Official Pink Sweets -Ibara Sorekara- thread (renamed)

[Kiken]

Many in Japan hate Pink Sweets (they call it a "shit game" in Japanese) because of this infinite lives bug. They say it creates an unfair playing field.

All the more reason to release a port and fix that shit. :/ Although, I guess Cave's out of the picture.. they'd probably remove that bug and put something even worse into the game in its place. :/

[EOJ]

Well later prints of the PCB had the bug fixed (mine was one of these). You could also send your PCB back to Cave and have it fixed for a fee.

[sven666]

how the hell do you get 5 extends anyways, mine is set on "no extends" on default???

[Dave_K.]

How long did it take Cave to issue a fix for this? I point the blame at Arcadia for allowing these scores to be posted in the first place (WTF they thinking!?) If those scores were not allowed, I think more people would still be playing this in Japan.

Since I got mine from Fujita, I'm sure it has the fix, but haven't made it that far to actually tell.

[Dave_K.]

how the hell do you get 5 extends anyways, mine is set on "no extends" on default???

Deystroy enough background ships and green bullets and you get extends. Plenty to milk to get past 5 if you last long enough with the rank.

[EOJ]

How long did it take Cave to issue a fix for this? I point the blame at Arcadia for allowing these scores to be posted in the first place (WTF they thinking!?) If those scores were not allowed, I think more people would still be playing this in Japan.

I'm not sure how long it took, but probably at least a month or two. Cave didn't advertise the fix either (as usual).

Actually, I think the bug has encouraged people to play the game. From what I can tell, all of the WRs in the game were done with the bug. So without it, it may not be possible to medal throughout the game and still 1CC it. Meaning you can't really get a good score without the bug.

Ultimately this game is pretty broken from a scoring perspective. That's why I have no desire to play it again.

[Dave_K.]

Actually, I think the bug has encouraged people to play the game. From what I can tell, all of the WRs in the game were done with the bug. So without it, it may not be possible to medal throughout the game and still 1CC it. Meaning you can't really get a good score without the bug.

Does Arcadia at least acknowledge the scores were obtained on the bugged version? No wonder nobody wants to do a superplay DVD of an infinate lives score bug. LOL. I have a feeling this game is going to end up like Ketsui, nobody plays it because of the bad rap, and then realize with the fix, its a real Raizing challenge that nobody has tackled yet (except for Galford I guess).

Ultimately this game is pretty broken from a scoring perspective. That's why I have no desire to play it again.

I'll admit there are some challenging gameplay mechanics with rank, but I wouldn't call the scoring broken, just insanely difficult.

[EOJ]

Does Arcadia at least acknowledge the scores were obtained on the bugged version?

I saw one score in Arcadia which had the comment "are infinite lives bug scores accepted??" early on. From what I've seen, Arcadia does not mention the bug.

I have a feeling this game is going to end up like Ketsui, nobody plays it because of the bad rap, and then realize with the fix, its a real Raizing challenge that nobody has tackled yet (except for Galford I guess).

I really doubt it will end up like Ketsui. Ketsui is not a broken game. And Galford used the infinite lives bug, so he hasn't really "tackled the Raizing challenge" yet either.

I'll admit there are some challenging gameplay mechanics with rank, but I wouldn't call the scoring broken, just insanely difficult.

A game is broken when you can't use the scoring system (medalling in this case) in it, and you need an infinite lives bug to get anywhere near the top scores.

[Dave_K.]

I really doubt it will end up like Ketsui. Ketsui is not a broken game. And Galford used the infinite lives bug, so he hasn't really "tackled the Raizing challenge" yet either.

A game is broken when you can't use the scoring system (medalling in this case) in it, and you need an infinite lives bug to get anywhere near the top scores.

I wasn't aware Galford's unreleased superplay was on the bugged version too. Now I wouldn't say this indicates its impossible to medal through and 1CC the fixed version (implying its a broken scoring system)...only that nobody has the motivation to play the fixed version since Arcadia is still accepting much higher scores based off infinite lives bug. If Arcadia throws out those invalid scores, there would be a different standard to judge these scores...the way the game was intended to be played. For this reason I think people will wake up to this game maybe after Arcadia goes away or decides to relook at this issue.

[Twiddle]

This policy is puzzling because Arcadia was known to disqualify bugged versions that had a fix.

[EOJ]

If Arcadia throws out those invalid scores, there would be a different standard to judge these scores...the way the game was intended to be played. For this reason I think people will wake up to this game maybe after Arcadia goes away or decides to relook at this issue.

Well the problem, again, is that Cave did not advertise the fix, and most arcades do not have the fixed version. So if most people are playing on the original "bugged" version, you sorta have to accept those scores. Looking back at some arcadias, it seems as late as 6 months after the release, there was still no fixed version available (at least there was no mention of it in the Arcadia strategy guides on the game, they just mentioned the bug).

Anyway, even if you have the original (bugged) version, it still takes skill to get the 20mil or so scores the top players get. You have to medal perfectly through the game, and milk the bosses like hell. Getting 5 lives just to enable the bug is not exactly easy either. Also, if you die too much, the game crashes! So it's not a true "infinite lives". I think Arcadia took all those factors into consideration when allowing the scores.

But whatever, I think this game is a failed experiment which will remain primarily as a curio.

[Dave_K.]

A lot of speculation in your statements there.

But whatever, I think this game is a failed experiment which will remain primarily as a curio.

Perhaps this should be in the same class as Ibara Black Label then, except its not as boring scraping bullets all day long.

[hermosaguy]

A lot of speculation in your statements there.

But whatever, I think this game is a failed experiment which will remain primarily as a curio.

Perhaps this should be in the same class as Ibara Black Label then, except its not as boring scraping bullets all day long.

For some reason, that is always in my rotation of when I play Pink Sweets I have to fire up Ibara BL. I think it starts out as 'damn this game is hard' to 'damn this game is hard but it makes me think I have a chance'.

[EOJ]

A lot of speculation in your statements there.

Not in the part about how the fixed version was released months later and not widely available (many Japanese players still complain about this), or the part about how people go about getting 20mil or so scores. Everything I said there is fact. Galford said his 19mil run took over 80 minutes from start to finish due to all the boss milking involved (and that includes midbosses).

But whatever, I think this game is a failed experiment which will remain primarily as a curio.

Perhaps this should be in the same class as Ibara Black Label then, except its not as boring scraping bullets all day long.

Crazy talk! IBL is hardcore. There is a lot of boss milking (mainly just on the stage 2, 5, and optionally stage 6 bosses), but in the stages, if you want to score well you basically have to play at max rank most of the time, which is a lot like Mushi's Ultra mode-- A ton of crap flying at you super fast. The system is wonderfully designed. It's actually really brilliant, and the game is a bigger rush than almost anything out there.

But if you don't want to give it a try, it's your loss. Pink Sweets is a snooze-fest compared to IBL.

[EOJ]

Watching GER's stage 7 Lace video again, I think I can see where you can get a lot of points if you have the infinite lives bug-- it's during the massive, multicolored bullet attack the last boss spews out after the hadou guns, and then repeats at intervals. If you go through the game medalling, and keep jacking up the rank higher and higher, by the time you get to this boss, it'll probably take a long time to take him down, and you get a lot of points from absorbing that massive bullet attack with your bomb--GER gets roughly 200,000 just from absorbing the bullets in a couple rounds of this attack. Milk the boss like this for 10-15 minutes, and you could get a couple million- maybe has much as 5 mil??

Just a theory at this point. I'm tempted to hunt down a PS pcb (original, non-bug-fixed version) and test this!

BTW, another thing Galford, GER and most others use is rapid fire on the B button (at 30hz). That seems like another essential thing for this game.

[jpj]

learning how galford gets 9 million on score attack mode is the key.

[rtw]

EOJ, thanks for sharing all these videos with us

Do you have a PS PCB still in your posession ?

rtw

[EOJ]

Do you have a PS PCB still in your posession ?

rtw

No. But I may buy one soon to try out some things. I'm getting a bit curious.

[Dave_K.]

This thread is full of lolz and ninja edits (including my own now). Anyway, glad to see EOJ may be curious enough to pick this back up. Even though I have the IBL superplay dvd, and know exactly what I'm missing, I'll get an opportunity to play it at Battlesmurfs upcoming shmupmeet along with Futari.

[jpj]

if you dont mind resetting your score you can put on invincibility setting even on fixed ver. however, perfect medalling and mass milking still left my score far short. invincible scores will not save. there must be more secrets...

pink sweets is the new batrider.

[rtw]

if you dont mind resetting your score you can put on invincibility setting even on fixed ver.

I am curious, how do you turn on invincibility ?

rtw

[jpj]

in the test menu. i think it's in the Player Stock section. there are also two settings for difficulty, meaning there may be two different types of rank.

even with invincibility, i couldn't touch those scores. same with batrider, there is an invincibility option on the dipswitches. and while i did lose the medal chain two or three times, with an advanced team, triggering all bosses, milking bosses like black heart 2 for all i can, i could only manage this score:

http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/4549/imag0007lu1.jpg

and LAOS's score, is what... an S? that's like double. i'd been told by a japanese player that his 29 million was not an ALL. but he was mistaken, it was LAOS's previous score that wasn't an ALL, and that was over 23 million.

i think pink sweets will go a similar way. the players who know how to score so well wont tell others how it's done. and like batrider, people on forums will be coming up with theory after theory years after the game was released...

the key must be galford's score attack score of 9+ million. that's just phenomenal. and you don't have invincibility, but you do have infinite lives. so this would be similar to playing stage 6 on a normal arcade run on the bugged version of the game. i think learning how a 9 million on score attack mode will reveal a lot of strategies/techniques.

just to add my speculation... perhaps the initial batch of pcbs has more bugs than just an infinite lives glitch.........?????

[Twiddle]

Batrider has a ton of milking tricks, most of which involve Carpet and the 13000pts/sec milking.

[Icarus]

How much is just the PCB going for nowadays? I saw the kit on YAJ for 78000Y, and the PCBs with the bits and pieces for about 80k, but I'm not interested in kits and the bits and pieces.

[EOJ]

@Icarus: the PCB is still around 80,000 yen on average at YJ, which is the cheapest you'll find it unless you find some private seller who will sell it to you cheaper. The PCB shops sell it for more (88,000 yen at Fujita, 120,000 yen at Tops, $800+ at ECL (if they ever get one in)).

The 78,000 yen kit (w/poster) was a really good deal. You could always sell the artwork and poster and keep the PCB.

This game doesn't seem to be dropping in price (it's been stable for months after the new kits sold out), but I think that's due to 4 factors: 1)no port, 2)it's a Cave SH3 game, 3)low print run, second only to IBL among the recent Cave shmups, 4)the fan service in the game.

RE: getting 19/20 mil, yes you must need to get 8mil or whatever in Stage 6 (Galford only figured out how to get 9mil after his 19mil run, so he must have had 8mil or less in that one), but let's say you can get 7mil by the end of stage 5, so that gives you around 15-16mil before stage 7. Where's the last 4-5mil coming from? Again, I think it's probably milking the last boss for 15-20 minutes at max rank. After all look at Ibara's last boss, and the milking there. Yagawa likes to put things like that in there.

[Icarus]

FCUK. Something tells me I should have sprung for that when I had the chance. -_-;;
Thanks for the info. Back to waiting...

[jpj]

@Icarus: the PCB is still around 80,000 yen on average at YJ, which is the cheapest you'll find it unless you find some private seller who will sell it to you cheaper. The PCB shops sell it for more (88,000 yen at Fujita, 120,000 yen at Tops, $800+ at ECL (if they ever get one in)).

The 78,000 yen kit (w/poster) was a really good deal. You could always sell the artwork and poster and keep the PCB.

This game doesn't seem to be dropping in price (it's been stable for months after the new kits sold out), but I think that's due to 4 factors: 1)no port, 2)it's a Cave SH3 game, 3)low print run, second only to IBL among the recent Cave shmups, 4)the fan service in the game.

RE: getting 19/20 mil, yes you must need to get 8mil or whatever in Stage 6 (Galford only figured out how to get 9mil after his 19mil run, so he must have had 8mil or less in that one), but let's say you can get 7mil by the end of stage 5, so that gives you around 15-16mil before stage 7. Where's the last 4-5mil coming from? Again, I think it's probably milking the last boss for 15-20 minutes at max rank. After all look at Ibara's last boss, and the milking there. Yagawa likes to put things like that in there.

speculation. i would also like to see how 7 mill is possible by stage 5.

[EOJ]

speculation. i would also like to see how 7 mill is possible by stage 5.

Anyone with two eyes can see GER get 200K with Lace from milking the last boss's "Ultra mode-ish" attack a bit. He could obviously get millions if he did it long enough at max rank. How is that speculation? Galford said himself it took him 80mins in his WR run. The only thing that can extend a run like that is boss milking.

You know what, I think I'm going to fire an email to Galford and get to the bottom of this.

[EOJ]

Some info from Galford about Score attack mode:

You get a bonus of 1mil for every minute you have left at the end of the score attack mode. And you also apparently get some bonus if you get through it without dying much. So in his 8.8mil run he finished with 2:25 left, giving him a bonus of 2.25mil. He died only twice. His score in the stage was only 6.54 mil, but the total ended up at 8.87mil. So this throws away the "theory" that getting 9mil in Score attack is the key to getting 9mil in stage 6 in the Normal game (as there is no time or life bonus there!).

Also, he says the new Score Attack high score in Arcadia is 9.7 mil. His best so far is 9.4 mil. He was shocked to see someone beat him. But he's sure 10+mil is possible, and he's working on it.

I'm going to ask him about Normal mode scoring tactics now, and see if he replies.

[ArrogantBastard]

And ask him if we could get the video.