So why no love for Pink Sweets?

[Vyxx]

Yagawa has a big following, many, many people love his games, Garegga again won the "Shmups annual 25 Shmups of all time" poll.
Yet I see almost no one talk about Pink Sweets, and when I do, most people dislike the game. After watching many videos and reading through the games Official Topic & Strategy topic I don't really understand the lack of praise. Ibara is in the top 25 and Muchi Pork is top 50, yet PS falls in the 70s. I hear people say things like:

- Tough as nails, but isn't Ibara, and Garegga? Rank is present in all those games, so why is this bad?
- I've seen lots of peoplke remark about the games aesthetic appeal and say that the color scheme is almost "eye bleeding"
- I've heard many comment that 7 stages is too long?

These all seem like small complaints and nit picking to me....
Ibara half the time has bullets and crap I can't even see, and PS seems to fix that for the most part.
The PS high scores thread is dead, and never had much attention. So, what's the deal?

[Zeron]

These all seem like small complaints and nit picking to me....
Ibara half the time has bullets and crap I can't even see, and PS seems to fix that for the most part.
The PS high scores thread is dead, and never had much attention. So, what's the deal?

Once it's been ported to 360 it will gain alot of love, 60% of the criticism is from people who have not even played it.

[Limbrooke]

No home conversion. Comparing to Ibara and Garegga is easy in that they're both by Yagawa yet they both received home versions and in the case of Garegga is emulated in MAME. It doesn't go much beyond that. I think the system in Pink Sweets plays a small role but one to the point where its limited distributed has had an effect.

[brentsg]

I don't like the Rose Cracker (bomb) function. Using it is death from rank. And it's difficult NOT to use, since it charges when you absorb bullets and you have to change speeds to get out of a charge. PITA IMO. Hopefully the port fixes that a bit, at least for an arrange mode.

[jpj]

score attack mode is good but the rest is broken

it's possible to trigger infinite lives as early as stage 3, and as you get huge points for sitting on top of bosses, you basically suicide over and over and just sit on the bosses milking points until timeout or the damage from your aura kills it (which is also worth a good chunk of points)

beating pink sweets with a 10+ mill score and no infinite lives shit is possible and very impressive, but infinite lives is dull

N.B. they did make a 2nd version with the infinite lives trick removed. but pink sweets isn't very well designed with regards to some factors relating to difficulty and gameplay, and a normal run would never score as high as a run done on infinite lives. to my knowledge, arcadia never separated scores between bug-use or non bug-use (instead just adding it as a note next to the scores). then a 3rd version was released with infinite lives reinstated

[Shuurin]

I've played it at a friends house numerous times. While I like the idea of canceling green shots and earning an extend through means other than straight scoring. One of the main aspects to me that makes Ibara and Yagawa games so like able is bomb fragment collection.

The Rose bomb is pretty slow to charge up. So if you run into a oh sh!t moment, you are going to die as bombs are not instant. When trying to wait out patterns to milk green bullets and focus break down bosses you have to tap fire or change speed to remove the rose bomb charge. As mentioned earlier actually making use of the bomb is deathly for how quickly it jumps the rank. Its like being handed something by the developer and being subsequently punished for using it.

And your rose hip options, who's bright idea was it that anything killed by them including bosses give 0 score. You hurt your score for picking them up.

I can't say anything for the infinite life trick as I haven't had enough practice to get it down.

I think this game overall would have been perfect if Yagawa kept his signature bomb gaining, or went with Cave's standard bomb style. Then fixed the option score issue.

[Dave_K.]

In summary its a game of extremes, and a greatly different experience than what people here are used to, even from Yagawa. I happen to like it, but mostly because it turns a lot of notions upside down, which I find fun and interesting to discover strategies with. I've owned the game since release, and still haven't gotten the infinite lives trick down, so its no simple thing that cheats you of any experience, its simply one of those extremes if you can handle full-on rank or not. As with all Yagawa games, score isn't the only goal, where even the PCB has extra modes, although I'm personally looking forward to the 360 port of MMP Arrange with Pink Sweet bosses!

BTW: nice to see jpj is still around!

[cools]

I absolutely LOVE the game, and I'll rebuy it at some point.

Here's the thing: it's NOT a shmup. It's a puzzle game. You can play it shooting if you like but you won't get far. It's far more fun to bomb, wait, bomb, wait - the whole game needs memorising for bomb placement.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Here's the thing: it's NOT a shmup.

Sounds like Cave.

It's a puzzle game. You can play it shooting if you like but you won't get far. It's far more fun to bomb, wait, bomb, wait - the whole game needs memorising for bomb placement.

Bmup sounds like something Yagawa would come up with alright.

[Matsunaga]

There's no love because the vast majority of people haven't played it. After the port shows up, I'm sure it will move up the list.

[originalz]

The game has awesome music!

PS definitely has some pretty major flaws, and it's very much a long game that kind of overstays its welcome after awhile, but after playing it for awhile I really started to enjoy it. It's true that you can't play it like a typical shooter, there's a lot of strategy involved in the bombing and absorbing bullets.

The biggest problem for me is that if you die at the wrong time, you might as well just give up since there's no way you'll be able to recover without any powerups unless you're extremely good and absorbing bullets.

[roker]

I thought it was really fun and quirky and played a good 2 hour session like it was nobody's business.

If the port is region-free (that's assuming Cave has a change of heart), then I'll buy it day one.

If not, then whatever. It's not a game I'd go out of my way for.

[MR_Soren]

I've never played PS or MMP, but they are the main reason I am somewhat regretting my decision to get a US rather than Japanese 360. I don't want to buy another console and I doubt they'll get a US release. I was actually more excited about that package than about DDP DFK which was announced at the same time.

[TonK]

Anyone want a bare PCB?

I didn't hate it like I thought I would... But it's just not a good game IMO - I'd go with MMP, Sweets, Ibara. (as far as Yagawa Cave games go)

Cools is kinda right... I just sit there, charge, absorb, bomb, collect.

I can fight the first stage boss without shooting it.

The MMP/Sweets double pack will definitely be worth it.

The PCB is for the hardcore who REALLY enjoy unfun games.

[evil_ash_xero]

I've never been interested in it because of the A) name and B) appearance. Not so much into the cutesy stuff. I can only handle so much. That being said, I will get the MMP + PS pack, and I will give it a go.

[Plasmo]

In summary its a game of extremes, and a greatly different experience than what people here are used to, even from Yagawa. I happen to like it, but mostly because it turns a lot of notions upside down, which I find fun and interesting to discover strategies with.

This.

- Tough as nails, but isn't Ibara, and Garegga? Rank is present in all those games, so why is this bad?

While Ibara is already a lot harder than Garegga, Pink Sweets is a whole new experience of difficulty.

I'm definitely going to destroy the game once the port gets released. Stage 5 boss will go down, revenge will be mine.

[jpj]

Here's the thing: it's NOT a shmup. It's a puzzle game. You can play it shooting if you like but you won't get far. It's far more fun to bomb, wait, bomb, wait - the whole game needs memorising for bomb placement.

you've got it completely the wrong way around, and i'm sure i can get further into the game and with a higher score than you do with minimal bomb use.
to be any good at pink sweets you have to lay off the bomb - more details in the strat section

p.s. cheers dave

[cools]

You missed the more fun part. Shooting and low rank in PS I find boring

[DEL]

Great Game

[jpj]

who's talking about low rank?

i give in with this place

[cools]

Quoting the ST

"An important task besides scoring well is controlling the Rank. Basically everything raises it and nothing lowers it. The only way to ‘control’ it, is not to let it raise to quickly. Let us start with the worst thing you could ever do, the Rose Cracker. Simply never use this thing, because if you use it once, the Rank raises, the bullet patterns get more dense and then the second time you are forced to use it. By the third time you are already game over."

I'd rather play it the opposite way to you is all, with the rank driven high as quickly as possible

[Plasmo]

Broken 1mill yet?

[Dave_K.]

This is the cool thing about Pink Sweets, there are two popular paths to 1CC, low rank shooting and avoiding powerups, or high rank infinite lives trick before the rank gets impossible. Playing in between these two extremes (which everyone typically does when first playing this game) is actually that hardest path, and highest scoring, if you can no-miss through to the last fixed extend in stage 5, giving you infinite lives for just stages 6 and 7.

[Trevor spencer]

Ive owned it but after only a few credits i knew it wasnt for me

I love the graphic style and the music but the actually gameplay i found overly hard and boring , I will give it more time when the port comes out but i couldnt justify owning a £500 kit so i sold it and put the money towards my mortgage

[zlk]

I have tried to like PS but I can't. There are a few reasons why the game annoys me. The levels are fine and actually quite fun. The boss battles are annoying and if you die on the wrong boss, your game will most likely end there. I also don't like the fact that there is an infinite lives feature and you need to have an autofire circuit on the B button to help trigger it. Maybe if I 1cc'd all the Cave games and had nothing else to work on I might give PS a shot (or if I found an autofire circuit to buy) I might try again. Until then I will play something else.

[DEL]

Dave_K wrote;

This is the cool thing about Pink Sweets, there are two popular paths to 1CC, low rank shooting and avoiding powerups, or high rank infinite lives trick before the rank gets impossible. Playing in between these two extremes (which everyone typically does when first playing this game) is actually that hardest path, and highest scoring, if you can no-miss through to the last fixed extend in stage 5, giving you infinite lives for just stages 6 and 7.

Is there a fourth way? Play it from Stage 5 like Giga Wing, using your pod firepower and still constantly charging up and releasing the fire cracker.
I've been meaning to try this, but the board is long gone from my local arcade.
Me too for that matter

[jpj]

I'd rather play it the opposite way to you is all, with the rank driven high as quickly as possible

if you're playing it that way with the intention of driving the rank up as quickly as possible then you're still doing it the wrong way and should be using your option pods (see earlier post from zlk). you could just play harder mode, i mean that's what it's there for

dave: the 'honest' method isn't the highest scoring unfortunately, i think the replay from AZI on nico is a B.9 if i remember rightly. infinite lives scores are still higher, partly because they can continuously suicide on bosses and simply hover over them for lots of points

as zlk said, another thing is that when you die, unlike ibara, no power-ups are released when your ship blows up - so 1 death means you're then gonna have to fight with your pea-shooter until you can get a power-up from somewhere, which is really bad cos some bosses will spew out tons of destructable bullets that you wont be able to cope with. or if you die when there's a medal on the screen, if it's 2/3 the height of the screen or less, it takes so long for your ship to actually blow up and return on screen that you will lose the chain. the lightning attack on the stage 6 boss can be worth huge points, but it depends on how many sweeps of it's lasers you get. i tried so hard to find a pattern or a way of manipulating it, but it's either random or something no-one's figured out yet. and every so often the board will crash on the last wave of enemies on stage 6

edit: here's that replay you're talking about dave

http://es.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm6764131
http://es.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm6764312
http://es.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm6764493
http://es.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm6764710

you can see AZI doing that hover trick i mentioned on the stage 1 boss. imagine how much you can abuse that with infinite lives if anyone hasn't seen this replay yet i'd recommend checking it out cos almost every other video currently online is a no medal snooze fest. well, since i last looked any ways, have there been any other decent pink sweets videos since then...??

(edited once to add links, twice to add text, and two more times for spelling )

[Shuurin]

and every so often the board will crash on the last wave of enemies on stage 6

If I ever got that far to see that, that would certainly ruin my day.

Hopefully that is hammered out in the port. All this talk makes me want to go out and play the game again.

[Dave_K.]

I also don't like the fact that there is an infinite lives feature and you need to have an autofire circuit on the B button to help trigger it.

I'm pretty sure DEL was able to get rank up to max without autofire by stage 2, so its still possible, although much simpler with an autofire circuit.

Is there a fourth way? Play it from Stage 5 like Giga Wing, using your pod firepower and still constantly charging up and releasing the fire cracker.

Unfortunately I think using the cracker this much will eventually lead to impossible rank, meaning, the destructible bullets/missiles that your shield can't stop will be too many for your options to take out alone. Would be neat to see how far you can get though.

dave: the 'honest' method isn't the highest scoring unfortunately, i think the replay from AZI on nico is a B.9 if i remember rightly. infinite lives scores are still higher, partly because they can continuously suicide on bosses and simply hover over them for lots of points

Ok, this I wasn't sure about. I remember hearing you and EOJ mention the suicide points during infinite lives, but I wasn't sure this is how the Arcadia record was accomplished. BTW: that video is sick!

All this talk makes me want to go out and play the game again.

You'll get a chance if you make it up to this coming shmupmeet.

[DEL]

Dave_K wrote;

I'm pretty sure DEL was able to get rank up to max without autofire by stage 2, so its still possible, although much simpler with an autofire circuit.

Yup absolutely true. You don't need an autofire circuit at all. Rank goes up with every press of a button, so I just mashed ALL the buttons madly from the start of the game and got pretty much max rank early on (ST2).

Unfortunately I think using the cracker this much will eventually lead to impossible rank, meaning, the destructible bullets/missiles that your shield can't stop will be too many for your options to take out alone. Would be neat to see how far you can get though.

^I'm sure you're right, but I'd like to try