DeathSmiles, after having been out for over a month, has finally been reviewed by Gamespot today. It got an 8.0, and having had the game since release, I agree. While this is a very good game, it is by no means for everyone. This is due to the game's arcade roots, which means that instead of letting you win on your first try, the game would kill you quickly if you screwed up. This game is not one of the quarter munchers of yore, but still demands a skilled player. The easiest difficulty setting (level 1) is between what most games call "normal" and "hard". Level 3 is a bit above the special extra hard difficulty that most games have. Level 999 (the difficulty level above 3) is just as large a jump as the numbers imply. The average time from start to game over for a newbie is less than 2 minutes on this difficulty. However, there is always a way to dodge the maelstrom of bullets, regardless of how difficult it may be.
This game is not for casual gamers or anyone looking for an easy game, especially not if you're looking for all the achievements. It does have easier difficulty levels so that newbies can play it, but not if you don't make an effort. If you're looking for a game that will grind you into paste and than tell you how terrible you are, the game's harder difficulty levels will be sufficient. This game has the hardest achivement in the US, and to date nobody has earned it outside of the easier Japanese version.
This being an arcade game(and by that I mean you had to put ￥100 into the machine every time you wanted to play it, not it being on a download service), the game is not at all about seeing the ending, and is instead mainly about getting a high score, most particularly getting the highest score among all the people you know. Think about it this way: almost every game today has some sort of multiplayer. Instead of copying everyone else, the multiplayer is a competition to see who can play the single player game the best. As such, there is no tactical triangle, where A beats B which beats C which beats A. The only impact on your game is you, allowing you to focus on improvement rather than finding a way to beat Player X. This game is centered around improving oneself.
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