So I got (the North American release of) DeathSmiles last week and since then it’s been about the only Cave shooter I’ve been playing.

I’ve been working mainly in 360 mode, using Broken-Tier Slut Rosa. Unlike many other bullet hell shooters, 360 and Arcade modes are less harsh on mistakes. Whereas Espgaluda II is almost as restart-y as Raiden Fighters Aces, and bombspamming your counter away Mushihime-sama Futari Original can make your face turn beet red (you throw the stick against the ground and start swearin’), vanilla DS allows you to make some errors and still keep raising your score at the same rate. DS’s scoring system may come off as totally dumbshit to people who like their games DOJ-strict or Garegga-strict, but you still need to survive if you want to get far enough to reach your goals.

Up until now I’ve mainly done level 3 only four times to avoid Death Mode, so I can see the entire game. However, I’ve started experimenting with Death Mode, in order to train myself to tame those damned suicide bullets. Having suicide bullets to eat changes the game up quite a bit, forcing you to herd the bullets so you don’t trap yourself into an “IMA DA, HIROW!” situation, while using your familiar to suck up the bullets, which like skulls and crowns add to the counter. If I can master Death Mode, I can turn out much higher scores than I’m capable of without it.

I’ll probably delve into Mega Black Label another time. As for Ver 1.1 (both vanilla and MBL), if I want to be able to easily move my familiar without risking slamming into a bullet (which I’m guessing makes up a majority of the gameplay), I have to ditch my Seimitsu’d FSTE in favor of a 360 controller. And I don’t like using the 360 controllers for shmups. FML.