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CITY CONNECTION launched the Death Smile 1+2 collection on Switch, PS4, and Xbox One on December 16, 2021. This game is a ported version of the "Death Smile" series of side-scrolling shooters published by CAVE Corporation, including "Death Smile", "Death Smile: Super Black Label Edition", and "Death Smile IIX: Merry Christmas in the Demon World" (hereinafter referred to as "Death Smile IIX"). On the day of release, the game launched a DLC linked with CAVE's mobile game "Gothic Magical Girl: Concluding a Contract" (hereinafter referred to as "Magical Girl"), players can not only use the characters in "Magical Girl", but also experience the rich elements such as the linkage plot of the two games.
To celebrate the release of the Death Smile 1+2 collection, the editorial board of FamiCom conducted an exclusive interview with the developers of CITY CONNECTION. The interview revolves around the development of the linkage DLC, and also talks about the development process of this work and the charm of the work.
Mr. Nobuhiro Yoshikawa (second person from left, hereinafter referred to as "Yoshikawa"), city connection is the representative director
Mr. Kei Watanabe (far right, hereinafter referred to as "Watanabe"), a city connection employee, is responsible for the production of the plot, lines, and character appearance of the linkage DLC in this game
Mr. Chantake (third person from left, hereinafter referred to as "Chantake"), a city connection employee, is responsible for developing the self-machine (player-controllable character) of the linkage DLC in this game, and making adjustments to the porting related work. In addition, he is also a super powerful shooter
Mr. Daisuke Matsumoto (far left), city connection employee. Originally a CAVE sound designer, he created music and music for many works such as Magical Girl. In this work, he is responsible for composing and adapting music
Because of the Steam version, the new port version must be polished
| Q: First of all, please tell us about the development of this game.
Yoshikawa: Back when Matsumoto was an employee of CAVE, I was a member of the same band as him, and I was also a companion who would go to the game center together, so the communication was quite frequent. About two and a half years ago, I decided to revive Death Smile, so I gave it to Matsumoto, who was working in cave copyright department at the time, along with the DLC project. This is the first time that I have formally discussed transplant work with Matsumoto, who is a communication window.
| Q: CAVE has many works, why did you choose death smile transplantation?
Yoshikawa: Because we think side-scrolling shooters are more suitable for this generation of consoles. Based on this judgment, we easily found "What is the most popular side-scrolling shooter under CAVE?" The answer, which is Death Smile.
| Q: How did you come up with the idea of launching a linkage DLC at the planning stage?
Yoshikawa: We decided to choose cave works if we wanted to do the linkage. As you know, Magical Girl is a derivative of Death Smile's worldview, so it's only natural to get it back to Death Smile. CAVE nodded and said, "Just do it well."
| Q: What kind of development is carried out?
Yoshikawa: The development was led by Chantake and Watanabe, who planned and co-ordinated the project.
| Q: You mentioned that the DLC content is included in the submitted project, so you already thought about the development members of the Magical Girl DLC at the beginning of the project, right?
Yoshikawa: Yes. The Group's subsidiary, Fukushima Zerodiv (formerly the SPS team), has a lot of experience in porting shooter games, so I think I can leave the porting part to them. As for the new elements, it must be based on the power of Chantake, so the linkage DLC with Magical Girl can be said to be a project created specifically for him.
| Q: What a surprise! What exactly is this reflected?
Yoshikawa: Chantake is a top shooter himself, and it was this strength that led us to join CITY CONNECTION in 2018. Over the course of those 3 years, he's grown a lot of expertise, not only with the strength of shooters, but also with the game production process, so I'm sure he can definitely make the ideal DLC from the player's point of view.
| Q: How did Mr. Watanabe and Mr. Chantake feel when they first heard about the transplantation of this game?
Watanabe: I was very surprised when I first heard it. As a gamer, I love the original, so when I heard that I wanted to transplant the original, I was both pleasantly surprised and stressed (laughs).
Chantake: Since Death Smile was ported to the Steam platform, players can easily experience the fun of the original. If the finished product ported to the home console platform is not comprehensively improved in terms of details and other aspects, it will seem meaningless, so I feel that the requirements for this transplant are very high.
Yoshikawa: This port adds a new Steam version that does not include Death Smile IIX and the new DLC, which is a clear difference from this point of view, but we still asked Chantake to make this game not lose or better than the Steam version.
| Q: The Steam edition is a production released by CAVE itself, which means that Mr. Chantake has been given the difficult task of making a production that goes beyond the official port. What parts have been re-polished?
Chantake: The point is to further recreate the arcade version. After listening to the feedback from the heavy players of Death Smile, we decided to define the port policy as "restoring the differences between the previous port version and the arcade version" and "meeting the needs of players".
| Q: Can you tell us more about the part that was polished according to the player's suggestions?
Chantake: It's all very tedious details. In the case of Death Smile, the original home console version resets angel girl's position after passing the level, while the arcade version starts the next level from where angel girl defeats the boss. This time, the home console version has been modified to have the same setting as the arcade version.
In addition, in the arcade version, the sweep attack method of a specific character still maintains the original launch angle when passing the level, while the previous home console version will reset the launch angle, which affects the player's score, so we have also fixed this. Although it is difficult to feel the difference in these details, the arcade version of the raider routine has also been revived.
| Q: It's really detailed... Was Mr. Yoshikawa convinced from the outset that Mr. Chantake would notice these nuances?
Yoshikawa: Yes. I felt like I could throw Chantake this kind of professional and challenging job every few years. It is estimated that he will also hold great expectations, and secretly rejoice in his heart, "Finally here!" [Laughs).
Chantake: Naturally, I thought "I'm going to go all out", but at first I was a little overwhelmed...
Yoshikawa: Until a few years ago, Chantake was a cave shooter and loved CAVE's work, and if you suddenly ask him to make a work that surpasses the original company, he will definitely be annoyed.
| Q: How long has Mr. Chantake played Death Smile?
Chantake: Honestly I didn't spend much time on Death Smile, the most I could do was try to challenge the level of one coin pass. Taking advantage of this porting work, I began to seriously examine the game, and gradually deepened my understanding of the game in the process of obtaining the achievements and scoring challenges of the Steam version.
| Q: It seems to be a transplant while deepening understanding, so how do you think this task is done?
Chantake: Let me think... I feel like we've managed to cross the boundaries we wanted to cross at the beginning of development.
| Q: In other words, Mr. Yoshikawa's "Beyond Steam Port" mission was successfully completed. Next, I would like to ask Mr. Watanabe a few questions, but what are Mr. Watanabe's responsibilities in this development?
Yoshikawa: In this development, Chantake is responsible for game adjustments, ROM confirmation, and game program related parts, while Watanabe is responsible for adjusting parts other than gameplay, such as the game sound part, graphic materials, and giving instructions to other departments.
| Q: So Mr. Watanabe did a lot of DLC-related work this time?
Watanabe: Yes. After I prepared the DLC data that needed to be added this time, I commissioned other team members to import it into the game.
| Q: As a director, how did you determine the development policy?
Watanabe: I think the DLC that only supports characters in Magical Girl as self-machine (player-controllable characters) is slightly less appealing. Since the two works have the same world view, they should set up some elements suitable for linkage to distinguish them from ordinary "cross-border linkage". After discussion with CAVE, we decided on the specific linkage elements.
| Q: What do Mr. Chantake and Mr. Watanabe, who led the development, find the charm of Death Smile?
Chantake: The skill of achieving a high score in this game is not the number of combos, so you can grasp the main points of the master's strategy for reference, and I think it is very interesting to freely combine the strategy methods of the major masters.
Watanabe: This game is a relatively easy shooter under CAVE, and I was also addicted to it. I think the charm of this game is that its difficulty takes care of players of all levels, and everyone can choose whether to challenge the difficult gameplay of refreshing the high score or play lightly according to their own level. The graphics and settings have also been carefully polished, which can be described as a work full of charm.
In Death Smile, the characters were carefully developed
| Q: The DLC allows players to use the five girls with full personalities in Magical Girl, but their character characteristics are difficult to express in a shooting way, right?
Chantake: It's really difficult, and it's even more difficult to consider the characteristics of five people at the same time.
Yoshikawa: And it's a character created by other companies, and it's a really tough job to have to find a balance in the production.
Matsumoto: The magical girl is a vertical scroll shooting game, and the five girls also have their own representative shooting methods, but the "Magical Girl" operator asked us to avoid directly applying existing materials.
| Q: Hey!
Chantake: So we had to start a different story.
| Q: In other words, you have to re-conceive a new shooting method for the five girls, how did you come up with the idea of shooting method?
Chantake: At first, we diverged from the gameplay, basically thinking about how to bring a whole new sense of operation to the character's existing way of operating, and then putting that idea into practice.
It's easy to understand with "Plumeria," who stays where she is when the player presses and shoots, a way not previously performed in Death Smile. With that in mind, we built on the basis of deciphering the source code for Death Smile.
| Q: It seems that it is difficult to reflect the characteristics of the character.
Chantake: Personally, I think we've succeeded in showing the overall image of each character. For example, Cattleya's shooting style, we began to use our imagination from her whip, and finally designed a slow and urgent sweep shooting method... Other characters have been perfected in this way from rough ideas.
Matsumoto: Indeed, for example, Ranun, although the excellent attack output makes her suitable for novice use, it also requires the player to operate skillfully to achieve a high score. I felt La Nan's personality from her fiery fire magic and her delicate feelings for the real teenager (the protagonist of "Magical Girl"). It's safe to say that this game accurately grasps the character characteristics.
| Q: Which part of the development process does Mr. Chantake think is the hardest?
Chantake: We've been making balance adjustments until the end. For example, some attacks are painless to certain leaders, and in turn, they may kill certain leaders instantly. But then again, since paid DLC is one of the key additions to the game, we've not only added a new gameplay, but also basically adjusted the intensity of all the characters.
| Q: That is to say, there is no loss in buying. By the way, what is Mr. Chantake's favorite character?
Chantake: It should be Na Nan. There is a technique called "Recharge" in Death Smile, which can be done in places that were absolutely impossible before, and the brushing mode is different from other characters, which is very interesting to operate.
Personally, I managed to score 300 million with Windia in Death Smile, but I feel that if I use a DLC character, I might be able to hit 300 million with a little effort... Different operation methods can not only bring exciting clearance experience, but also create different brushing modes, which is very interesting.
※ Quickly accumulate the skill of the prop slot by obtaining props at the end of the enhancement.
| Q: So what were the difficulties that Mr. Watanabe encountered during the development process?
Watanabe: Since I was also responsible for the plot, character dialogue, and other parts related to the game setting, I asked CAVE to supervise several times. The game also has a two-player mode, and it gives me a headache to conceive the dialogue between the characters. The characters in Magical Girl are part of the CAVE IP, and I'm not the creator, so even the slightest deviation in the way the character speaks or the setting can make the player feel wrong. That's why I pay a lot of attention to "eliminating dissonance" and "how to make characters blend naturally into my work" when I create them.
| Q: Mr. Watanabe, you are also responsible for the appearance of the characters this time, how did you integrate the characters from Magical Girl into this game?
Watanabe: Like the original Death Smile, this time we also use a "pre-render" approach, that is, the original 3D model is made into an animated graphic and then put into the game. In terms of visual texture, I think the look fits perfectly with the world of Death Smile.
If the Magical Girl character illustrations were put into the game intact, the equivalence ratio of the characters would be unbalanced, so we adjusted this. However, the adjustment is not simple, simply enlarging the illustration and equal proportions will destroy the original image of "Magical Girl", and maintaining the proportion of the illustration as much as possible will have a significant difference with the proportion of the characters in "Death Smile", and finally we made a compromise adjustment.
Matsumoto: There is also a transition from the original cutscene to a new cutscene in the finale. At first I was wondering how I could combine the two, but I was pleasantly surprised by the fusion effect of the final product. I hope players will come and enjoy this ending.
| Q: I was also shocked by the completion of the character when I played, how did the CAVE side react?
Chantake: When I first showed them, the visual part seemed to have a big impact on them.
Matsumoto: Mr. Ikeda of CAVE (Mr. Henki Ikeda, production director of Magical Girl) was impressed by the shocked look on his face when he saw the original scoring screen. In the scoring screen of the DLC, the area originally depicting Wendia and Casper of Death Smile appeared five girls from Magical Girl, making the picture full of freshness.
Of course, the port of Death Smile IIX is also perfect. Mr. Chantake said, "This is the easiest to play IIX of Death Smile right now, so please try it."
| Q: Does Death Smile 1+2 have any plans to launch update patches or the like?
Chantake: Although there are no plans to introduce new gameplay, we will continue to adjust the balance and introduce convenient features to help swipe points based on players' opinions. This will probably be achieved in early 2022.
| Q: Finally, please say a few words to the players.
Matsumoto: We are full of confidence in this game and welcome everyone to buy it.
Watanabe: For just one game, you can experience the world of Gilverado's Magical Continent on the stage of Death Smile. I'm sorry to keep you waiting, but now please enjoy the game!
Chantake: Even for veteran arcade and past ported players, this game is still worth playing. I hope you can try this game.
Yoshikawa: This game also includes the Christmas-themed Death Smile IIX, hoping that this Christmas gift from CITY CONNECTION can reach more players. Although it is a gift, it still needs to be purchased with money... [Laughs). Anyway, please enjoy the game!
▲Finally, please enjoy the photos of the four people who are full of energy
Translated by 丨 忠犬小政宗
Edited by 丨 Shiina Pear
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