Deathsmiles I・II

I spend most of my time in multiplayer lobbies and ranked queues, so sitting down with a pure arcade score-chaser is a deliberate gear-shift - and Deathsmiles I & II earned the time I gave it. This is a horizontal bullet-hell compilation from Cave, one of the most technically disciplined shooter studios ever to exist, ported to PC by City Connection. You get three playable titles in one package: the original Deathsmiles, Deathsmiles Mega Black Label, and Deathsmiles IIX Merry Christmas in Hell - each with multiple modes (Arcade, Normal, Ver 1.1 or Arrange depending on the title). That's a real amount of content for a genre where most releases ship one ROM and call it a day. The core mechanic is what sets this apart from the usual vertical shmup crowd. You shoot left or right independently, which means you're tracking threats from both sides of the screen simultaneously - a pressure model that rewards aggression and pattern memorization far more than passive dodging. The Power Up system is the real hook: collect items off downed enemies until your counter hits 1,000, activate it, and you enter a state where you pass through bullets and deal more damage. The catch is the counter bleeds down fast, so staying aggressive and grabbing pickups before they vanish is the constant loop. It's tight, mechanical, and the kind of system where five more minutes of practice actually shows up in your score. Mega Black Label adds Sakura as a playable character, the Crystal Shrine stage, and a Level 999 difficulty setting that will end you without apology. Version 1.1 lets you manually reposition your familiar with the right stick rather than having it auto-orbit, which meaningfully changes how you play once you understand bullet absorption. Deathsmiles II is the weaker half of the package, and the community broadly agrees on that. The jump to 3D polygons over the sprite work of the original costs it visual charm, and some critics found the port itself rough - slowdown has been flagged, though some argue the slowdown in the original was present by design and that this version is more faithful to arcade timing than the old PC release. The PC port options are barebones: v-sync, fullscreen, and some in-game filter toggles. Turn the filters off immediately. Controller support works fine; I used a DualSense without problems. Keyboard controls for two-player are reportedly awkward enough to ruin co-op without a second pad. Where this stands up is in the training mode. Stage settings, difficulty parameters, and player unit options are all adjustable, which means a genuine entry point for people who've never touched a Cave game before. Online leaderboards are live for each mode of each title, so the score-chase has somewhere to land. Local co-op is in, but online multiplayer is not - that's a real limitation if you were hoping to run it with someone remote. The Steam Deck runs it well at 100% scaling, so handheld play is a legitimate option if that's your setup. If you already own the original standalone Deathsmiles on PC, the calculation is trickier - you're mainly paying for Mega Black Label and IIX, plus the new English translation of the first game. The additional paid DLC character pack is not included by default and is priced high enough to sting. For anyone coming in fresh, though, the volume of modes and the quality ceiling on DS1 make this one of the more satisfying arcade packages available on PC right now. Fred, Scout Team