You'd think that the Venn diagram for fans of lolita, Japanese goth, and SHMUPs wouldn't show a huge overlap, but as it turns out, the three combined genres command enough of an audience to justify Deathsmiles' extensive journey to PC.
The Japanese studio CAVE (all caps, please), the creators behind Deathsmiles and DoDonPachi have decided the Western Hemisphere is just not the place for their co-op shoot-'em-ups. In an announcement made by their English-speaking representative, Masa-King, the studio is closing its CAVEWorlden Twitter account and the CAVEWorlden word-press website on February 28th of this year. Before this announcement, the blog had not been updated in two years. CAVE noted it will still continue to provide information on the development of its games via the Japanese twitter account.
While perusing Amazon today I noticed that the two player co-op shoot em up, Deathsmiles, is on sale for $22. More specifically, the limited Xbox 360 edition of the game which normally runs $49.99 is only $22. Limited Edition extras include an exclusive Deathsmiles Xbox 360 faceplate, a CD soundtrack and special boxart.
Publisher Aksys Games has just released the Cave developed SHMUP called Deathsmiles on Xbox Live. The full game download will set you back $30 and features two player online and local co-op play.
You know it's a good time to be a gamer when really quirky, niche titles make it over to American shores. Deathsmiles is one such title; it's a tough shoot-em-up of the bullet hell variety, which is pretty scarce these days. Instead of muscled up soldiers or sleek, swift spaceships, though, Deathsmiles features cute little angels with demonic familiars as the primary characters. Topping it all off, the game is only available in a limited edition, with a custom Xbox 360 faceplate, a soundtrack CD, and special sideways packaging. Sound odd? You bet. But this game is from Cave, a company with a pretty great shmup pedigree. So it might just be worth checking out. We've got a small gallery of screens for you to peruse, all full of happy fun angel destruction.
