Deathsmiles Xbox 360 port!

EOJ · September 20, 2010, 08:57:03 PM

Quote from: antares on September 20, 2010, 06:10:15 AM
I think this is because the Slowdown is heavily linked to good scoring in DS.

Bingo. I remember GP and I were worried about the original JP version port (before it came out), as we said that the scoring was intricately connected with the slowdown, and even being off a few frames would make some of the scoring sections all messed up, ruining the game. I was really pleased when I discovered the JP Arcade mode was nearly 100% spot on to the PCB, but when I played the NA version, I was aghast. I simply couldn't play through the US version using the scoring techniques I've honed on the PCB and JP port. Consequently, I'm forced to drop lots of points in many stages when I play the US version. Who could think that's a minor problem, or even "fun"? It's like trying to run a marathon with bricks in your shoes. It's zero fun for me to play the US Deathsmiles.

And let's not forget MBL 1.1. It isn't a port from a PCB version, but the US version runs like 2x faster than the JP version. That's no minor problem.

Medal · September 20, 2010, 09:38:34 PM

It annoys me to a degree, but since I'm not too big into DS's scoring anyway, I can live with it. It just makes the game a bit harder, which is sort of nice. I don't think it was exactly the best $50 I ever dropped, but it's a fun game to throw a credit or two at every so often...kinda. I've only played the original 360 mode, and that doesn't get fun until the castle (when it gets REALLY cool), but I hear MBL is great.

Also, as skykid said, nobody knows the difference over here. They'll buy it and say "Wow, what a nice, fast-paced shooting game with 8-year-old skanks and Halloween monsters and stuff!" That's fine by me; hopefully BLEX and/or DFK (personally, I think DFK is the better idea) get localizations as a result.

HVL · September 21, 2010, 01:37:33 AM

Quote from: Medal on September 20, 2010, 09:38:34 PM
It annoys me to a degree, but since I'm not too big into DS's scoring anyway, I can live with it. It just makes the game a bit harder, which is sort of nice. I don't think it was exactly the best $50 I ever dropped, but it's a fun game to throw a credit or two at every so often...kinda. I've only played the original 360 mode, and that doesn't get fun until the castle (when it gets REALLY cool), but I hear MBL is great.

Play all rank 3 w/ EX and come back saying the artificially added difficulty is nice.

The scoring in Deathsmiles is superb, although I can understand if people don't think it's hot in the US version, because they essentially broke it. The forest is really fucked up even in the Japanese 360 mode and it ruins all the fun for me.

EOJ · September 21, 2010, 01:43:37 AM

Quote from: HVL on September 21, 2010, 01:37:33 AM
The forest is really fucked up even in the Japanese 360 mode and it ruins all the fun for me.

Yeah, if it wasn't for that stage, I might actually play 360 mode in the JP version once in awhile. Too bad.

EOJ · September 24, 2010, 11:07:44 PM

$29.99 SE coming next week to the US X360:

http://www.amazon.com/Deathsmiles-Xbox-360/dp/B0042VX73U/ref=sr_1_22?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285380373&sr=8-22

thestreetzking · October 08, 2010, 04:09:34 PM

forgive this stupid question. The arcade version is three buttons right? Shoot left, shoot right and bomb??

How can you map this to an arcade stick? With a controller the triggers are like a machine gun fire, and the a and b buttons are like the laser. Isnt the arcade where you tap button 1 for the machine gun and hold button 1 for the laser??

EOJ · October 08, 2010, 04:13:22 PM

Quote from: thestreetzking on October 08, 2010, 04:09:34 PM
The arcade version is three buttons right? Shoot left, shoot right and bomb??

Yep. In that order.

Quote
How can you map this to an arcade stick?

Just map them to the top left three buttons on the stick.

QuoteIsnt the arcade where you tap button 1 for the machine gun and hold button 1 for the laser??

Yes again. I like to map rapid left shot and rapid right shot to other buttons on my stick, it's particularly helpful in Deathsmiles II.

thestreetzking · October 08, 2010, 04:24:29 PM

LOL you know what it was, on the map controller inputs they show turbo fire, I think thats why I was confused

njiska · October 08, 2010, 08:14:04 PM

I usually go

Shot Left - Shot Right - Bomb
Turbo Left - Turbo Right - Lock Shot

KOA · October 18, 2010, 10:57:56 AM

Someone put up a pretty good video comparison of the US version and the JP version side-by-side, for those that want to see how bad the lack of slowdown is in the US version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUL7wI0wO50

brokenhalo · October 18, 2010, 11:10:32 AM

Quote from: KOA on October 18, 2010, 10:57:56 AM
Someone put up a pretty good video comparison of the US version and the JP version side-by-side, for those that want to see how bad the lack of slowdown is in the US version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUL7wI0wO50

shame they kept pausing to let the J version catch up. i would of like to see exactly how many seconds faster the entire level playthrough is.

also, i feel bad for the people who will only get to play the NA version. after putting about 50 hours into the J release, the NA release felt totally wrong. i think i gave it about 15 minutes and boxed it back up

. hopefully if aksys is able to bring more games over, they won't be butchered as well. it baffles me that cave would do such a thing on purpose.

jyumi · October 18, 2010, 02:54:21 PM

Quote from: brokenhalo on October 18, 2010, 11:10:32 AM
shame they kept pausing to let the J version catch up. i would of like to see exactly how many seconds faster the entire level playthrough is.

also, i feel bad for the people who will only get to play the NA version. after putting about 50 hours into the J release, the NA release felt totally wrong. i think i gave it about 15 minutes and boxed it back up . hopefully if aksys is able to bring more games over, they won't be butchered as well. it baffles me that cave would do such a thing on purpose.

That version is located here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoPv1bi4FOI

The NA version is 2 minutes faster

Van_Artic · October 31, 2010, 08:10:09 AM

good news everyone, the PAL version will have the original slowdowns of the japanese version!

http://www.risingstargames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6253#p6253

totally worth the purchase now.

HVL · October 31, 2010, 09:53:11 AM

Quote from: Van_Artic on October 31, 2010, 08:10:09 AM
good news everyone, the PAL version will have the original slowdowns of the japanese version!

http://www.risingstargames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6253#p6253

Better not to jump the gun yet.

This is the most official information regarding the slowdown situation, posted by some Aksys' PR dude on their boards:

QuoteCave wanted to fix some unintended slowdown in the original, which compromised the level of difficulty in those sections. They upgraded the production environment of the graphics engine, so the U.S. version handles the graphic assets better. They're now working as originally intended, so things will be more difficult.

If we're to trust that, it means the crippled US version has all the intended slowdown in, which RSG plans to keep.

Also, I want a real explanation for this directly from CAVE, not some random asshat defending their sloppy port. It contradicts 100% the one review where they [CAVE] talked about slowdown in their games.

EOJ · October 31, 2010, 02:37:55 PM

Quote from: Van_Artic on October 31, 2010, 08:10:09 AM
good news everyone, the PAL version will have the original slowdowns of the japanese version!

http://www.risingstargames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6253#p6253

Where did you read that? Certainly nowhere in the link you provided.

The guy on the forum there said:

Quote
Cave removed some unintended slowdown for us version.

The rising star games guy replied

Quote
as far as I know, we're keeping the intended slowdowns

He didn't say we're keeping the UNINTENDED slowdowns, and he didn't say it's the same as the JP version! Remember, Cave
said they removed all the "unintended" slowdown from the US version, and just kept the "intended" slowdown. The rising star guy is just repeating the Cave line! So as of right now, nobody should be thinking they're using the JP version's slowdown.

I still think this is just going to be the US version, but we'll see.

Van_Artic · October 31, 2010, 03:02:46 PM

my bad, i jumped the shark right away

i hope it just doesn't turn into another different thing

EOJ · October 31, 2010, 03:05:11 PM

Also keep in mind PR guys for these companies usually don't know what they're talking about. I remember the Aksys PR guy (on Aksys forums) couldn't find out if Agarest was region coded for US and Japan, or just US. So he said "US and Asia, but not Japan", which makes no sense really as there aren't any games region coded that way. Sure enough, when the game arrived, it worked on JP systems, much to the surprise of the Aksys PR guy!

rtw · October 31, 2010, 03:36:31 PM

Quote from: EOJ on October 31, 2010, 03:05:11 PM
Also keep in mind PR guys for these companies usually don't know what they're talking about. I remember the Aksys PR guy (on Aksys forums) couldn't find out if Agarest was region coded for US and Japan, or just US. So he said "US and Asia, but not Japan", which makes no sense really as there aren't any games region coded that way. Sure enough, when the game arrived, it worked on JP systems, much to the surprise of the Aksys PR guy!

So Deathsmiles US works on a Jp XBOX360 ?

EOJ · October 31, 2010, 03:37:47 PM

No, I was talking about their game Record of Agarest War (I just called it Agarest in the post you quoted).

rtw · October 31, 2010, 03:38:48 PM

Quote from: EOJ on October 31, 2010, 03:37:47 PM
No, I was talking about their game Record of Agarest War (I just called it Agarest in the post you quoted).

Sorry my bad

njiska · October 31, 2010, 04:15:33 PM

Quote from: EOJ on October 31, 2010, 03:05:11 PM
Also keep in mind PR guys for these companies usually don't know what they're talking about. I remember the Aksys PR guy (on Aksys forums) couldn't find out if Agarest was region coded for US and Japan, or just US. So he said "US and Asia, but not Japan", which makes no sense really as there aren't any games region coded that way. Sure enough, when the game arrived, it worked on JP systems, much to the surprise of the Aksys PR guy!

Same thing happened with BBCS. The problem is that a lot of these localization companies don't actually have a say in those decisions. Generally when a company like Aksys localizes something all they do is provide the translated script and voice within the specifications the developer allows and foot the bill for publication. All the software development, most of the testing and certainly any decisions about region coding are made by the original developer. Their PR people are left in the awkward spot of having to talk something up, without having direct access to the information they need.

I'm guessing if you gained that information from the forums you probably got it from Belisarius. He's a good guy and I kind of pity the spot he's in. Wasn't too happy when i proved him wrong about the BBCS region code.

Long story short I figure that Rising Star is in the same position, just being spoon-fed information. In other words they don't really know any more than we do until the final code is placed in their hands.

phrenzee · February 11, 2011, 06:14:17 PM

RSG has posted a pretty strategy guide - by EOJ

http://www.risingstargames.com/games/deathsmiles-xbox-360.html
Registration required

EOJ · February 11, 2011, 08:08:28 PM

For the record I gave permission for them to use my guide and I didn't get a dime for this, but that's fine with me as long as they don't sell it.

BTW for those who don't want to register there, here's the direct link to the PDF:

http://www.risingstargames.com/get_file.php?fp_id=208

I think I'll post this news on the front page as well.

zlk · February 11, 2011, 09:42:12 PM

Congrats EOJ, I think this is quite cool.

Aliquantic · February 11, 2011, 09:49:09 PM

That's nicely done

RSG seems to have made a mistake at the end though (or at least I hope it's a mistake) when they say "An Xbox Live Gold account is required to register your score", as a free account is enough for all the other STG, and it'd be a shame to discourage people even more from playing Score Attack...

Aliquantic · February 12, 2011, 02:04:48 AM

On another note, I haven't played any of the previous Western releases, but is it common practice to have separate leaderboards for each region and be unable to look at the other ones? RSG's rationale for separate leaderboards is... a bit odd and seems to miss a large part of the appeal of leaderboards (DFKBL is bad enough already).

EOJ · February 12, 2011, 02:36:02 AM

Quote from: Aliquantic on February 12, 2011, 02:04:48 AM
On another note, I haven't played any of the previous Western releases, but is it common practice to have separate leaderboards for each region and be unable to look at the other ones? RSG's rationale for separate leaderboards is... a bit odd and seems to miss a large part of the appeal of leaderboards (DFKBL is bad enough already).

US versions of RFA and Deathsmiles both exclude the Japanese rankings. This is a great reason why it's still best to own a JP X360 if you really love these games, and if you like to watch top replays and compete online with the best players.

antares · February 12, 2011, 03:19:39 AM

Afaik Raiden IV JP and US share the same leaderboards.

EOJ · February 12, 2011, 03:22:11 AM

Oops. I'll edit that one out of my above post.

hipgnosis · February 12, 2011, 03:56:26 AM

Quote from: EOJ on February 11, 2011, 08:08:28 PM
For the record I gave permission for them to use my guide and I didn't get a dime for this, but that's fine with me as long as they don't sell it.

That is great! Really nice job with the guide. Pretty nice RSG is going this far with the release of this game and not just dumping the US version here. So glad I finally get to try this game. And the price is a joke, 20 euros for this 3 disc set? Probably end up buying two copies.