is that they're considered a bit "bizarre" by shmup afficionados. Some people apparently love them to death, while others think they're a bit crap. Haven't received them in the mail yet, but expect the full, frank review treatment when they land on the doormat.*





*or maybe I'll just say "yeah, they're alright I suppose", or something like that.

Huzzah!

Won't be able to spend much time with it until tomorrow night or Thursday, but opinions will follow!
(Kind of glad it arrived in a plain brown envelope though).

I haven't played MMP or Pink Sweets yet, Blucey, but the latter is the sequel to Ibara, which was cut very much from the same cloth as Battle Garegga, if you're familiar with those. This means it very probably features a similar medal-collecting scoring system, and all the usual unintuitive Raizing-borrowed elements that go along with it, such as avoiding power-ups and committing strategic suicide to keep the difficulty from soaring sky high. I love Ibara, so I can't wait to check it out, but it's definitely Marmitey stuff.

So after spending a bit of time with the MMP/Pink Sweets double pack, I can heartily endorse it if you've got some spare cash to spend in an extravagant fashion, and don't mind being utterly humiliated by a video game. MMP is the best of the two (I must admit to not really being keen on shmups that insist on dropping a ton of collectables on you, so Pink Sweets is a little bit annoying in that regard), but as a word of warning, it goes completely batshit mental about half-way through stage 2, and having credit-fed it to the end, it pretty much doesn't let up until the final boss.
I don't think I'll ever legitimately see Stage 3 (of either game probably - Pink Sweets get mad hard on Stage 2 as well), but both games are good enough for me to keep trying. And failing.

You're probably not going to get your moneys-worth unless you're a real shmup-nut though, so anyone with a casual interest in the genre would probably be best saving their dosh.

just bought death smiles from zavvi for 14 quid.. it didn't charge me postage to the netherlands, which was odd..


oh and retorg amer has a nice CAVE article

If you like good games and cheap things, mosey on over to Play-Asia and order the Platinum Collection version of Espgaluda II Black Label (due later this month). Like the original port, it's region-free, and at £25-ish costs half as much.

Do you think the girl on the right is strapping on?

Managed to 1CC Strania a few days ago. I think Hard mode is intended as the main one, though, 'cos there's a seventh level and boss on the harder settings. Trying to reach 'em the noo.

Good lord man, you must have been putting some effort into it. I got distracted by Infinity Danger (I won’t mention where the recommendation came from!) which I felt was easier to pick up and play and a little more compulsive. Plus I’m 202 in the world now! I’ll be going back to Strania soon.

Hehe, the Normal mode isn't too tough, mate; I only played it seriously for a few hours spread over a week. The really daunting parts are the 4th and 6th boss battles, but even they're pretty simple once you've seen them a few times. Hard mode is a lot more like serious business, with most of the 'popcorn' enemies actually firing at you, and the larger enemies being more aggressive, etc.

I'm pretty terrible at Infinity Danger, even now that it's been patched to be a lot more playable and forgiving. I think my highest score is about 5 million. Great game, though!

Is it just me or does it appear with Infinity Danger that you start off with a random base ship with one main weapon, say, "missiles" and then it each subsequent levels builds up and up and up until it's a massive missile wielding monster. But you could easily start off with say "lasers" which would then be the predominant weapon on all subsequent levels.

I might be wrong but that's the way it felt every time I've played it.

I was struggling to get to level 9 when I was constantly harranged by lasers for level after level. But I had a cracking turn when the boss seemed to favour slow green blob cannons which I got quite adept weaving in and out of.

My top tip for a decent score: Whenever you get the chance, leave the armaments and get stuck into the core.

The sections of the bosses that are augmented depends on which parts you tend to focus on destroying. It was the same in Warning Forever - whichever parts of the boss you seem to be prioritising will be beefed up on the next one. You can mix up your strategies so that each part is levelled up about equally, but eventually every section/weapon type goes apeshit.

If you tend to attack the front parts as soon as the ship enters the screen (as is only natural), you'll end up with massive front 'legs' that crush you before you can do anything.

I've got a bit better at Strania. I was getting too excited about picking up all the weapons rather than focusing on the best tool for the job at hand.

The 4th boss just pointed at me and went "HA HA DIE". Which I did.

yeah, death smiles has been dispatched!

Got Death Smiles through from LoveFilm yesterday.

It's fucking glorious.

What isn't glorious is having your pad batteries die on you after you've finished 5 stages without losing a life...

Was taken aback by the low res look of the arcade version, but my eyes jumped for joy and clicked their heels when I played the 360 version. Beautiful sprites and backgrounds.

Rosa seems to be the best character so far, thinner stream but much more powerful. Plus what you miss, her familiar usually kills anyway.

The extra character, Sakura, seemed ace at first. Her familiars acted like one of the force options in R-Type final (firing in the direction you have moved from). Shame her shots are piss weak.

...hmmm she's a bit shit on the last two levels though.

New fave is Follett, her dragon familiar can be 'placed' to act a bit like a shield.

Loving this game so far. Those last two levels are harsh though compared to the earlier ones.

I got Deathsmiles on the 360 for £1.99 the other day. Was either a mis price or a clearance but it sold out straight away.

Where was that?

It was at Game

link via another forum but right now its showing as £12.98 - a number of people on the other forum got it at the 1.99 price as well (i did not)

http://www.game.co.uk/Games/Xbox-360/Sh ... h%20smiles

yeah death smiles arrived.. and i'm at home with the flu.. good combi!

Definitely a pricing cock-up, that; it's only been out for a couple of months. It's cool that you got it for so little, but it makes me want to cry that (apparently) the whole lot sold for the same price.

Still, I suppose they'd have only sold about four copies at the standard (though already budget) price anyway. I really hope this is doing better elsewhere...

Trouble Witches Neo is out next week!

I picked up Deathsmiles today for £12.98 from Game. Not allowed it until my birthday however which coincides with Bangai-0 being released on XBLA the next day.

Sleep and marriage are over rated.

deathsmiles xbox360 & esplagaluda on my new iphone 4... bullet heaven!

is that muchi the same as bug panic on the iphone?

Managed to genuinely forget I had bought Deathsmiles and the wife was looking at me like some kind of moron as I unwrapped it this morning saying 'I don't know what this is'

Goldfish boy strikes.

Anyway I've had a few goes and it's bloody lovely. I really like it so far and can see Strania not getting a look in now.

Oh, Happy Birthday?

I've just caved on Deathsmiles for 360. £8 from CEX.

I need to learn how to recharge the jewel counter thingy on that. There's some trick you can do just as it drops to zero that makes it shoot right back up to 1000, which can lead to some seriously massive scores.

Anyone want to tell me whats going on in Deathsmiles? What modes are people playing?

Also bought Bangai-O. Why the fucking fuck do you only get the tutorial once you've bought it?

You should also be able to select "Fury Mode", which is the main game.

Deathsmiles 2X has turned up on the American 'games on demand' thing.

2400M$P.

I don't know if it's possible to grab it via a yank Xbox account or not though and there's no talk of a PAL version yet.

Pisser. Looks like an easy max.

Rising Star Games have just announced at the MCM Expo that they're bringing Akai Katana Shin to the PAL territories! (And as it's RSG, there's a good chance it'll work with US machines, too.)

DDP Resurrection is out on Friday, too.

Rats' cocks! Grev have confirmed that the 360 version of Under Defeat HD will be region-locked.

Zavvi's currently selling DoDonPachi Resurrection for £14.95. Spiffy!

thankx, bought+-

Decent price drop, but I've recently bought Deathsmiles Sp Ed for £9.99 so I'm not wanting another shooter just yet.

That's the one where the new modes (that aren't on the iPhone) cost extra right out the gate right?

Arrange modes A and B are both on the disc. Black Label is an 800-point download, but that was always DLC. It's a completely different game, like. They all are.

Guwange and Silvergun are both half price this week (400 and 600MSP). They're both excellent and rather lavish ports, with more display options than you could possibly need.

The Mega Black Label mode set to 999 difficulty is a bit

What's the deal with the stars that the enemies drop? Do you just have to dodge them (THERE'S BAZILLIONS!) or absorb them somehow? Feel like I'm missing something with that mode.

Ooh! May just add some points and yoink Silvergun. Haven't had a good Shmupping for a while - should really give Otomedius a go as well.

I liked it. This probably means there's something wrong with me

I like it, it's just bewildering.

iOS:
shogun is out now, free for the first level, normally €2, for the rest, temp €1,59, first level feels not that good, japan level better.. still feels like a western developer trying hard to be japanese..

The PAL version of Raiden Fighters Aces that's been in limbo for ages has been picked up by DTP and might be coming out on the 30th of March.