PS2 Ibara Impressions

shariar07 · Post by **shariar07** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 8:52 pm

I played Ibara for PS2 for about 30minutes today. So far its off the heezy.
The now loading sign appears after each stage, can get annoying.

Same screen type mode as in Mushi (Yoko, Tate R, Tate L)
Wallpaper (select your wallpaper type or none)
Sound settings are only half way up, increase to max

Arcade Mode-For Sheezy
Config-has Fighter Type select A-D (I'm still trying to figure out the differences i think it has to do with bomb or speed of character)

3 difficulty levels
Normal
Harder
Extended

Arrange mode is 1 life
Auto shot, vaccum collects gems like Mushi
Slots for changing your option type

All in all the game is great, i don't see that much debris since shots color can be selected on arrange mode. I have not passed the game.

Gallery Mode-Pictures of character

Option Mode-change difficulty, fighter type, extend, bombs, ect.

I give this game 8/10, very colorful game and hard game too.

MOD EDIT: First few lines removed, titled edited. -TF

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 8:57 pm

Yeah, we know all that stuff. Is it in high res or low res.

shariar07 · Post by **shariar07** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 10:14 pm

how do i check, it seems llike ow res to me. I'm not an expert

sammaza · Post by **sammaza** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 10:17 pm

We both gave it an initial 8/10

!!! that must mean something...what are the odds!

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 10:27 pm

sammaza wrote:We both gave it an initial 8/10

!!! that must mean something...what are the odds!

About 1 in 10 I'd say, heh heh.

I'm not going to get this thing for awhile yet (I chose cheapo shipping), but impressions so far make it sound at least as good port-wise as Mushi was, perhaps better in some respects. I was satisfied with Mushi despite its shortcomings, so this sounds promising.

thesuperkillerxxx · Post by **thesuperkillerxxx** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 10:53 pm

Hooray for digital sound output!!!!!

tekneekz · Post by **tekneekz** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 11:20 pm

mine shipped today from play-asia

i cant wait yay

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 11:38 pm

BulletMagnet wrote:
sammaza wrote:We both gave it an initial 8/10

!!! that must mean something...what are the odds!
About 1 in 10 I'd say, heh heh.

1 in 10 (or 11) if the chosen score was purely random and limited to hard integer values bounded between 0 and 10. I doubt anyone will give this game below a 5. Added to the known phenomenon that humans also tend not to pick extreme values, a 10 is also unlikely. So having two people pick the same score from the range of 6 to 9 is more likely than you'll believe :)

I've also gone with cheapo shipping for mine. Still waiting for Gradius Portable and Rajirugi though, so it's not like the wait for Ibara will kill me...

Waiting for DJMAX Portable... now THAT nearly killed me..

Texhnolyze · Post by **Texhnolyze** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 12:43 am

Quick observations:

It's definitely a Raizing game.

With all the explosions, debris, and bullets, you have to play this game in tate. I tried yoko and it was too difficult. I flipped my 19" monitor and it made a world of difference.

I'm using a Samsung Syncmaster 957mb CRT with a Hori Upscan Converter 2 and the game looks good. I have no problems with visuals.

MOD EDIT: first line edited -TF

zak · Post by **zak** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 1:02 am

arrange mode = black label "with 1 life"?

Dandy J · Post by **Dandy J** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 1:11 am

zak wrote:arrange mode = black label "with 1 life"?

1 credit.

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 1:59 am

Thread edited. People, common sense please, emphasising alternative ways to get software, esp. in subject lines, inadvertedly promotes those and cuts into Cave's sales, even while mentioning you are waiting for your order. We want to see more PS2 Cave titles.

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 5:17 am

Its damn sad when the only subject talked about a new game is the resolution/filtering crap.

How many threads do we need on this subject.

I'm going to bed.

SAM · Post by **SAM** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 5:40 am

elvis wrote:
SAM wrote:Well the effect is the image is burr on my 29" Astro City RGB monitor; while it is clear and sharp on my 21' TV using Composit Vedio in.
Composite? Do you mean component? Playing games over composite video should be a crime. Blur city!

Yes, I means component, those you got from a DVD player.

BTW, Monster's cable does give clearer image than the Sony's one.

schnoo · Post by **schnoo** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 5:42 am

i'd like to say that this is the first game i dont really like from cave on ps2

i would have liked a lot more stages/bosses like stage six... it had the elemenets/theme of ibara ... roses

mushihimesama had insects

so thematically the game fails... as someone else said yoko is HELL... i cant see the bullets really well... i dont know about turning my TV sideways either... its a huge flat screen.

no tutorial to show you where your hitbox is (not that i have seen)... i liked how they showed you the hit spot in ESP.

good game yes... but so far those are a few important gripes...
it is pretty, but could have been much prettier if the bara/rose theme was streamlined.

Dandy J · Post by **Dandy J** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 5:56 am

neorichieb1971 wrote:Its damn sad when the only subject talked about a new game is the resolution/filtering crap.

Agreed. Bottom line is it looks nice a clear on a tv in tate, and yoko it's a bit cluttered but it looks sharper than Mushi imo. BTW the bullets are much easier to see in Arrange with the default "color" setting.

The Arrange mode is awesome. The key to scoring is raising your rank as fast as possible and cashing in on your multiplier by bombing a juicy bullet pattern to collect roses. They are worth from x1 to x300 depedning on your rank. Destroying a boss or some large enemies also turns all bullets on screen into roses.

Collecting powerups, weapons, bomb fragments, and medals raises your rank. It also goes up from destroying extra parts of bosses. It does not seem to go up from survival or using different weapons.

Collecting roses decreases your rank, dying epties the rank meter. A significant number of roses will easily empty your rank meter from full. It is really not worth it to bomb a big pattern if your rank is below 50%~70%, you really want to push max rank for scoring. Medal chaining is a big part of increasing your rank, since the higher point medal, the more rank meter it adds. If you can keep a medal chain going, your rank will recharge very fast and often, and your scores will show it.

To give an example of how heavily medal chaining affects your scoring ability, an average score I was getting on stage 1 was ~1 million with little or no medalling. With chaining you can easily get 4.5 million and once I reached 6.5 million. I'm sure much more is possible.

it290 · Post by **it290** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 6:06 am

I probably could have asked this question a long time ago, but to those who have the game, what is the soundtrack like? Is it a little bit more serious sounding like Garegga or is it semi-fruity like the last couple of Cave games? I don't mind those soundtracks, but with the more industrial style of Ibara I would prefer something with a little less over-the-top synth and stuff.

Kiel · Post by **Kiel** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 6:17 am

I heard the PCB for a few seconds and it sounded like it had a rock/metal soundtrack for at least the stage that I saw.

Dandy J · Post by **Dandy J** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 6:21 am

The soundtrack is dope. Mostly guitar driven european metal type stuff...somewhat Guilty Gear-ish. Some is heavily synth based, that stuff reminds me a little of Border Down type stuff, but not as happy. It's a bit darker, more serious.

zinger · Post by **zinger** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 8:10 am

Dandy J wrote:Some is heavily synth based, that stuff reminds me a little of Border Down type stuff, but not as happy. It's a bit darker, more serious.

Same producer.

roker · Post by **roker** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 8:17 am

I usually play right through till the end with a shooter just to get an idea of what I'm up against in the harder levels

and DAMN

this game is going to be hard

so far I'd give it a "thumbs up"

on a side note, I like the arange mode more because of the selectable weapons

Ceph · Post by **Ceph** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 8:47 am

Concerning low res: A game that solves the problem perfectly is Shienryu btw, which features "horizontal full" (filtered) and "horizontal low" (unfiltered low res, which is MUCHO better). Have a look at that, Cave! Anyone here in doubt whether true low res looks sharper, get Shienryu and compare it yourself.

About Ibara's Graphics & Gameplay

There is an annoying loading break right after the launch sequence. Why? Graphics look like improved Garegga with loads of debris.
Ibara's gameplay too feels very Garegga-like but Ibara is harder right from the start. Enemy shots are fast and sometimes hard to dodge (especially the javelin-type spread shots; very little space between them). It's a good thing they gave the bullets pink/blue boarders, otherwise they would be uttlery impossible to distinguish from all the other crap flying around. (Your hitbox seems to be pretty large, too).
I like the way the weapons are upgraded; your plane has a main weapon and 3 slots for different types of guns/rockets/missiles. The weapons are on fixed pods and can be set to shoot diagonally or straight ahead (by letting go of the shoot button and moving the plane). The bomb system is like in Garegga (you need to collect mini-bombs). And did I mention the game is hard? Prepare for a severe beating

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 9:38 am

If more people bought these games instead of grabbing them off the intarweb, Taito might be able to afford to add extras like low res modes, you know.

Can't believe this topic is almost entirely devoted to it and we aren't even sure whether it is yet.

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 10:00 am

Neon wrote:If more people bought these games instead of grabbing them off the intarweb, Taito might be able to afford to add extras like low res modes, you know.

Very true, sadly. There's far too many scrubs on these boards who do just that.

SAM · Post by **SAM** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 10:12 am

elvis wrote:80cm (31") CRT TVs are getting so stupidly cheap here in AU at the moment (around AU$400 or US$300) and they all come with component. At that price I'm damn tempted to buy one and decase/tate it to use for a dedicated console shmup setup!

Just make sure it is structurenally strong enough to stand in Tate before you rotate it.

There is no more space in my room after I purchase the 29" Astro City RGB Monitor. Otherwise I mignt....

Ceph wrote:The weapons are on fixed pods and can be set to shoot diagonally or straight ahead (by letting go of the shoot button and moving the plane).

In case you don't know, the 2P ship could set to fire backward (180 degree), and the gun pots turn to the opposite direction of your movement. It flys slower too.

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 10:32 am

twe wrote:Very true, sadly. There's far too many scrubs on these boards who do just that.

Most shmup fans posting here seem like honest folks. However for reasons I explained before, threads are being edited to keep this subject out of them and focused on impressions about Ibara itself.

hikarutilmitt · Post by **hikarutilmitt** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 3:41 pm

thesuperkillerxxx wrote:Hooray for digital sound output!!!!!

This is really the onyl post I care to comment on.

Thank GOD they have digital output in it this time. I live Mushi but geez it's annoying not having digital output.

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 4:27 pm

Ugh! Because I preordered Ibara and Underdefeat at the same time, play asia apparently decided it had to ship them together...blah! So I went and cancelled my order and re-ordered. Now I will hopefully be able to play this game next week.

Yes, I like to hear more about impressions of the GAMEPLAY.

lazydazy · Post by **lazydazy** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 4:54 pm

Ibara for me .. is all about frantic mayhem destruction on screen with tons of pryo-technic explosions and debris flying around

= satisfying gameplay in my book!

Especially toward the end of stage 3(3 rows of trains!!)
and 4(rows and rows of airships!)
are awesome!

CIT · Post by **CIT** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 5:10 pm

Yeah, it's depressing. This resolution wankery will suck the joy right out of any game. Not because it actually matters so much, but because people will convince themselves that it does.
I agree it's a shame non-interlaced low res is missing from Taito published games, but that's no reason to get all bent out of shape.

So what do people think of the arrange mode? I played Black Label at AOU and was really impressed, like it a lot better than original mode. The bullet cancelling almost turns it into a kind of Espgaluda. I will probably be playing mainly arrange mode I think. Haven't got the game yet, though, will pick it up tomorrow, when it officially goes on sale here.