Initial Impressions: Deathsmiles

It seems like an eternity since I last played a shoot 'em up like Deathsmiles, for some reason this genre of game is very hit and miss with gamers. I always think back to the 80's-90's arcade scene whenever I hear the word shmup, with games like Gradius, Pow 'n Twinbee and R-type probably being some of my favourite games of the genre.


Deathsmiles however fits into the category of pretty f'n weird Japanese shooters, (at least that's where I would put it) yet despite that Deathsmiles is pretty fun and shouldn't be overlooked. One thing that I like about this game is that before starting each stage is that you can pick the difficulty level, so if your finding that the game is a bit to easy you can always up the difficulty level. Cave have really catered for the newbies to the shmup genre. Which is good as it makes the game a lot more accessible than say Ikaruga and won't put people off playing other shmup's.

Deathsmiles features a storyline which I didn't really pay any attention to until the end. Basically 4 girls (selectable characters) who are all friends, have been trapped in another world and are trying to stop some dude from connecting the world they are trapped in to the Demon world. As far as the storyline go it does make a change to the usual crap about fighting off invaders from out of space. (It's probably just a matter of time until we get a storyline about a sperm being ejaculated from a penis and fighting your way to fertilize an egg in one of the more crazy Japanese shmup's)

Spanning about 8-9 stages this game will take about an hour and a half to 2 hours per play through. (although I could be wrong as I just put it on and played until completion without looking at the time) Graphically the game doesn't look to shabby (although it is hard at times to keep up with everything happening on screen as you switch direction to shoot the enemies) Cave have made a pretty good game with Deathsmiles, and the Pal version has been updated with extra modes and tweaks to the original 360 Japanese version. (That originally saw a release around 2-3 years ago)


Deathsmiles while being cheap (£17.99 from play.com) may not hold your attention for more than a day here and there. Especially in today's climate where games are mainly just thrown to one side rather than replayed more than a few times like back in the day, So for these reasons you may want to give the game a rent rather than a purchase. Although if you do like it please purchase the game so we may see other Shmup's being released in the future, and also to show your support for Cave and all the work they do.