Glad to hear you're enjoying it. There is no other shooter in my collection that I pull our and play more than Gate of Thunder. I never get tired of it.

@Corbie: Soooooo....where are those impressions you promised us.

Oh yeaaaahhhhh! Well Deathsmiles was already a fantastic shooter. Great visuals, beautifully orchestrated soundtrack, and some flat-out intense multi-directional shooting action. Now Cave have taken all of these already impressive aspects and somehow managed to polish it up even more for the Xbox 360 release. The new Xbox 360 version and its unique controls bring a whole new spin on the way you can approach the game. Now while most purists will likely stick with the standard version and controls, this updated version will definitely broaden the appeal of the game to those who might not be as seasoned a shooter fan as others are.

The visuals are the biggest change and they look absolutely stunning on an HDTV. SUPER sharp! And if you've got a good Dolby system, this game will knock the freaking walls down. I would love to see this game come to the US and Europe, but I doubt it will. A real shame considering how amazing a shooter this truly is. Now if you'll excuse me, I hear the game calling me now.

** And a word of warning to the purists out there: The slowdown is quite a bit less in this Xbox 360 version which does make some parts of the game (like the haunted willow tree with the apples) quite a bit harder to manipulate if you're trying for big points. Keep that in mind.

@Corbie: Great to see you forgetting about your readers

Don't take it personally. I got busy trying to finish up the Game Boy special and let this slip. They were supposed to have Mega Black Label available for download when this game was released, but it's still not available. I was curious about this version because I've never had the chance to play it.

@ Corbie
I decided to check out Death Smiles on YouTube since its the main topic of discussion on this thread. I have to admit that I am absolutely blown away by this game! WOW! I must play this! I see it is available on Play-Asia.com but will it work on my XBOX 360? I assume it works on your 360 but do you have some kind of mod on your system to enable play of region-locked games? I'm sure the chances of this coming to the U.S. are pretty slim so this is probably my best option, right? This would make a killer XBLA game though! Did you get the Death Smiles control stick too?

I have a Japanese Xbox 360 that I use to play imports and yes, Deathsmiles is region locked. I even tried it out on my US Xbox 360 to make sure. As for the stick, I have the Hori Real Arcade EX-SE stick that features the Seimitsu joystick and buttons. I prefer it to the Sanwa stick that's in the Deathsmiles stick. Maybe it's because I have a Seimitsu stick on my Egret 2 cabinet, who knows.

If you can appreciate an absolutely amazing shooter, give Deathsmiles a try. It's great!

I wish I could play Deathsmiles but sadly I only have an American XBOX 360! I guess I just have to hope that they port this over one day! Thanks for your advice!

Well you never know, they've come up with boot discs and other cheats to get past hardware lockouts before, maybe someone will do the same for the Xbox 360 eventually. And I too hope someone in the US will eventually bring this game to the US. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. Take care and enjoy those shooters!

corbie should start a site: shmuppets.com

@Corbie
Hey, I just downloaded Blazing Lazers and I absolutely love it! I never owned a TG-16 and I am finally getting to experience all the awesome shooters it had! Just to let you know, the God of Game difficulty mode in Blazing Lazers does work! The Y and X buttons on the classic controller act as the turbo buttons; you just hold select plus Y and X then you can cycle through normal dog, hard human, super-mania, and god of game modes. For now I'm sticking with hard human because the harder settings are pure madness! Speaking of games made by Compile; do you think we will ever get The Guardian Legend on the Virtual Console? Perhaps you could do a retro review for it? What do you say?

Great to hear the codes work. And as for Guardian Legend, it's a great shooter. I might have to do a retro review for it sometime. I think there's a chance we'll see it on the VC. Would make a nice addition.

@Corbie
Hello there, nice thread you got here, thanks to Bahamut ZERO, are you going talk more about some other rare shmups?, maybe one that we can get for PC .

Also, can I ask for some advise? I wanted to DL an horizontal shmup (since I already own some verticals) from VC, but I only have 600 wiipoints, is there anything good for that? Thanks.

Semi-related question...
What is the deal with horizontal versus vertical shooters? Ignoring the huge difference it makes on widescreen TVs (playing Joint Strike and Soldner X on PS3, both are quite different experiences), what difference does it make to go in a different direction when a full screen TV is basically square in shape? Could we not just flip the TV on its side and turn a vertical shooter into a horizontal shooter and vice versa? Or is there some inherent style difference that makes fans want to separate the two?

I have a few of each, though mostly horizontal, on VC, and I always wondered that, especially when Life Force came out with its seemingly pointless alternating horizontal / vertical perspectives.

Ive never been too good wth these kinds of games, I tend to overload and lose track of where I am because thers too much action. I would play Forgotten Worlds on the Megadrive like nothing else back when I was a kid though, but only in two player mode, one player mode just gameovered me on the first level :{

I bought a PC controller not too long ago that came with a shmup on it's install disc, I dont remember the name right now, aside from the "II" in its name, and it was really memorable for having ridicolously good MIDI-like music and explosions so numerous they were the reason I game-overed every time. Also had a two-player feature I think I'll boot up that computer to see what game it is later.

I downloaded Cho Aniki because of its nature, and managed to get to the last level after hours of perserverance, too bad its now gotten to the point I cant manage anymore, haha. Great game though, my favourite is the buffed out train that reminds me of Thomas the Tank Engine, hahaha

@Corbie
I just wanted to ask for your impressions of Super Star Soldier. That is a game that I was considering getting a long time ago but held off after hearing negative things about the brutal and unfair difficulty. I have Soldier Blade already so should I just save my points or give it a try? Would you recommend Final Soldier instead?

Final Soldier is a lot more manageable as far as difficulty goes. Super Star Soldier is brutal. And this coming from someone who spend most of their free time buried in bullet hell shooters. It's almost difficult to the point of not being fun anymore. I don't mind a game being challenging, but Super Star Soldier just feels a bit cheap at times. That's just my own personal opinion. I still like it alright, but I'd much rather play Soldier Blade or Final Soldier any day!