Deathsmiles Xbox 360 port!

[Monouchi]

Hope it was not my fault, I ordered DS + a 1400 card from PA yesterday... 

Ha, it's OK.  I just emailed them and told them to just send the stick and the game and forget about the 1400 point card, and they said that's OK. 

Argh...PA just emailed me the same thing...they will ship the 1400 points later. 

[Monouchi]

The game can be display to full screen?

Good question, I really like to fill up the whole screen of my monitor.
You that have got the game, what is the video/picture adjustements options?

[SuperPang]

Why whould you want to stretch a 4:3 image to 16:9. It would look awful, not to mention screw up your diagonal bullet dodging.

[Monouchi]

No stretching... 

But in some videos there is even borders at the top and bottom and that is just bad.

[EOJ]

Bugs reported on 2ch so far:

-One guy said in one Xbox 360 mode run the whole game was in slow motion from start to finish. He reset the console, loaded it up again, and it was fine. He hasn't been able to replicate this since.
-Replays won't save if you have voices turned on
-COOP isn't synchronized properly [not sure about this one]

Overall minor stuff, but let's hope they patch it anyway.

[GaijinPunch]

But in some videos there is even borders at the top and bottom and that is just bad

Please explain how supporting the original resolution is bad.

[Monouchi]

But in some videos there is even borders at the top and bottom and that is just bad

Please explain how supporting the original resolution is bad.

Nevermind.
I was just asking if there were any video options, but I will soon get the game myself. 

[SuperPang]

Anyone getting BGM skipping during saving and occasionally disappearing for a few seconds in game? Tut tut Cave 

Apart from that this is pure quality. The changes in slowdown don't seem to hurt it and 1.1 mode is pretty interesting.

[CHR_AeON]

But in some videos there is even borders at the top and bottom and that is just bad

Please explain how supporting the original resolution is bad.

Nevermind.
I was just asking if there were any video options, but I will soon get the game myself. 

I've just played the 360 mode, so far, but you can stretch/zoom the screen any way you want (left/right & top/bottom), even so that it fully fills a 16:9 screen. Doesn't make much sense playing that way, but it's possible...

[Monouchi]

I've just played the 360 mode, so far, but you can stretch/zoom the screen any way you want (left/right & top/bottom), even so that it fully fills a 16:9 screen. Doesn't make much sense playing that way, but it's possible...

Thanks CHR_AeON for the info. 

[EOJ]

After looking at more full run vids on nico, my opinion on the slowdown accuracy has changed for the better. It's overall quite accurate, and I take back my "50% accurate comment". It's as good as Mushi or better. The main problems are the herky-jerky speed up after slowdown (it's noticably less smooth compared to the arcade), and important slowdown missing from some boss patterns. Both problems were also in the Mushi port, incidentally.

I should have this tomorrow (hopefully), whereupon I can really sink into a detailed analysis of the technical aspects of the port.

[hermosaguy]

I have put in a few hours to this so far and I'm really enjoying myself.  I am coming down off the MBL kick and finding 1.1 is harder.  I do appreciate the hi res, but the low res backgrounds really take away.

[EOJ]

According to the official blog DSMBL was scheduled for 4/29, but due to a problem with it starting properly after being loaded, they have to go back and fix it, and it will be delayed a bit. It doesn't sound like the delay will be too long, though there is no mention of the new release date for DSMBL.

[EOJ]

A letter from Asada (the port's producer) is on the blog now. It states they are working on a patch due to two major bugs: 1) a problem playing the game after an install, and 2)a glitch where you lose a life (instead of gaining one) when you collect a life item.

[Atstroboy]

His someone planning on writing a proper review of this port? Don't know if this is something you usually do but could be definitely interesting.

[EOJ]

My package arrived today!




The otomedius stick is awesome. It has a Sanwa stick like the HRAP EX, but for some reason it feels much better (shorter throw too). I love it.

I had one play through in X360 and ver 1.1. First impressions:

-Backgrounds are pretty ugly on an LCD (blocky beyond belief)
-Bullets and character sprites look quite nice
-Overall it looks good, but sorry, not close to how good the arcade version looks
-The slowdown is worse than I had hoped. First, when the game slows down, it goes slower than the arcade, and second, when it speeds up out of the slowdown it does it faster than the arcade. The result is rather disorienting. As of right now, this is indeed worse than the Mushi port in regard to slowdown.
-Slowdown on bosses is messed up in many places. Quite frustrating really.
-The timing is off when you bomb out of power up mode to get the gold to jump back to 1000, but it seems to work OK (I did it twice in one run).


I think this port is acceptable, and I'll try and get accustomed to the new slowdown.

[Shalashaska]

So I've been really tempted to take up Excellent on their ~$1000ish MBL offers. You think this port is sufficient or should I bite the bullet?

[EOJ]

For me, this port is good enough to not need the PCBs (DS & DSMBL). For one thing I really don't like horis enough to want to buy the PCBs (I prefer to keep my supergun purely for TATE shmups). But another reason is one I just discovered:

Arcade mode is pretty damn perfect in regard to the slowdown.

I was shocked and pleased beyond belief to discover this. I think they must have made an emulator and emulated it, because it's spot on (whereas Xbox 360 mode is not). So what do you do, play the prettier X360 mode with the messed up slowdown, or the near-perfect Arcade mode with the blocky, ugly graphics? I have to say, I played Arcade mode, and I was scoring exactly as I did on the PCB. It just "felt right". When I play X360 mode it looks nice, but it doesn't feel right.
So I'll probably stick with the uglier, but accurate Arcade mode. I need to try it on my RGB monitor - it'll look better there than on my LCD. I hope and pray they make a scanline patch for this game. That would be so nice, and require very little effort on their part.

I also have to say ver 1.1 is awesome, and well worth the price of this port by itself. Unlike the other Cave arrange modes (that Cave has made), it's much harder than the original game.

Features of Ver 1.1:

-power up at 100 on the counter
-multiplier constantly reduces any time you are not in power up mode
-You get full large gold crowns once you pass 10,000 on the counter (just like DS, but unlike DSMBL)
-the counter seems to go down much faster in power up mode than in DS or DSMBL
-You only get a bullet cancel when you power up at 1000.
-only 1 bomb per life
-bombing to refill item counter does not work

For Shalashaka: keep in mind DSMBL will also offer both Arcade (accurate emulation) and X360 (pretty graphics but likely less accurate slowdown) modes.

[adverse]

Please let us know how arcade mode looks on your RGB. 

I'm looking to get a new monitor right now and considering that or a CRT.

[THE]

Arcade mode is pretty damn perfect in regard to the slowdown.

I was shocked and pleased beyond belief to discover this. I think they must have made an emulator and emulated it, because it's spot on (whereas Xbox 360 mode is not).

I'm not wondering much about this, as I have read in an interview on this very site, that Ikeda was personally in charge for slowdown management. Besides that, the "SH-3" has tremendously CPU power and slowdown should be rather intentional on their latest games or at least it's more controllable as on SH-1/2/m68k CPUs.

[EOJ]

Ikeda was responsible for ver 1.1 and X360 mode, not Arcade mode. And if all the slowdown is all programmed, then why is X360 mode not nearly as accurate as Arcade mode? If Arcade mode is emulated as it appears to be, then it makes sense that Ikeda wouldn't need to program any slowdown there.

Also, you must not know much about SH3 hardware, or you haven't played many of the recent games. The hardware can't handle that much before it starts to stutter (see Daifukkatsu, DSMBL, MMP, Futari BL (where the on-screen display disappears when there is too much on screen!), etc).

I'm not the only one who has discovered that Arcade mode is more accurate (gameplay-wise) than X360 mode - on the current leaderboards for the port the high score in Arcade mode is 555mil, while it is only 440mil in X360 mode.

[EOJ]

Alright, I've spent more time with Arcade mode, and I am really amazed at how perfect it is. All of the slowdown is where it should be, at the speed it should be. Everything is smooth as silk. I don't see myself going back to X360 mode. Perfect gameplay > prettier graphics.

This is Arika quality "perfect" we're talking about (sans the 240p output, of course). Just give me the scanline patch and I'll be in heaven.

[THE]

Ok I thought he was responsible for Arcade too. My posting wasn't meant critical towards your post, as your response seems to imply.
Hmm, regarding slowdown on SH-3, I'm pretty sure it's caused by bad/lazy programming then. Hell, I can do easily 172 bullets on NEOGEO at 60fps and it not even has remotely the power of CPS-2/PGM/SH-3. Of course 172 is nothing compared to today's cave standards. On SH-3 1000-1500 bullets should be easily doable though. But I have to admit I don't know their latest games, as my PCB buy limit is at 500 EUR. I wish, I could program someday on a SH-3 though .

Maybe the slowdown is GPU generated and not CPU wise? As their games are vsynced this could affect the games performance. Do they have sprite flickering on the latest games? If not it could indicate that the GPU is using a full screen framebuffer and draws always the whole spriteload. It wouldn't be a fault of the programmer then, it would be clearly a hardware issue. Anyway it's just speculation and their games wouldn't work without slowdown anyway, wouldn't they?.
But it's good to see, that they seem to have a good emulation of their SH-3 hardware. Something 5pb can't say about their PGM stuff. This will hopefully affect the PCB prices soon.

[EOJ]

I understand where you're coming from. As for sprite flicker, it does indeed occur - in Futari Black label, for example, when you trigger a large number of multipliers the on screen display flickers and disappears for a second or two, and your character's sprite flickers (and sometimes disappears for over 1 second). Reminds me of when I used to play NES games as a kid! 

Slowdown in SH3 games doesn't seem too dependent on bullet count - rather the number of sprites and your shot affect it greatly. I guess these tax the GPU more than the bullets. I'm no programmer though, so you would know better than I.

The good news is if Arcade mode is indeed emulated, they could release any of their SH3 games on the X360 quite easily and cheaply - probably a lot of it on XBLA (Muchi Muchi Pork and Galuda II have both been mentioned by Cave staff as possibilities). And these would be MAME-quality in their accuracy.

[SuperPang]

I find Xbox 360 mode pretty smooth, it hasn't frustrated me yet. I'd go as far as saying Arcade is almost unplayable on a HDTV. If you want the authentic arcade experience its time to dig out that CRT. Theres a frightening amount going on without slowdown in 1.1 mode. I bet the Xbox 360 version of MBL rank999 is a larf!

[Strider77]

I've played all mode on my set up in several ways.....    I've tried it in 480p and 1080i on my sony CRT. The results are quite nice....  alot nicer than on a LCD that I tried it on.

Arcade mode looks blocky but it's str8 up linedoubled and seems to have no filtering. If you played arcade mode and sent the video via a VGA cord to an emotia, then out to a RGB monitor it should look VERY close to the arcade board.

The enhanced visual modes look pretty damn good all things considered my a high res CRT. LCD looked ok also...   but not as nice.

I also was shocked by the results of the enhanced visuals going to a regular standard def. TV.....   I took it to a friends house and it looked great actually. I would say it looked the best like this. I imagine it would really nice via a low res RGB monitor.

Regardless, if cave is kind enough to add a scanline option for arcade mode....  this port will be fantastic in my eyes. So much content and extras.

[Strider77]

my typing was awful above...     sorry, been up all night.

[GaijinPunch]

I have piles of shit to dig through, but I gave 1.1 a whirl.  Very fun.  Glad I bought this...even if MBL is a complete dud (which I'm sure it's not).  Takes a while to get into the mode of leaving your option on the bad guys to get a lot more points.  2nd credit and I got to the canyon (880 mil).  I'm sure that will suck by tomorrow though.

[seiatsu]

My game hasn't arrived yet, unfortunately. I guess it will come tomorrow. I've been watching this thread from the beginning. However, through it all..I think I've got it all twisted up in regards to the differences between each mode. Obviously, arcade mode is just a straight port. However, can someone give me a brief summary of gameplay differences from mode to mode (360, 1.1, MBL). Also, which modes support the updated graphics and which do not. Just want to be sure I'm clear on all this as I think I've gotten some things mixed up along the way.



I really hope this arrives tomorrow. It's been a long wait.

[trev1976]

ill have the game here soon but no JAP console , ive always got my 21" RGB Scart TV out ready for these types of games , can someone please hook this game upto a Low res CRT RGB screen in arcade mode and post some pics 

Thanks