Death Smiles Mega Black Label [CAVE 2008]

[adverse]

4)The Canyon and the Castle stages are exactly the same as in Deathsmiles at full rank 3, even if you do full rank 999 up until then.

The guy who made the movie wrote that maybe you have to fulfill certain conditions to get 999 versions of the levels.  For instance he dies at least once before he gets to the EX levels right?  Maybe you have to no-miss it all. 

[EOJ]

I doubt that. The only thing a no miss may unlock in this game is a TLB.

[EOJ]

Looks like you were right, Adverse:

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm5059297

The vid shows that if you no miss up through the end of the ice palace with full lv999 rank from the start of the game, you get a little scene with Jitterbug, and the Canyon and Castle are at lv999. More bullets, faster bullets, and the boss patterns are a lot harder.

[adverse]

So are you going to pick it up now?   

Looks like enough bullet hell for anybody. 

Wonder what happens if you can somehow get to the end of 999 mode without missing.

[EOJ]

Nah, I won't buy this until it's half price or more (~$1000). Will probably have to wait until next summer for that. Fine with me,
I still don't think I'll like the game as much as vanilla Deathsmiles.

[EOJ]

ABI has cleared the game on lv999 rank. Took him 2 weeks.
Now he says he's going to try for a no-miss clear.

[markedkiller78]

I can't clear my kitchen in 2 weeks 

[innerpattern]

I have the same problem markedkiller 

[EOJ]

I finally bought this game and it's been shipped to me, I should have it by Tuesday or Wednesday. Looking forward to finally trying it out. 

[KOMA]

Nice shot
I wish i can afford it this day but i'm currently looking for a vanilla DS and/Or a IBL.

What is the MBL price this day? 130k?More?

[SuperPang]

I think he got it for 100k, which is a great price. I won't have this for some time though. 100k in sterling right now is about what a 180k game was this time last year.

[EOJ]

Yeah, I nabbed a good deal off YAJ.

[KOMA]

Wow,100k is it actually a good deal.Let me know when you sale it up :p

[EOJ]

Yeah, it depends whether I end up really liking it or not. If I don't absolutely love it, I'll probably sell it in a few weeks (for what I paid).

[hermosaguy]

Yeah, I nabbed a good deal off YAJ.

I can't wait for the write up!  I was on the fence about this one but opted for the original DS.

[EOJ]

Just got my kit this afternoon, and played for about an hour.

Things I like:
-The new scoring system (I love the power up at 500)
-Higher skull values (each plain one adds 3 to your item counter)
-you get skulls when you cross 500 on the counter from enemies that previously didn't drop skulls (and never drop skulls in DS)
-you suck in skulls a lot easier, with a wider "suck in" range (similar to Futari BL)
-The new ice stage is *awesome*. A lot harder than it looks too.
-The rank 999 levels are a great challenge, and really makes the original DS seem watered down in the challenge department in comparision (in the first 6 stages)
-Some of the colors look brighter, and some of the bullets have a pinkish hue, instead of the pure purple of DS
-suicide bullets from bosses when you play on rank 3
-some boss patterns have been tweaked (for the better).
-Sakura is a lot of fun to play. Her dual options make the later stages (like the Ice Palace) easier, but her weaker shot makes boss fights harder, so it's a tradeoff.
-The other characters seem to be rebalanced - Windia is beefed up a bit, Follett seems a bit stronger, and Rosa is slightly toned down. Overall it all feels better balanced compared to DS.
-It's easier to time the "refill", so you don't really need to do the annoying bomb refills anymore (unless you want to).
-No need to suicide any more.

Things I don't like:
-Still no option in the dipswitches to turn off the long, boring in-game cinemas.
-Not sure if I like how the suicide bullets no longer add to your score nor to your item counter - they're pretty much worthless in terms of score. But I guess they had to compensate for the higher skull values and quicker power-up ability.
-Entering power-up mode still isn't quite quick enough - there is a split second delay that can cost you lives. Also, having an option to use the D button to enter power up mode would have been nice.

After playing this it might be hard to go back to the original DS.

[adverse]

Things I don't like:
-Not sure if I like how the suicide bullets no longer add to your score nor to your item counter - they're pretty much worthless in terms of score. But I guess they had to compensate for the higher skull values and quicker power-up ability.

Yeah I didn't like this either.  This was one of the funner parts of death mode in the original DS, even if I sucked at it.

Is it me or do options have a bigger hit box for absorbing suicide bullets in MBL?

[EOJ]

do options have a bigger hit box for absorbing suicide bullets in MBL?

I don't think so.

[Gwyrgyn]

Suicide bullets ARE worth points if you absorb them as far as I can tell, but they are worth very little and it doesn't increase your counters or anything obviously. More important than that though, if you activate Power Up, you can cancel all of those Suicide bullets, so in some places you can actually score a boat load of points by filling the screen with them and activating. So, they aren't entirely worthless even if they are mostly worthless just to block.

[EOJ]

Yeah, you're right.

Something I discovered about the scoring, in case anyone is interested: you have to tap shot really fast on the bosses (when you're close to them)
to jack up the counter. I kept wondering why if I held the laser near them the counter would increase, but not nearly as much as it does in the superplay vids I've seen. I then tried fast tapping, and was surprised to see the counter skyrocket. Very similar to Mushihimesama in this regard - might want to flick autofire on the bosses, if you have it.

[GaijinPunch]

might want to flick autofire on the bosses, if you have it.

9000TB for the win!

[EOJ]

After some more tests today, the good news is you don't have to tap too fast for the counter to jack up quickly. Just use the same tempo as tapping shot during the stages.

[EOJ]

I forgot to mention my kit came with a regular CAVE/AMI box. No fancy DSMBL sticker on it. I remember an auction on YAJ for the box and art, right after the game was released last October, and it had a sticker on it. But I've never seen another one since. This one on ebay similarly lacks a sticker:

http://cgi.ebay.com/FULL-KIT-JAMMA-JAPAN-CAVE-DEATH-SMILES-MEGA-BLACK-LABEL_W0QQitemZ260337985790QQihZ016QQcategoryZ13716QQssPageNameZWD1VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2el1247

Anyway, not really a big deal for me, but I know some of you are sticker happy collectors. So don't freak out if you buy the game and there's no fancy
sticker on the box. My theory is they only put the stickers on the first batch they sent out.

[zlk]

Speaking of the elite fancy sticker, I e-mailed a distributor about buying DSMBL.  I asked about the sticker and they said DSMBL never came with a sticker on the box according to cave.  So I sent the vendor a picture of the sticker on the box which they sent to cave.  Here is the response:

   Thank you for your email with photo attached.
   We sent it to CAVE and they are so surprised to see it.
   Because they never do it . This is first time to see it.
   So this is not an original  who made it by themself not by CAVE

Interesting.

[zakk]

Oh dear. (and lol)

[zlk]

I am working on an ice palace + canyon clear.  Is there any advantage to going in a particular order?  Right now I am going Ice Palace to Canyon and getting crushed on the canyon stage. 

[GaijinPunch]

Since the Canyon is harder (way harder) you will waste much less time if you do it first and fuck it up.  The up side to the Crystal Palace is that you can easily get your multiplier up to 100,000.

[zlk]

Whats the easiest character to get through the canyon/ice palace?  I am playing with sakura now but think maybe windia might be ok.  I can't play casper at all. 

[adverse]

Asada mentions in the 360 interview that MBL 1.1 release date will be announced soon.

MBL 1.1 will have a training mode for it and MBL regular, and there will be a title update to give people that don't buy MBL 1.1 access to training mode for the regular version.

[EOJ]

That's great news.

I wish they'd reprint DS with DSMBL and DSMBL 1.1 all on one disc, with all patches, training modes, etc applied. I'd pay good money for that! For example, I'd much rather spend $90 on that than on a superplay DVD (like DDPDFK).

The port sold about 50K, that seems like enough for a 'greatest hits' version, with everything on one disc. I can dream...