PS2 Ibara Impressions

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 2:00 am

Soldato J wrote:
captain ahar wrote:
BulletMagnet wrote:Ye'll walk the plank fer that, ye scurvy ball o' fluff.
i take issue with that, i will playfully prance the plank with my adorable wittle feetses.

and i'm 'a done.
lol (still laughing)

Don't encourage him!

cigsthecat · Post by **cigsthecat** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:38 am

One spot that would be much easier with the PCB slowdown is the "medal fountain" area midway through stage 5. Watching archer's replay shows the game slowing down like crazy vs. silky smooth on PS2. Pretty hectic and I'm having a tough time keeping my 10k medals past this point.

But like Rando, I aim to beat the shit out of this thing no matter how fast it goes.

Post by **Icarus** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:19 am

cigsthecat wrote:One spot that would be much easier with the PCB slowdown is the "medal fountain" area midway through stage 5. Watching archer's replay shows the game slowing down like crazy vs. silky smooth on PS2. Pretty hectic and I'm having a tough time keeping my 10k medals past this point.

And the double drone chain just after the first large tank in stage2. Using a hadou to destroy both drones at once releases a shower of items and Medals that are easy to pick up with the PCB's slowdown, but I always drop one or two Medals on the PS2 version and its lack of slowdown on that area.

Stage 4 slows down loads on the PCB as well, in the last section before Shasta with all the flying gun platforms. Great fun trying to skitter past everything when there's bullets and shrapnel all over the place. Even more fun when they're moving at 100% speed all the way through the section -_-;;

Most people would usually be grateful for the removed slowdown in most game genres, but for us shmuppers, slowdown in games like Ibara is a necessity.

Triple Lei · Post by **Triple Lei** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:25 am

Welp, my copy of Ibara from YesAsia.com finally came in the mail today. No booklet, but I guess that's what I get for sitting on the fence so long. Can't complain at $57, though.

Let's me just document the waiting time (since at this point I doubt people care about "first impressions" anymore

):

2/23: I ordered the game and set out the money order. I get two emails from them saying (1) "thank you for your order." and (2) "order process on hold."

2/27: I get a three-day notification (payment reminder).

2/28: I get two emails saying (1) "payment received" and (2) "order approved." At this point I thought they shipped it...

3/7: I get two emails saying (1) "confirmation for clearance of check / money order" (which make me wonder what that "order approved" email was about), and (2) "shipping invoice."

Today is 3/14. It took longer than I thought, but the crazy part is... I'll be ordering from them again!

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:47 am

That's weird, I ordered from YA pretty late too, but it didn't take all that long to get here...and I got the booklet too, very odd.

cigsthecat · Post by **cigsthecat** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 5:10 am

Icarus wrote:
And the double drone chain just after the first large tank in stage2. Using a hadou to destroy both drones at once releases a shower of items and Medals that are easy to pick up with the PCB's slowdown, but I always drop one or two Medals on the PS2 version and its lack of slowdown on that area.

It's actually pretty easy, just position your ship in the center where the drones are coming together then move very slightly left and right to collect the medals as they appear. If you have 10k medals it should go well. If you let them start to drop that's when it can get tricky.

it290 · Post by **it290** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 6:00 am

I just stay near the bottom and stay near the hadou trail, moving left and right. It's pretty hard to miss those 10k medals. I do occasionally miss one this way, but there's always more than one on the screen, so the chain isn't broken regardless.

NTSC-J · Post by **NTSC-J** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 12:46 am

Randorama wrote:
judesalmon wrote:
No, but it highlights your inability to grasp the nuances of the English language. Jerk.
I take this as your way to say thanks when people explain things to you.It is clear that you can't grasp basic concepts, regardless of the language and the "nuances" (ahahahah, where???). It is absolutely pathetic that you resort to insults, but still, "don't mention it"

Being a native speaker, I'm gonna agree with jude. You've got your moments, but in general your english is pretty rough and you sound like a dick all the time. The guy had a question about the slowdown and you talk down to him. Just not cool man.

Anyways, does anyone know if there's any difference with the loop, like a true final boss or something? I saw some footage and it didn't look any harder than the first round.

Randorama · Post by **Randorama** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 2:57 am

So you think that people can call names for free, Julian? Or that English is some kind of holy language? Two weighs for two measures is not fair, did you know that (the moderators don't, but shh! don't tell them or they'll get upset)...?Or you think that logic only inhabits your sacred language, hence you're the only ones who derive a lambda before spelling out a pi (see Grohmann, Nunes and Hornstein(2006), maybe it's still in publication)? That would be indeed amazing! In case, though, there are PMs. In case.

The extended mode is, well, just extended. Technically speaking, if you keep the rank low, you just repeat the stages as in the normal mode. I haven't Garegga with me, but i think that said title (and Sokyugurentai...?) start at an higher rank level in the loop/extended mode. Dimahoo was the same as Ibara, if i remember well, i don't have the faintest idea about Batrider. Does Bakraid have a loop? At any case, i had some slowdown while playing today, but it was under very weird circumstances (i.e. while i died while getting an extend, the second time i got some seconds of slowdown while using an hadou on the fifth boss...while there were no bullets on screen).

Personally i don't mind its absence (i have serious problems in handling unintentional changes of speed), but i don't also get the rationale behind it. Anyone has experienced random slowdowns, as well?

cigsthecat · Post by **cigsthecat** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 3:31 am

I get some occasional slowdown hiccups as well, but it's fairly rare. Usually happens on stage 4 towards the end with all the airships if I've got a hadou burning then die or bomb- but not always.

Stage 6 seems fairly simple, but by that point rank becomes the main killer. The section just before the stage 5 boss gets pretty hairy too.

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 9:33 am

NTSC-J wrote:Anyways, does anyone know if there's any difference with the loop, like a true final boss or something?

I think there has to be a true final boss, as the tracklist of the OST reads "12: Mother Teresa - TrueLastBoss". The track really sounds menacing.

Plasmo · Post by **Plasmo** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 10:13 am

there is no true last boss for the second round only.the TLB appears after the first form of the rose

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 1:35 pm

OK, this is completely stupid, but I must know. Every video I watch of Ibara (including ps2 videos) shows these spinning pink balls of light after using a bomb, but I never notice it when I'm playing. Maybe its just because I'm paying more attention to the bullets? Weird.

zlk · Post by **zlk** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 2:24 pm

I think the pink spinning bomb is the type 4 ship if you are playing with the ps2. If you have a pcb hold down a+b when you start to select this ship.

Randorama · Post by **Randorama** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 2:43 pm

yeah, type D (a+b) Bond has the pink spinning thingies if the animation is longer than half a second Dunno if it's the same for Dyne, though.

Valgar · Post by **Valgar** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 2:58 pm

Dyne A+B has DUAL Gain type bomb.

stratos · Post by **stratos** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 7:06 pm

Valgar wrote:Dyne A+B has DUAL Gain type bomb.

Yes, and according to Icarus it's the most powerful bomb in the game. That is also the fastest variant of Dyne's ship, and has spread shot: these are the reasons why it's my regular chioce :)

However, since I have the game only from two days, I can't say if it will be my preferred ship also in the future, but I'd like to become at least an average Dyne player, since the most people seems like to go with Gain... ehm, wanted to say D type Bond :D

What are your favourite choices?

it290 · Post by **it290** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 6:33 pm

Does anyone know what the 'wallpaper' setting in the options menu does? I thought it might do what it sounds like, but nothing seems to change.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 7:09 pm

IIRC, it changes the wallpaper design for the side borders on yoko mode. You're probably playing tate so you won't notice any difference.

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 3:39 am

This is a ridiculous notion, but I think it might not be too hard to 1cc this game in arrange if you try to keep rank zeroed out and score as low as possible. I made a few pathetic attempts, only collecting bombs and one powerful secondary weapon. Since shooting and having a powerful secondary weapon doesn't seem to affect rank in Arrange mode, you can abuse this by ignoring all the metals and hoarding bombs to make the rank drop whenever it gets unbearable. This is definitely the cowardly way out, but even my feeble attempts have produced encouraging results.

Hah! End of level 3 I had a score of only a fraction of my average level 1 score (when I'm going for points.) AWESOME!

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 3:42 am

Ganelon wrote:IIRC, it changes the wallpaper design for the side borders on yoko mode. You're probably playing tate so you won't notice any difference.

Yes that's exactly what it does.

Was it my imagination or do the character portrait wallpapers in Yoko mode sometimes blink at you? After staring at bullet patterns too long, I don't know if I was just seeing things...

Arznei · Post by **Arznei** » Wed May 17, 2006 7:15 am

Can someone give me a quick summary of how the bombs work? I really don't want to go through a thread this big for just a few things.

This game is really disappointing for me so far, mainly because of the loading times and small bullets. If I can't find something positive about it, I'll be selling it.

agony · Post by **agony** » Wed May 17, 2006 9:55 am

Arznei wrote:Can someone give me a quick summary of how the bombs work? I really don't want to go through a thread this big for just a few things.

This game is really disappointing for me so far, mainly because of the loading times and small bullets. If I can't find something positive about it, I'll be selling it.

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=7667

should help

Arznei · Post by **Arznei** » Wed May 17, 2006 11:28 am

Linking me from one huge thread to another huge thread doesn't exactly give me a summary. ;_;

cigsthecat · Post by **cigsthecat** » Wed May 17, 2006 11:45 am

Every time you pick up a little bomb fragment icon you get a part of a bomb. It takes 40 little parts to make one full bomb.

You can use a bomb even if you have only 1 fragment, and the bomb gets stronger the more fragments you have.

When you have a full bomb, pressing the bomb button detonates it. If you hold the bomb button for a second the hadou gun is loaded. Release the bomb button to fire it.

horsefactory · Post by **horsefactory** » Fri May 19, 2006 7:49 pm

On the subject of loading times, do the other Cave PS2 games have such long loading times?

It's weird, because Stage 4 is pretty much instantaneous...

howmuchkeefe · Post by **howmuchkeefe** » Fri May 19, 2006 9:04 pm

DOJ and ESPGaluda don't have nearly as much load time as Ibara does. I've heard that Mushi has some serious load time, but I've never played it.

MSZ · Post by **MSZ** » Fri May 19, 2006 10:17 pm

howmuchkeefe wrote:I've heard that Mushi has some serious load time, but I've never played it.

Mushi's load time is so much faster than Ibara. It's like comparing a Suzuki GSX-1000R to a VW Golf mkII GTD Diesel.

Dandy J · Post by **Dandy J** » Fri May 19, 2006 11:59 pm

horsefactory wrote:It's weird, because Stage 4 is pretty much instantaneous...

I guess it doesn't have to lead as many BG graphics?

Ibara has the same loading times as all other Cave games, but it has no clear screen to mask them.

LUNardei · Post by **LUNardei** » Sat May 20, 2006 12:14 am

Dandy J wrote: Ibara has the same loading times as all other Cave games, but it has no clear screen to mask them.

Maybe between levels, but at the beginning Ibara is worse. Load times are huge in Mushi only in practice mode.