Ibara impressions (yay, it's finally out!)

[Icarus]

I managed to watch some people playing Ibara in Akiba for a little while. One guy was very, very, very carefully managing his rank (yet he still had three options at the first boss - not quite what I was expecting) and the other guy was just hammering away. I don't think many people have sorted how how to play this "properly" yet.

Besides the scraps of information that is in Arcadia, do you know of any other info that might be doing the rounds relating to the gameplay?

[Cthulhu]

Besides the scraps of information that is in Arcadia, do you know of any other info that might be doing the rounds relating to the gameplay?

I sniffed around google a bit and I turned up a few Japanese pages that have some info... I haven't taken the time to read them yet, however.

http://mna.hp.infoseek.co.jp/ibara.html
http://blog.drecom.jp/mushiunya/category_4/ (note: this one seems pretty sparse)

And, of course, there's like 10 pages about Ibara on 2ch, but reading 2ch takes forever, and is full of tons of crap along with actual info. I think Arcadia mentioned something about having more info in their next issue too.

Ibara seems like it might have gone overboard on the difficulty and rank scale even for the hardcore Japanese crowd - at least Ketsui was easily approachable bullet hell. Mushihime has difficulty settings. Ibara... kicks you in the crotch then laughs at you as you moan on the floor.

[Icarus]

I dunno, the same could be said for Garegga, and eight years on people are still playing it, and breaking records (I saw numerous arcades with Garegga while I was in Kyoto last year, with various levels of players going at it like a dog to a bone). I guess it's still pretty early to tell whether or not it's the vicious kind of game like that which it's based on, or whether it's a bit... milder.

I have the latest Arcadia (issue 63) and am in the process of scanning it. The PCB hopefully is on it's way soon. I wouldn't mind a bit of help putting together a guide of some sort for it in the next few months, using translated info and a bit of collective experience

[Cthulhu]

I'd be willing to help out with translations, but since I'm going to be moving back to the US from Japan in a few weeks, things are pretty hectic right now. Let me know, of course - I'd be happy to help out if I have time. We might be able to rope GaijinPunch in as well, and manybe one or two of the other Japanese-skilled people here.

[Icarus]

Sure, not a problem. I have to finish tweaking my new site design before anything goes up, but everything should be ready by the end of next week (and the PCB should be in my hands, yummy).

I'm in the process of selling everything I dont need to make way for it, since I don't see myself play anything else for a very long while. Not even Mushi or Raiden 3 (when my PS2 preorders arrive) unless I need a rest from it or something.

Want a sneak peek at the new site?

[zlk]

Ibara seems like it might have gone overboard on the difficulty and rank scale even for the hardcore Japanese crowd - at least Ketsui was easily approachable bullet hell. Mushihime has difficulty settings. Ibara... kicks you in the crotch then laughs at you as you moan on the floor.

I have read that some Japanese players finished the 1 loop normal game on the 1st day it was in the arcades. These players were probably already extremely skilled in the first place.

I find that the levels are very fair. Nothing strange happens and everything seems reasonable for a cave game. The first boss isn't too bad either. From the second boss on, some of the boss attacks are insane. They seem completely overboard and unfair. Now there are probably some tricks to the boss attacks (like staying at the very top of the screen so the 2nd boss's 1st attack can be easily avoided), but trying to dodge them normally is next to impossible. Hopefully someone will make some replays showing how they are properly dodged.

[Cthulhu]

I have read that some Japanese players finished the 1 loop normal game on the 1st day it was in the arcades. These players were probably already extremely skilled in the first place.

I find that the levels are very fair. Nothing strange happens and everything seems reasonable for a cave game. The first boss isn't too bad either. From the second boss on, some of the boss attacks are insane. They seem completely overboard and unfair. Now there are probably some tricks to the boss attacks (like staying at the very top of the screen so the 2nd boss's 1st attack can be easily avoided), but trying to dodge them normally is next to impossible. Hopefully someone will make some replays showing how they are properly dodged.

Well, I knew that there would be -some- people like that. I figured there would be. But if you're making your games to appeal to the three or four people than can 1cc a game like this in the first day - your business is screwed. I agree that levels 1-3 are fair. Even if I'm playing without any regard for rank, I find them entertaining and possible. 4 and on were a lot harder, however. 4 and 5 seem doable with practice. 6 is... well, I can't 1cc Garegga so I can't talk I guess.

The bosses... yeah, I don't know. If you can manage to keep your rank down A LOT, the second boss isn't too bad. I've never managed to get to the third with really low rank though, as the sheer number of powerups on level 3 totally screws any attempts at power-management I make. Yes, the bosses are totally insane.


Icarus: The site looks quite nice! I can't do visual design worth a damn... but I can sure critique it.

[Icarus]

I'm kinda leaning towards smart use of the hadou cannon as one of the main methods to handling bosses and scoring lots of points. In all of Raizing's games, you have to utilise a specific weapon in order to score big points - Garegga with the Weapon, Batrider with the charge aura, Bakraid with the bomb (and it's effect on the multiplier) and so on.

Now remember that the ball explosion from the hadou, as well as the vapor trail, can nullify bullets and generate Rose Medals. I've seen some replays where the hadou was used on seriously Cave-style bullet patterns from bosses to create masses of Roses, bumping score up by around 300-400k each time. You can also use the vapor trail from the hadou at specific places in-stage to do the same - one possibility that springs to mind is the last three trains that appear before Kasumi on stage 3.

If this is the case, then the normal wave bomb is rendered almost useless from a scoring perspective.

In any case, I'd need to get some experience with the game before I can come up with any theories or strategies. Feel free to test it out though

EDIT: BTW, there's a 1UP on stage 4. Destroy all the parts of the midboss before you destroy the midboss itself, to release it.

@Cthulhu: Thanks for the comments The site is still being compiled, but the frontpage kind of gives you an idea of the overall site's look. New content on it's way, including an archive of the strategy discussion on Mushi from Click-Stick's forum.

[whitey]

I'm kinda leaning towards smart use of the hadou cannon as one of the main methods to handling bosses and scoring lots of points. In all of Raizing's games, you have to utilise a specific weapon in order to score big points - Garegga with the Weapon, Batrider with the charge aura, Bakraid with the bomb (and it's effect on the multiplier) and so on.

Now remember that the ball explosion from the hadou, as well as the vapor trail, can nullify bullets and generate Rose Medals. I've seen some replays where the hadou was used on seriously Cave-style bullet patterns from bosses to create masses of Roses, bumping score up by around 300-400k each time. You can also use the vapor trail from the hadou at specific places in-stage to do the same - one possibility that springs to mind is the last three trains that appear before Kasumi on stage 3.

If this is the case, then the normal wave bomb is rendered almost useless from a scoring perspective.

In any case, I'd need to get some experience with the game before I can come up with any theories or strategies. Feel free to test it out though

@Cthulhu: Thanks for the comments The site is still being compiled, but the frontpage kind of gives you an idea of the overall site's look. New content on it's way, including an archive of the strategy discussion on Mushi from Click-Stick's forum.

But against the stage 1 boss you need to use the standard bomb to generate a ton of points. The hadou will kill the first boss immediatly. Using the normal bomb a few times against the first boss I can get a bunch of roses and score almost 600k just against the boss.

[Cthulhu]

I'm kinda leaning towards smart use of the hadou cannon as one of the main methods to handling bosses and scoring lots of points. In all of Raizing's games, you have to utilise a specific weapon in order to score big points - Garegga with the Weapon, Batrider with the charge aura, Bakraid with the bomb (and it's effect on the multiplier) and so on.

The hadou cannon does indeed tear the bosses to shreds, but unless I'm missing a -lot- of them, it will be really hard to build up enough weapon charge to use it very often. Using it once per level (or even every other level) seems pretty infeasible.

[TVG]

id rather have a game that i never beat than a game that i beat too easily, but thats just me.
i hate to buy a game, play a few days and be like "yeah, now what?"

so far, people have overcome everything cave (and probaly raizing) have done, the impossible DOJ 2 loop, the impossible esprade 3 hour boss milk, the impossible dangun 1 life, the impossible max score on guwange, the impossible DOJ 2 loops, the impossible ketsui 2 loops, the impossible mushi ultra mode and so on, i guess its just a matter of time.

[Icarus]

Using it once per level (or even every other level) seems pretty infeasible.

But you see, it is possible to use it more than once per level. Remember that Extends are set to every 1mil. Now, with a combination of the various bomb fragments scattered around the stages, the 25 or so fragments you get from each death as a bonus, and the possible few large bomb items that may be hidden in the game, it would be entirely possible to use it a few times per stage.

The points you can get from hidden Medals in the stages, all the Medals that are dropped by enemies, points that come about from weapon usage - "tickle" points, using certain attacks on certain enemies etc - and the Rose Medals you get from bullet nullification both from powering up and from the hadou/napalm bombs would suggest to me that Extends are given fairly rapidly from competent scoring. Tactical suicides both for rank decrease (speculation) and for getting bomb fragments to use would be an extension of that.

However, given that certain parts of the scenery needs to be destroyed with a bomb (of whatever strength) in order to uncover Medals, it would mean that bomb usage would have to be carefully planned out, in order to allow you the best chance of using the hadou at key moments without putting a dent in your general scoring.

But against the stage 1 boss you need to use the standard bomb to generate a ton of points. The hadou will kill the first boss immediatly. Using the normal bomb a few times against the first boss I can get a bunch of roses and score almost 600k just against the boss.

You don't have to fire the hadou against the boss for it to do the same effect. You could send it up the side of the screen, and lead those large spread patterns to fire against the vapor trail.

But hey, I'm just speculating here. I'll let you guys test out these ideas

[CMoon]

[quote="The vagrant"]
of course, its not like playing it is in the realm of possibility. definitely not on ps2./quote]

Are you so sure about this? Remember how good DDP runs on the PS1?

The PS2 may not quite be the power house they tried to convince us it was when it first came out, but given how well DDP DOJ and ESPgaluda were ported, I am sceptical when people say the PS2 just can't handle new 2D shooters.

[captain ahar]

IBARA EXTENDED MODE Movie <game Movie uploader>

attention! It is cleared Movie
The enjoyment might decrease.
http://www.hameko.net/uploader/upload.php
’’åKåN?`

wheres the ibara movies?

[FMK]

They're here:

http://www.hameko.net/uploader/rd.php?get=hame_696.lzh
http://www.hameko.net/uploader/rd.php?get=hame_695.lzh
http://www.hameko.net/uploader/rd.php?get=hame_694.lzh

But you can't download them directly. Can see and dl them through http://www.hameko.net/uploader/upload.php?page=all (searching for 鋳薔薇 in the list)

[Cthulhu]

But you see, it is possible to use it more than once per level. Remember that Extends are set to every 1mil. Now, with a combination of the various bomb fragments scattered around the stages, the 25 or so fragments you get from each death as a bonus, and the possible few large bomb items that may be hidden in the game, it would be entirely possible to use it a few times per stage.

Hrm, good point about the bonus bombs from suiciding. Man, I guess Arcadia really did mean it when they said that you need to repeat getting bonus lives through points and then suiciding to keep rank down. If this is the key (or one of the keys) to this game then it'll require a -lot- of memorization... not that that's anything new to Garegga fans.

[Icarus]

Hrm, good point about the bonus bombs from suiciding. Man, I guess Arcadia really did mean it when they said that you need to repeat getting bonus lives through points and then suiciding to keep rank down. If this is the key (or one of the keys) to this game then it'll require a -lot- of memorization... not that that's anything new to Garegga fans.

The one thing that worries me is that the gameplay will fall along the lines of Bakraid more than Garegga/Batrider. While both types rely on "bomb" weapons for scoring, each requires a totally different approach.

While in Garegga/Batrider, scoring is freeflowing in that you are free to choose when you get score bonuses as you see fit, in Bakraid scoring is seriously memorisation-heavy, and requires perfect timing, positioning of the ship, and placing of bombs in order to keep the scoring system working - one slip and the whole scoring run goes to hell.

The hadou bomb in Ibara looks and almost behaves like the bomb in Soukyugurentai/Bakraid, and I hope that hadou bomb usage isn't totally centric to the scoring system in Ibara. If it is, then the scoring system will be totally rigid in the Bakraid "chain bombing" style as opposed to the "scenery attack" style of Garegga/Batrider.

[Cthulhu]

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with how to play either Bakraid or Batrider "well" (I just coin-feed em and have fun), so I can't comment on the similarities there. I just don't like excessive memorization... Garegga is -pushing- it, but I can still have fun with it - games like Ikaruga drive me nuts. Way too much memorization there.

[snacky]

wheres the ibara movies?

Somewhat easier to find here:

http://ikaruga.co.uk/files/Ibara/

[Dylan1CC]

Yeah it'd be nice if Ibara had more in common with Garegga's score system. Watching some of the vid footage it does reminds me a little more of Bakraid now.

[Cthulhu]

Okay, I have no idea why I got it into my head that the wave-cannon bomb takes two bomb icons... it only takes one. I was playing it earlier tonite and noticed that. Hrm. That does make it a lot easier to use.

Note that you cannot use a "partial" wave-cannon bomb - you need a full bomb icon to use it. You can do a partial standard bomb though, just like in the other Raizing games.

[Geezer]

Any more impressions guys? I'm desperate for as much info as possible

Being a huge Cave/Raizing fan as well as Garegga being my favourite game I'm really looking forward to this

Does anyone know if any London arcades are interested in getting hold of this?

[zlk]

While playing ibara, I have encountered two strange errors:

1) I have had to set the game to free play because I am constantly getting the message "coin error" if I insert a coin at the wrong time. This happened quite frequently if I inserted a coin after I entered my initials in the high score table.

2) Frequently at the start of stage 2, my left gunner will either appear to the extreme right of the screen and either disappear, or I will have two gunners to my right. I also have no idea what causes this.

I am wondering how this game is doing in the arcades. The original kits sold for $2300 (just two weeks ago) and on the japanese auctions, no one would pay $1800 for a complete kit. The seller has dropped his price to $1400 and so far no one is bidding. This is the fastest price drop of any cave game I have seen.

While there are some really nice features to the game, I can see players hating the boss battles. There may be some tricks to killing them off, but as I have said before these bosses are worse than anything in any cave game with the exception of the tradional cave "true last boss." The fourth boss is also easier to kill than the second and third bosses. I am trying to like ibara, and this "trying" is a new experience for me as I normally like cave games from the start.

[cigsthecat]

How would you compare the boss difficulty to that of Batrider Advance Course? Or Garegga I guess, but my experience there is fairly limited.

Any info you could give on the general approach to scoring well in the game?

[Cthulhu]

I am wondering how this game is doing in the arcades. The original kits sold for $2300 (just two weeks ago) and on the japanese auctions, no one would pay $1800 for a complete kit. The seller has dropped his price to $1400 and so far no one is bidding. This is the fastest price drop of any cave game I have seen.

Based on my observations (I have no concrete figures or anything) of the arcades I've been to here... it's not doing all that well. The machine at my local arcade that has it here is usually empty, and even at the arcades in Akihabara it's not played nearly as often as Mushihimesama, which is still the shooting darling of the moment. There are usually people playing it in TRY, but that's no surprise - there's people playing -everything- in there. For what it's worth, even the people at TRY don't seem to be doing all that well at it.

I think the difficulty and complexity of Ibara is really hurting it. You have to memorize way too much stuff to have a chance of doing well, and the bosses are absurd - no thanks to the even-more-vicious-than-Garegga rank system.

That said, I personally enjoy it. I'm terrible at it, no doubt, and while I don't think I'll ever try for a 1CC even if a home port comes out, it's fun enough just to play it. I'm totally enamored with Mushi still, however... even if I can't come anywhere close to pulling off another 1CC on maniac. How the hell did I do that? I can't even get to the last level half the time now...

[captain ahar]

jeez just watched some of those replays on ikaruga.co.uk... ibara looks to be insanely tough... and fun!

[zlk]

How would you compare the boss difficulty to that of Batrider Advance Course? Or Garegga I guess, but my experience there is fairly limited.

Any info you could give on the general approach to scoring well in the game?

Based on what I have seen (tons of replays) and played, the bosses in ibara are worse than Batrider and Garegga. To score well you do exactly the same thing as you do in Garegga: get the medal value worth 10k, then bomb open something up with medals, bomb and catch medals, repeat over and over and over. Throw the "I have no bombs I better suicide quick" technique into the mix and that is how the game is properly played.

Of course, I cannot deal with the bosses so I don't play that way. There are some elegant ways to deal with the bosses of garegga, so maybe there are similar tricks for ibara. I don't know of any good strategies so I just collect as many bombs as possible, use them only against the bosses, and pray I make it to stage 5.

Now this begs the question:

"Maybe if you suicided and faced the bosses with no bombs and no men left, maybe you could deal with them. What about that?"

Even doing that, it doesn't help much.

[BulletMagnet]

IIRC Raizing put out a bunch of info about exactly how to manipulate Garegga's rank and whatnot when they held some kind of contest for it...maybe it'd help if CaveZing (or whatever you'd want to call it at this point) did the same and actually told players what exactly they had to do to survive this thing, as details at this point seem pretty sparse (though to be fair most of us aren't actually there in Japan).

[Icarus]

Some snippets of information are starting to emerge. A Hong Kong based player posted this at Click-Stick:

Here is some experience in playing IBARA, this is no doubt a suicide-fest game. The level rank of the game depends on:

- What option you take ( exp. using burner will just harden the boss)
- How many lifes you left
- How many bombs you get
- How many scores you scored
- Your shooting power (Power item)

You will see the level rank has been up when you notice the speed up of the enemy bullet and the harden of the enemy. It will be easily noticed in stage 3 boss and after. If you carry 3 life and 3 bombs to the stage 5 boss, you will feel hell hard the boss attack. There is a suggestion from the Japanese that , carry only 1 life left when entering stage 5, the boss will give some mercy to you by lowering her HP..

No Miss? well are you kidding ? orz

Some bits of Garegga's rank system have been identified as being present in the game, which isn't surprising as the Extends are set at a very generous limit (1mil per Extend). That would suggest that careful weapon management, tactical suicides for bomb fragments and very smart play are required.

I have yet to confirm this information myself though (awaiting the PCB to go down in price again on YAJ )

[BulletMagnet]

How many scores you scored

So now your SCORE affects the rank? I find that one tough to believe...if it's anything like Garegga in that respect, you HAVE to play for score in order to have enough extends to suicide and keep the rank in check...maybe it's more along the lines of "how many enemies you've shot down," again a la Garegga? If a higher score raises your rank ON TOP OF everything else, then this game must be flippin' impossible...