Let's play Ibara Special ver.

[rtw]

There is a special version inside the Ibara program code. This was discovered by Luca Elia.

To activate it you need to do the following:

. Move the S2 (DIL SWITCH) SW2 to the left like this:



. Power on the game
. Hold down button A+B and press the TEST button
. You will enter a special version of setup which looks like this:



. Now press the A button to return to the game. The title screen should look like this:



I have not tested this extensively but I suspect the bar at the bottom of the screen is rank.

After you insert a coin, manipulating the joystick will allow you to change some of the parameters on screen.

Please post your discoveries in this thread!

[pixeljunkie]

I wish I hadn't seen this until later in the day. Now I am stuck at work all day thinking about it.

Very cool! Post up any more info as you try it out more.

[emphatic]

Wow, this is very cool. I'm glad I got the PCB.

[Momijitsuki]

I wonder what's so different about it.

I'm really planning on getting a cab this year, and Ibara's on the top of my want list when it comes to PCBs, so I'm even more interested now!

[kernow]

Nice find! I shall try this soon.

[charlie chong]

i imagine its much like the batrider bakraid special versions so probbly it's more of a tweak the options kind of thing than an actual new game! wonder if it has a pause function like the aformentioned

good find tho luca!

[pixeljunkie]

i imagine its much like the batrider bakraid special versions so probbly it's more of a tweak the options kind of thing than an actual new game! wonder if it has a pause function like the aformentioned

good find tho luca!

very close actually.

It has stage select, pause/slo-mo [if you hold start] and some sort of visual feedback on the bottom of screen relative to how fast you press fire. I was hoping for something that shows rank the whole time similar to BL, but if its there, I can't tell or figure it out. Really cool find though! Excellent for practice. Makes me wonder if all SH3 boards will do this?

[emphatic]

wonder if it has a pause function

[cools]

stage select

very useful

Umm - any way of activating it without needing to hit the test button? Would get on my nerves opening up a cab every time.

[LARGE KRO]

Thanks for sharing the tip rtw. Stage select, that's a great feature for pratice, cool

[Kenchan]

Makes me wonder if all SH3 boards will do this?

....

[rtw]

Makes me wonder if all SH3 boards will do this?

Maybe the ones which have been coded by Yagawa...

[pixeljunkie]

Makes me wonder if all SH3 boards will do this?

Maybe the ones which have been coded by Yagawa...

yeah, that makes more sense. Pink Sweets with pause would be VERY helpful.

[Dave_K.]

Makes me wonder if all SH3 boards will do this?

Maybe the ones which have been coded by Yagawa...

yeah, that makes more sense. Pink Sweets with pause would be VERY helpful.

rtw is being modest, he discovered these same special operator test menus awhile ago in Pink Sweets and MMP. Just hold A+B while pressing the test button. Its been awhile since I tried this, so I don't remember if pause was implemented, but wouldn't be surprised.

[dorakyura]

rtw is being modest, he discovered these same special operator test menus in Pink Sweets and MMP.

I would like to confirm that bit about Muchi Muchi Pork and report some findings of mine:

The title screen will show similar extra information; moving the stick left or right let's you select the stage, hitting start in game will pause. But the biggest surprise: Holding up at the title screen and pressing start will enter Manpuku mode, while holding down an pressing start enters Harahara mode. The first adding suicide bullets (a lot of them) the latter making enemies fire more aggressively.


Stage Select.


Manpuku mode.


Manpuku mode in-game.


Harahara mode.


Harahara mode in-game.


Thanks for sharing rtw!

[Dave_K.]

I think most people have already herd of MMP's Manpuku and Harahara modes...they are unlockable via codes. But still nice to know how you can access them if they haven't been unlocked yet.

For those interested, here is Oxtsu's post on Batrider and Battle Bakraid Special Ver.

ALL HAIL YAGAWA!

[dorakyura]

I think most people have already herd of MMP's Manpuku and Harahara modes...they are unlockable via codes. But still nice to know how you can access them if they haven't been unlocked already.

Hm, must have slipped me by Was a nice surprise (to me ) nevertheless.

[Dave_K.]

Confirmed all my Yagawa SH3 boards have a secret "Special Ver." (MMP, Ibara, Pink Sweets), as long as you have dip #2 set, and then do the A+B while hitting Test button. I do not have Ibara BL but am pretty sure that would work as well.

A couple other things I noticed:

- all have a pause and slowdown function
- all have stage select
- all have a hardware date shown at the bottom of the Cave logo screen (different from the software date under the license screen)
- all have a strange "00--00" counter at the bottom of the title screen. no idea what it means, it not demo cycles or rank related
- both Ibara and Pink Sweets have rank counter at the top of the screen during gameplay!
- I believe the @ bar at the bottom is a CPU load indicator and increases when the screen starts filling up with bullets
- MMP does not have the cpu load or rank indicator

The rank indicator appears to consists of two parts, a rank level, and a rank counter. The counter continually decrements from a high hex number (just like what we see in mame with the garegga cheat). The rank level starts at 10 and slowly goes up by 1 or 2 each stage (depending upon how hard you play). It looks like the level never comes down, but the counter can be reset with suicides. Hammering on the B button in Pink Sweets shows the rank counter counting down VERY quickly (meaning rank is increasing rapidly)!



The only thing missing in Pink Sweets special version is a counter for destructible bullets/missles, to show when you are approaching an extend. I'm hoping that may be there somewhere and we just haven't discovered it yet.

[EOJ]

Wow, nice work, and very interesting details (particularly by Dave K). I wish I still had these PCBs to fool around with this stuff. Rank meter in Pink Sweets would be particularly helpful in planning an optimal infinite lives run, and a stage select in MMP is a dream come true.

And yes, someone needs to find a displayable destructible bullets/enemy counter in Pink Sweets. That would break the game wide open.

[Udderdude]

Random question, is stuff like this typically found in arcade games or is it mostly in Yagawa shmups?

[Dave_K.]

Random question, is stuff like this typically found in arcade games or is it mostly in Yagawa shmups?

Just Yagawa stuff...since Batrider apparently.

Some more strange/cool things:
- all have ability to take over control of either ship and play during the demo cycle (weird!)
- Ibara and Pink Sweets have different colored asterisks just before the @ load graph, indicating sprite/background buffering
- Holding B button at title screen in Pink Sweets pops up a menu in upper left to turn on/off collision boxes for a variety of things like your ship hitbox, your ship item collection, items, enemy, bullets, backgrounds (trees), etc. This is pretty cool!

[rtw]

Excellent effort all of you and especially Dave_K

Would it be possible to make a short summary of the buttons and options available ? I.e. what changes the rank, what is the pause button, how do you select the level and how to decipher the on screen display etc ?

Yagawa obviously brought his codebase over from Raizing when he started working at CAVE. The amount of
debug and test code shows that we are dealing with a very dedicated programmer.

[Udderdude]

Excellent effort all of you and especially Dave_K

Would it be possible to make a short summary of the buttons and options available ? I.e. what changes the rank, what is the pause button, how do you select the level and how to decipher the on screen display etc ?

Yagawa obviously brought his codebase over from Raizing when he started working at CAVE. The amount of
debug and test code shows that we are dealing with a very dedicated programmer.

Most games have a similar level of debug/support tools available during development. It's the only way to test the game out and not go bonkers in the process. The biggest difference is that most of the time, they are removed before the game is released. I guess Yagawa didn't feel the need to? Clearly it's intentional, as it's been left in more than one of his games ..

[spadgy]

Wow! I only just noticed this thread. This is a all really amazing!

And I sold my Ibara PCB.

[brentsg]

No dice on Ibara Kuro. My board (IB-045) goes straight to the normal Test Mode screen when following these steps.

Edit: Also, could Cave make those dip switches any smaller?

[rtw]

No dice on Ibara Kuro. My board (IB-045) goes straight to the normal Test Mode screen when following these steps.

Edit: Also, could Cave make those dip switches any smaller?

Did you try holding A+B+C ?

[dorakyura]

Tiny update: Holding A+B while powering up does the trick too (in other words: no need to go through the test menu). Releasing A+B once the loading screen displays is just fine. Only tested this with MMP though.

[brentsg]

No dice on Ibara Kuro. My board (IB-045) goes straight to the normal Test Mode screen when following these steps.

Edit: Also, could Cave make those dip switches any smaller?

Did you try holding A+B+C ?

I did not, but I can try this later.

[professor ganson]

Strange coincidence that this would come up right now. Playing my Ibara PCB has been my main gaming obsession over the past week. Since I'm still trying to figure out how to trigger the different formations (A-D?), I probably can wait to test out this new mode. The main game still somehow seems new to me, even though I've playing it here and there since the PS2 version arrived. I guess this is the first time I've really focused on the game.

[Platypus Stan]

Wow, nice work, and very interesting details (particularly by Dave K). I wish I still had these PCBs to fool around with this stuff. Rank meter in Pink Sweets would be particularly helpful in planning an optimal infinite lives run, and a stage select in MMP is a dream come true.

And yes, someone needs to find a displayable destructible bullets/enemy counter in Pink Sweets. That would break the game wide open.

Feel free to hit me up if you're ever in my neck of the woods and want to take a look at some of this stuff. I have all the Yagawa SH3 boards at the moment.