GD: Ibara (PCB/Arcade mode PS2 only)

[DC906270]

in practice mode, how do you save data so that you can practice the bosses with increased rank?

[cigsthecat]

In the practice menu, set the option that says "default" to "data 1." Then when you play your settings will be saved. Remember to save when you get the settings you want if you don't have autosave on.

[DC906270]

is there a bigger drop in rank if you purposefully suicide at an easy point (like fly directly into a single bullet) , than if you die in a hail of bullets you have done your best to avoid? can the game tell the difference between the two?

[cigsthecat]

I don't think there would be a significant difference in suiciding at the the same point to a single bullet versus a cloud of them.

The more important things to consider are how long you've played without dying, how many lives you have in stock and what weapons you're carrying. The longer you play with a couple of lives, napalm and burner options the faster rank goes up- if you know you can make it to the next extend it's best to plan a suicide early and often.

Also, the higher rank gets the less effect an eventual death will have so you should plan periodic suicides and keep rank as low as you can while still scoring well.

One tip I've found is that when a hadou bomb is first activated you get a small bomb effect even if you don't use it right away; use this in emergency situations to get a little more mileage out of it. This is especially useful in stage 3 towards the end. When Archer carries a hadou for a bit in the middle of 3 before using it at the end I think he actually made a mistake and saved his run this way.

[DC906270]

thanks for the tips cigs, so its best to basically always try to play on your last life, if you are comfortable with the stages you should be able to score additional extends. i never usually pick up the burner options anyway, but sometimes it is difficult to avoid picking up the yellow rocket options on stage 3 (is this what you mean by the napalm?).

[Icarus]

When Archer carries a hadou for a bit in the middle of 3 before using it at the end I think he actually made a mistake and saved his run this way.

Actually ARC holds the napalm in stage3 to maximise his stock - you can carry four full bombs, 50 small fragments AND hold a hadou, in effect giving you six maximum bombs to use whenever you require.

[DC906270]

Actually ARC holds the napalm in stage3 to maximise his stock - you can carry four full bombs, 50 small fragments AND hold a hadou, in effect giving you six maximum bombs to use whenever you require.

ah so

[cigsthecat]

When Archer carries a hadou for a bit in the middle of 3 before using it at the end I think he actually made a mistake and saved his run this way.

Actually ARC holds the napalm in stage3 to maximise his stock - you can carry four full bombs, 50 small fragments AND hold a hadou, in effect giving you six maximum bombs to use whenever you require.

Disgusting, I should have known. I really have to nail down my hadou strategy after stage 3- I'm using too many in stage 4 I think and then having none for 5.

DC, I wouldn't worry too much about what you pick up during 3, but during breaks like after the midboss try and switch out a rocket or napalm for machine gun. Unfortunately it seems like entering Stage 3 with zero lives is mandatory or rank will go crazy later on.

[J2d]

Actually ARC holds the napalm in stage3 to maximise his stock - you can carry four full bombs, 50 small fragments AND hold a hadou, in effect giving you six maximum bombs to use whenever you require.

Doesn't he just activate it to cancel out the bullets?

[Icarus]

Actually ARC holds the napalm in stage3 to maximise his stock - you can carry four full bombs, 50 small fragments AND hold a hadou, in effect giving you six maximum bombs to use whenever you require.

Doesn't he just activate it to cancel out the bullets?

I doubt it. If you check his stage3 replay, you'll notice that at the end he uses the held hadou to eliminate the flying popcorn drones at the three trains section. Those particular drones will always drop an item in the drop order when bombed (much like the ones in stage1, and the drone chains in stage2).

That hadou is also used to safely pass the section with the three trains, and the mass of mechs before Kasumi's arrival.

It's extremely difficult to use the aura flash from power up collection or from activating and holding the hadou, as it only lasts a split second, and in the case of the hadou, there's a slight delay before it activates. I wouldn't recommend using it as an escape tactic, and only try it if you have some notion that you are about to be trapped by a barrage.

EDIT: I just checked his replay again, and it does appear that he uses the aura flash to rescue the medal chain before the midboss. He still finishes reaches Kasumi with 4 + 1/2 bombs tho, something that wouldn't have been possible had he not held the hadou in until the end.

So many tricks to use in this game.

[cigsthecat]

After watching the vid again it's a combination of our theories. Currently I use the aura flash from the hadou at the part on 3 where the 3 trains come in at once.

Hit the left as it comes onscreen, sweep to the right train dodging it's bullets then sit on it- then straight to the middle train that gets taken out with the aura. I even had to use a hadou early to get the extra bomb today.

How can I get the special powerup towards the end of stage 4 consistently? Needed to take out all those airships easily.

[Icarus]

How can I get the special powerup towards the end of stage 4 consistently? Needed to take out all those airships easily.

• SEARCH: Drop five small bomb fragments, then pick up an Option powerup.
  All the equipped options will lock onto and fire at enemies within range. Usually targets boss main weakpoints.
• WIDE: Drop five Option powerups, then pick up the sixth Option powerup.
  The side Options will point out to fire into a wide V shape (similar to Dyne Type D's main Shot), while the rear Option will retain it's usual behaviour depending on your ship subtype.
• ROLLING: Drop five Medals, then pick up an Option powerup.
  Your Options will spin around while firing. Goddamned useless >_<;;
• BACK: Drop five small Shot powerups, then pick up an Option powerup.
  Your Options will point to fire at your tail, in a formation similar to TFIV's unpowered up Tailgun, or Silvergun's Back-Wide (about 30degrees out back). Again, also useless >_<;;

I'll leave it up to you to decide how to best activate Search in stage4 ^_-

[Klatrymadon]

I've only been playing Ibara for 3 days, so please forgive any shocking ignorance here, but how do you bomb your way through a level (i.e.: score fairly well) and still have enough bombs in stock to use a hadou on its boss (or at least to have a few bullet-clearing lifesavers left over)? I ask because even the first and second level bosses can give me quite a run for my money if I'm not careful...

Cheers.

[freddiebamboo]

I've only been playing Ibara for 3 days, so please forgive any shocking ignorance here, but how do you bomb your way through a level (i.e.: score fairly well) and still have enough bombs in stock to use a hadou on its boss (or at least to have a few bullet-clearing lifesavers left over)? I ask because even the first and second level bosses can give me quite a run for my money if I'm not careful...

Cheers.

Normally, you go through the first stage bombing like a maniac and reach the boss with a couple of fragments or nothing. If you have problems with milking her don't force the final sword attack late on. This is done by firing central rather than blowing up side parts of the boss. The sword attack (last pattern) is far slower and easier when not milking the left and right guns of the boss.

It is best to learn the bosses patterns though. They are predictable with practice and you also need to lose lives on the boss if you are going full tilt for score, so those hard patterns can be used to suicide and pick up aura blasts for the boss (collecting power ups near the boss cause damage).

For the 2nd stage boss you need lives (at least 1), so scoring is the main focus on stage 2. There are strategies on stage 2 boss here about 2 pages back

[Klatrymadon]

Ace. Thanks a lot, mate. This is really improving my game already.

With practice, can you conceivably gain an extend once (or more) per stage? It sounds like a hell of a lot of suicide is required to keep the rank down. The rank does seem excessively temperamental at the moment, but I obviously just need to get to work on memorizing the boss patterns.

PS - Sorry about not reading the thread before posting! Not a habit of mine, I assure you.

[Icarus]

With practice, can you conceivably gain an extend once (or more) per stage?

Yes. To do that, you need to know your scoring targets and tricks, and how to acquire them. You can get roughly 1mil per stage at least from maximum value Medals and the occasional scoring trick.

[Klatrymadon]

Cool beans. Back to the drawing board for me, then. Cheers!

[Klatrymadon]

Is there any kind of catch to using the PS2 version's "restart" function?

[freddiebamboo]

Aside from burning in hell, not much


I don't know why they allowed scores to be entered after restarts, although I think that arrange mode scores and maybe extended don't let you use the scoreboard.

[Klatrymadon]

Maybe they just wanted to take the sting out of the game's tail in a big way. Personally, I don't bother using it. The practice mode's there if I want to retry a certain section over and over...

[MA7]

Man, I whore the restart function, it's how I've got my highest score but I feel dirty for doing it...

I think I can get better, but at the moment I suck. I can usually hit level 2 boss in a 'proper' try, but just get handed my arse.

I read the strat but it seems you need to limit pod weapons to the weaker ones in order to control rank, but which ones? The first few you get - like the machine guns, just seem too weak against the bosses.

Could someone help me out????? should I try to -

- sit with the weaker weapons to control rank and just try and slowly take the bosses down, or

- get the heavy weapons as soon as I can and just suicide to control rank. If this is the case then I'm fucked, coz I can't pull off the '10k medals early on in lvl 1' skills, in order to build enough lives to suicide with

- maybe I've got to admit defeat

ttfn

[EOJ]

I don't know why they allowed scores to be entered after restarts,

Probably because the Saturn port of Garegga lets you do the same exact thing, so it's just keeping with tradition.

[Icarus]

Probably because the Saturn port of Garegga lets you do the same exact thing, so it's just keeping with tradition.

The only difference being that in Garegga on Saturn, the game actually records a little icon alongside your score for the Ranking option, and this icon changes depending on if you use the Restart function or not - if you did, this icon will be a chicken as opposed to a difficulty marker ^_-

Why they didn't keep that idea for Ibara is beyond me.

[MA7]

practice practice practice, that's what I've been up to, now consistantly hitting lvl3, the lvl2 boss is still capable of taking me down quickly though...

I can hit the 10k medals fairly on in lvl2 too, so tings are looking up!

Completion still a long way off though - and I ought to concentrate on 'Galuda - so close to getting 1cc ! ! !

Not a patch on some peeps here, but I've seriously impressed myself with the progress I've made (mainly thanks to constant reference to the strats, so thanks!)

[Icarus]

Out of interest, I was messing around with the game again, and captured a fight with Kasumi in Practice Mode, where I got 1.3mil just off her and her missile spew. It's not a patch on the 4.x mil that the likes of Archer are getting, but it can be done fairly consistently. Could probably be improved to 2mil, since in the fight the first hadou's vapor trail destroyed one of the missile hatches.

If anyone's interested, I can upload. Died twice though. Very out of practice. -_-;;

[Plasmo]

INTERESTED!plz upload!

[Icarus]

INTERESTED!plz upload!

Wow, that was quick. ^_-

Player: Icarus // Kasumi, 1.33mil pointgain, using Bond (Type D) (XVID - 13MB)

Two really stupid deaths, but the extra bomb came in handy.
Time to tweak the method, methinks. 2mil is a likely target if done correctly.
Also note that these missiles that Kasumi spews everywhere won't drop items if they've been onscreen for longer than 2 seconds, so there must be a better method to catch both sides at once, without killing Kasumi.

[DC906270]

right, but where does the extra score come from, from collecting the medals? or a combination of medals, and destroying the projectiles spew? how many pts per projectile destroyed?

sorry for all the questions

[Icarus]

right, but where does the extra score come from, from collecting the medals? or a combination of medals, and destroying the projectiles spew? how many pts per projectile destroyed?

It's a combination of a lot of things. Firstly, like all Raizing games, some enemies will give you more points if you kill them with a bomb, and these missiles are no exception. Also, these particular missiles will always drop an item in the item order when destroyed with a bomb, hence the mass drop of items off one salvo.

I'm not entirely sure how much each missile is worth. 1,000pts? 2,000pts? Something in that region. The interesting thing is that one whole salvo of missiles (usually from one side) is worth nearly 350k, and that includes all the bonus points from Medals and powerups.

If there is a way to get both sides at once with one hadou, that would be worth a lot of points in total...

[Plasmo]

thanks for the video ICR, i guess ill have work a bit on my Kasumi strategy...