Death Smiles: Difference between revisions

* [[All There in the Manual]]:* The manual in the localized US version explains every aspect of their game with tender, loving care. Quite unusual for a shmup. Character and world backstories, point systems, variations between modes. The manual even gives you the game's own exploits for finding 1ups (life ups) and getting your score really high.

* [[An Asskicking Christmas]]: The second game, which takes place at Christmas time and involves another round of blowing up a bunch of demons.

* [[Animal Motifs]]: Each character's wings matches their [[Fairy Companion]]. Windia is an owl, Casper is a bat, FolletFollett is a dragon, Rosa is a fairy and Lei is a cherub. Sakura is a "witch", not an "angel" and instead flies on a classic broomstick. And Supe, since her Familiar is the ghost of an undead demonic monster, has strange, bony wings with ragged-looking membranes a worrying shade of red-purple stretched between them. She manages to make them look cute though.

* [[Big Damn Heroes]]: How your character makes an entrance at the Port or Lake Village Stage.

* [[Big Damn Villains]]: Bosses get an entrance in ''Deathsmiles IIX''. Because they are loud and take up time, you have the option to turn these scenes off.

* [[Brutal Bonus Level]]:* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3lkUru2HY4 The Gorge] in all versions, the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1-dQJUXkvE Ice Palace] in ''Mega Black Label''. The former is [[That One Level|extremely]] [[Nintendo Hard|hard]], not recommended even on a scoring run unless you can finish it.

** The Ice Palace could almost count as a [[Bonus Stage]], if not for failing some of the major criteria --: if you walk in there capped at 1000 items, expect to STAY in super mode for the bulk of the level, and max out your life gauge, too. 11,918,736,259 points in one stage at the cost of increasing the difficulty a bit? I'm there.

* [[Contemptible Cover]]: The image on the case itself is relatively mild, but you may have some explaining to do if any friends are rummaging through your game cabinet and come across the case showing gothloli girls being cuddly with each other. The [https://web.archive.org/web/20140623155545/http://www.covershut.com/Xbox-360-Covers/44478-Death-Smiles-2010-Ntsc-Disc.html the picture of Rosa on the NA disc] won't help your case much.

* [[Creepy Doll]]: In the second game: two optional bosses in the form of a gigantic teddy bear with a big bulge in its crotch and an eye hanging out, and a gigantic rabbit doll. The final stage has a number of evil cherubs with red glowing eyes who laugh while their heads spin around ''[[The Exorcist|Exorcist]]''-style.

* [[Darker and Edgier]]: The story of ''Deathsmiles IIX''.

* [[Difficulty by Region]]: According to test runs by some players, the US version has less slowdown, making it more difficult than the Japanese version. In some cases, the US version runs at an average speed of 150% that of the Japanese version. This leads to some [[Fridge Logic]] when you consider that American players on average have less experience with [[Bullet Hell]] games than Japanese players. Cave eventually admitted to optimizing the code for the US region, and in turn, removing slowdown in numerous spaces. As of this writing, a patch has just come out for the North American version and according to players it brings the level of slowdown closer to the Japanese 360 version.

** [[Easy Mode Mockery]]: Outside of arcade mode, don't expect to extend your life gauge. In arcade mode, you only get to pick it twice.

* [[Fan Service]]:* Rampant when it comes to the art (the main menu screen gives a clear shot of FolletFollett's considerable cleavage, among other things), but mostly absent from the game itself with the exception of one of FolletFollett's endings.

* [[Giant Space Flea From Nowhere]]: Arguably* {{spoiler|Tyrannosatan}}. He has no real relevance to the plot; he simply shows up from the portal to the demon world without warning and ''eats'' the [[Big Bad]] after you've beaten him.

*** To make this even worse, that one secret achievement has a description that sounds like a translated version of one of Japanese version's normal achievements despite it being triggered by something different. {{spoiler|1=[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KckHNYPQwQY With Sakura as one of the players, you must go through the gate in Two-player mode.]. Because of how the game handles having two players, Sakura gets her third ending instead of the normal "stay" ending}}.

** With ''Deathsmiles IIX'' untranslated, and a lack of the high-quality instruction manual of the first game, the game's learning curve soars, leaving players to hunt on youtube[[YouTube]] on how to score high.

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHfNpoKFC14 One of the first stages is even ''called'' Halloweentown.].

* [[Hot Springs Episode]]: {{spoiler|In FolletFollett's second ending in ''Deathsmiles IIX''}}.

** In the second game, at first, the only playable characters were Windia, Casper, Supe and Lei. Rosa and Follett return for the consoles, making the canon up in the air --... well, except for Rosa; she may not be playable, but she clearly appears as an NPC in the introduction for Supe.

* [[Ominous Latin Chanting]]: The Final Stage of ''Deathsmiles IIX'' is set to rock with ''Ave Maria'' in the background...

* [[Pinball Scoring]]: Any mode that isn't vanilla Arcade or 360 mode, in which high scores tend to be in the 8-9 digit range. ''Mega Black Label'' 360/Arcade is in between 360/Arcade and 1.1 as far as craziness goes (between 100 million and 2 billion). 1.1? There's a reason the first [[Every Ten Thousand Points|extend]] is at 30,000,000 and the second is at ''1,000,000,000''. ''Mega Black Label 1.1'' scores tend to have ''eleven digits''. Pretty much the only other commercial shmups that exceed this kind of scale are Takumi's games (''[[Giga Wing]]'' series and ''Mars Matrix'').

* [[Public Domain Soundtrack]]: The last boss in a shump game [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRN0E4Zek6k#t=2m20s is fought to Bach, Toccata and Fugue.]. And it's awesome.

** In the ''Mega Black Label'' versions of the first game, the [[True Final Boss]] is {{spoiler|Bloody Jitterbug}}. In the console port of the second game, the [[True Final Boss]] is {{spoiler|Pigeon Blood Jitterbug}}.

* [[Token Mini-MoeLoli]]: Although arguably the entire cast qualifies, Casper was, at 11, originally the only child among a group of youthful-looking teens. Then Supe came along as a playable character in ''Deathsmiles II'', as well as getting a cellphone game. She's only '''7''', and so [[Moe]], it hurts. Supe is quite possibly the Grand Duchess of [[Token Mini-MoeLoli]].