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Deathsmiles Review

by Omar (@siegarettes)

• Deathsmiles
  
• Developer-  CAVE LTD
  
• Publisher- Degica
  
• PC (Steam), iOS, Xbox 360, Arcade
  

A copy of Deathsmiles occupied a shelf at my local game store for a long while when it originally came out for the Xbox 360. I’d take a look at it once in awhile, drawn by the oversized special edition box. Eventually, after glancing at it in a games magazine and playing some short sessions of CAVE’s DoDonpachi, I decided to give it a try. The sales associate was understandably surprised, given obtuse shooters featuring gothic lolitas aren’t exactly a frequent purchase. Thinking back on it, that’s probably the moment I began my descent into bullet hell.

Deathsmiles is a strange game, both in theme and format. Set in a Halloween themed world, you play as a group of gothic lolitas in a bullet hell shooter. The horizontal format further sets it apart from the standards of the genre, introducing elements of environmental traversal and enemies that can attack from either side. You can also choose the order in which you tackle stages, what difficulty each takes place at, and there’s a story that concludes differently for each character, with two endings for each.

In short there is A LOT going on in this game, which, thankfully, fits into compact sessions. You can clear the game in about 30 minutes, but running through it with each character, reaching their endings, and exploring the different approaches and modes will keep you occupied for a good, long while. It’s one of the few games where I appreciate the addition of achievements, as they give you clear goals to strive for and a general guide to familiarizing yourself with the game.

One place where Deathsmiles fails to give you that guidance is in explaining the mechanics and modes of the game. There’s a brief, optional tutorial that will give you the basics of the controls but menus fail to explain how each mode differs nor substantial mechanics such as “Death Mode”; which when triggered causes enemies to fire Ikaruga style retaliatory bullets which need to be blocked with your familiar, a satellite style creature that follows you around and allows you to maneuver attacks into angles and places you can’t. It’s a shame because there’s genuinely a lot of depth here that you’ll likely not understand at a glance. Even with my own playtime across both the Xbox 360 version and this new Steam release, I still feel like I’m learning the pace of the game; especially with the intimidating Mega Black Label mode, which adds another layer of difficulty and remixes a lot.

All that aside, Deathsmiles works because at its core, it remains fun simply to play around with. The art design is splendid, with a good mix of different enemies and environments. The bosses are memorable and the music, the music is just a joy. There’s a spooky mix of organs, electronic instruments and voice samples that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Halloween dance party, then the guitars kick in and it becomes something else entirely. It all builds to an incredible crescendo in the final confrontation, with one of the more ludicrous bosses I’ve ever seen come out of the genre.

Most importantly, Deathsmiles is as deep as you want it to be. While it always remains challenging, lower difficulties give you a lot more leeway than other games in the genre, and you can choose difficulties for each stage individually, so if a particular stage gives you trouble you can drop it down and take it easy. The short length of the sessions is important here too. If you have a bad run, it doesn’t take up much of your time, and if you want to keep playing, you can generally fit in another quick session learning another character or pushing yourself at higher difficulties.

Deathsmiles, at its core, is a game full of the complex systems and satisfying feedback that developer CAVE is famous for, but the structure around it, the variety of paths, difficulties, and modes to play around in, is what makes it one of the less intimidating games to get into. For me, it sits with my favorites in the genre, and this release is no different.