IBARA brand new for $ 999

D · Post by D » Fri Sep 16, 2005 8:23 am

Just got an e-mail with a special offer.
Seems cheap to me.
Too pricey for me still.

----- Original Message -----
From: Excellent Com Ltd
To: Com Limited Excellent
Sent: Friday, September 16, 2005 3:00 PM
Subject: Ibara - Cave Latest Shooting Game - Brand New Box Set

Ibara
Cave Latest Shooting Game
Brand New Box Set
Price : USD999
** Poster is limited ! First Come, Frist Serve

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Hong Kong
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GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 11:38 am

I will wait. It will be $600 in no time.l

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 11:40 am

i can get it slightly cheaper yet.. but like gaijin said.. when it hits 600 i'll snap on it

zlk · Post by **zlk** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 11:59 am

There was recently an auction on yahoo.jp for $980 that had no bids. In addition to the game being not that popular, there may be a problem with the pcbs themselves. After about 20 hours of play, the sound on my pcb stopped working properly. It cuts out completely after 2 minutes of play. Thankfully the place I bought it from said they would replace the pcb.

Valgar · Post by **Valgar** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 1:29 pm

That auction actually comes out to more like $880. Brand new and no bidders.

freddiebamboo · Post by **freddiebamboo** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 4:18 pm

I can't believe how quickly the value of ibara is dropping - feel sorry for anyone who forked out a fortune for it when it was released.

Why are the japanese not taking to it? Anyone heard any constructive critisism levelled at it?

cigsthecat · Post by **cigsthecat** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 5:15 pm

Hopefully we'll see Ibara brand new for $60. Otherwise I'll wait until the pcb hits $300 or so.

captain ahar · Post by **captain ahar** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 5:18 pm

cigsthecat wrote:Hopefully we'll see Ibara brand new for $60. Otherwise I'll wait until the pcb hits $300 or so.

here here

edit: and with Mushi ported and Ibara being on the same hardware... come on Taito (or better yet, Arika, maybe Taito will just give them all the assets

).

Post by **Dave_K.** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 5:20 pm

zlk wrote:There was recently an auction on yahoo.jp for $980 that had no bids. In addition to the game being not that popular, there may be a problem with the pcbs themselves. After about 20 hours of play, the sound on my pcb stopped working properly. It cuts out completely after 2 minutes of play. Thankfully the place I bought it from said they would replace the pcb.

I'm really curious how many others on the board here have had this problem (as I recall there are about 5-6 people with this PCB).

Valgar · Post by **Valgar** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 5:41 pm

freddiebamboo wrote: Why are the japanese not taking to it? Anyone heard any constructive critisism levelled at it?

Because it isn't CAVE. It is a Raizing blood and the rank rapes people.

I can't imagine why they would port this when no one wants to even play it in the Arcades.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 6:28 pm

In all fairness, I saw some people playing it... just nobody lining up.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 7:18 pm

Valgar wrote:I can't imagine why they would port this when no one wants to even play it in the Arcades.

I have my "issues" with the style that this game uses, but considering that it also has its strong points I'd definitely be willing to at least try it, if the price was right. Too bad no arcade for a thousand miles or more from me has ever even heard of the thing.

freddiebamboo · Post by **freddiebamboo** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 7:18 pm

Valgar wrote:
freddiebamboo wrote: Why are the japanese not taking to it? Anyone heard any constructive critisism levelled at it?
Because it isn't CAVE. It is a Raizing blood and the rank rapes people.

I can't imagine why they would port this when no one wants to even play it in the Arcades.

I thought they loved garegga etc over there

They even did the superplay dvd, surely those gamers that played the old raizing games haven't been converted into cave fan boys who hate all other shooters?

zlk · Post by **zlk** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 9:04 pm

freddiebamboo wrote: Why are the japanese not taking to it? Anyone heard any constructive critisism levelled at it?

The boss battles are in a word STUPID. Some attacks cannot be dodged, so you need to save up superbombs. Some attacks require tricks to get through and if you do not know the trick, you are dead. Even if you control rank, some of the boss attacks are still impossible. Since while controlling rank you only want to have one (usually no) extra ships in stock, one mistake on a boss can mean game over.

Post by **Dave_K.** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 9:30 pm

zlk wrote:
freddiebamboo wrote: Why are the japanese not taking to it? Anyone heard any constructive critisism levelled at it?
The boss battles are in a word STUPID. Some attacks cannot be dodged, so you need to save up superbombs. Some attacks require tricks to get through and if you do not know the trick, you are dead. Even if you control rank, some of the boss attacks are still impossible. Since while controlling rank you only want to have one (usually no) extra ships in stock, one mistake on a boss can mean game over.

Isn't this true of most shmups in general? Not rank per say, but that the game at first seems so difficult people think its "stupid" or that you need to know the trick to get through it. Honestly I thought DDPDOJ was stupid when I first played it because it was just so hard an inaccessable to shmup newbies like myself at the time. Eventually people learn how to play the game a certain way and beat it, and once that knowldge gets around, suddenly the game becomes a lot more popular.

kidneythief · Post by **kidneythief** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 9:40 pm

The rank thing is seriously a myth, I do just fine in that game with or without collecting powerups etc. Sure I havn't single credit cleared it yet, but I just sort of lose interest and don't end up playing it the whole way through. But I'm still perfectly alive and kicking by stage 4. So how many stages are there in Garegga anyway? 4 must be about half way through, and that's not bad for a game I only play casually...

Crying about rank is just silly, goons.

Okay, I'll go as far as to say that some of the attacks are different depending on whatever variables influence the "rank" but they are all fair, as far as I can tell (they don't usually kill me) You either need to practice more, or ingest more cocaine.

zlk · Post by **zlk** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 10:50 pm

Dave_K. wrote: Isn't this true of most shmups in general? Not rank per say, but that the game at first seems so difficult people think its "stupid" or that you need to know the trick to get through it. Honestly I thought DDPDOJ was stupid when I first played it because it was just so hard an inaccessable to shmup newbies like myself at the time. Eventually people learn how to play the game a certain way and beat it, and once that knowldge gets around, suddenly the game becomes a lot more popular.

IMHO, the boss battles of DOJ are easy compared to those in Ibara. You can control what happens in DOJ with the bosses. In Ibara things seem more random and more difficult at the same time. Some of the boss attacks in Ibara are silly. Even on stage 2, the 2nd and 4th attacks of the boss are harder than anything a DOJ boss will throw at you except for the true last boss. There is a hiding spot for the 4th attack that sometimes works. Anyone who has seen the stage 8 extended replay knows that the spot doesn't always work.

I have said it before and will say it again: The level design in Ibara is fine. The attacks one encounters within a level are all reasonable. Some boss attacks require the use of a super-bomb to survive. If you are out of bombs, you are out of luck. This makes the game not fun for me to play.

Post by **Icarus** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 12:27 am

While I agree that the bosses can be very difficult at times, I don't find them too unfair. Their attacks seem to be dependent on both rank and time, and if you take too long they will become much tougher, which makes it more difficult to milk them. This is quite evident in Midi's case, for example, as if you take too long to get her into her final form, it'll be near impossible to beat her, even with hadou.

If anything, trying to figure out a strategy where you both score and speedkill simultaneously is important to tackling the bosses correctly. I've already worked out how to do this against Meidi, and I think I have an idea of Midi's strategy.

There must be a good way around this game's bosses, if the current record holders are getting 16mil ALLs.

freddiebamboo · Post by **freddiebamboo** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 2:08 am

Is the rank increase fully understood yet? Also, I'm not sure if raizing or cave have released a game that has an unavoidable attack in it, but I'd be suprised if it did.

Maybe all that's needed with ibara is more time and practise, although maybe looking at critisism above (and the apathy from japan), it could well be just a flawed game.

I'm dying to play it anyway just to see what all the fuss is about

Post by **Icarus** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 3:49 am

freddiebamboo wrote:Is the rank increase fully understood yet? Also, I'm not sure if raizing or cave have released a game that has an unavoidable attack in it, but I'd be suprised if it did.

Pretty much everything that is known about the rank system is covered in the past five or so issues of Arcadia, and on various threads at arcadeita and 2ch. Some Japanese capture sites might have info as well.

In short, the stuff that increases rank are:

Amount of bullets fired
Subweapon type (the strength of the subweapon corresponds to rate of increase, higher weapon power means faster increase and vice versa)
Rose Medals collected (I'm unsure of this, but it might work to balance the power of the hadou weapon)
Survival time
Bombs used - calculated by amount of bomb fragments used, not by how many times you press the bomb button

There might be a few more factors, I'm still working on translating the info I know of. Arcadia has the most detailed info, but I have virtually no knowledge of written Japanese, so I'm unable to make sense of the info there - there's plenty of good scoring tips and boss strats by the looks of it, as well -_-

freddiebamboo wrote:Maybe all that's needed with ibara is more time and practise, although maybe looking at critisism above (and the apathy from japan), it could well be just a flawed game.

I wouldn't say flawed, just incredibly difficult. Then again, what Raizing styled game was ever easy? -_-;;

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 3:56 am

Icarus wrote:[*]Bombs used - calculated by amount of bomb fragments used, not by how many times you press the bomb button

Ouch...so if you're having trouble and are bombing a lot, the game says "Hm? What's that you're saying? The game's not hard enough for you? Well alrighty then!" Unless I misunderstood something, that really is brutal...then again, IIRC, Garegga had something similar to that, so it's not quite unique...

Post by **Icarus** » Sat Sep 17, 2005 4:03 am

BulletMagnet wrote:
Icarus wrote:[*]Bombs used - calculated by amount of bomb fragments used, not by how many times you press the bomb button
Ouch...so if you're having trouble and are bombing a lot, the game says "Hm? What's that you're saying? The game's not hard enough for you? Well alrighty then!" Unless I misunderstood something, that really is brutal...then again, IIRC, Garegga had something similar to that, so it's not quite unique...

Take Garegga's rank system, chop out a few things and add some stuff relating to your new set of weapons, and you have Ibara's rank system ^_^

IIRC, Cthulhu translated two pages from Arcadia relating to Ibara's systems. It's located on my site update thread.

Ord · Post by **Ord** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 7:44 pm

Well, I've not had any sound issues with my Ibara boards so far, so there's no complaints from me. I also concur with the idea that the reason it's not that popular is because it really is a Raizing game NOT a Cave game. Sure it produced and developed by Cave, but that's it. In my books this is Battle Garegga 2 and that's that.
I really am going to write that Ibara review soon, but as i've stated on this board before, this is one of the best shooters that I have played in many a year.
The design of the characters, weapons, ships etc is truly amazing, and the audio is incredible. The sheer frenzied carnage and destruction really is awsome. Incredible stuff!

Klatrymadon · Post by **Klatrymadon** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 7:58 pm

Well, I've not had any sound issues with my Ibara boards so far, so there's no complaints from me. I also concur with the idea that the reason it's not that popular is because it really is a Raizing game NOT a Cave game. Sure it produced and developed by Cave, but that's it. In my books this is Battle Garegga 2 and that's that.
I really am going to write that Ibara review soon, but as i've stated on this board before, this is one of the best shooters that I have played in many a year.
The design of the characters, weapons, ships etc is truly amazing, and the audio is incredible. The sheer frenzied carnage and destruction really is awsome. Incredible stuff!

It certainly sounds good - I can't wait to try it. As someone who has yet to buy any arcade PCB (I don't have the room for a cabinet... I've not left home yet:P), I find it rather amusing that spending $999 on Ibara would be seen as an inexpensive purchase. Perhaps you are all extremely affluent people, or are you folks talking purely in terms of the market?

Maybe I should stay away from arcade cabinets and PCBs, if only because my lax, nay, disdainful attitude towards money would mean that I'd be "ruined" after a few visits to eBay.

Post by **Icarus** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 8:29 pm

Bal-Sagoth wrote:It certainly sounds good - I can't wait to try it. As someone who has yet to buy any arcade PCB (I don't have the room for a cabinet... I've not left home yet:P), I find it rather amusing that spending $999 on Ibara would be seen as an inexpensive purchase. Perhaps you are all extremely affluent people, or are you folks talking purely in terms of the market?

Well, I've been waiting for this game since it was announced, and when I got it I was not disappointed. So to me, it's money well spent (but never again!).

It is a lot of money to fork out though, so it's better to get a few opinions about it first. And many here are quite on the money when they say that the game isn't for everyone, because admittedly it isn't. While I personally love this game and it's similarities with Raizing classics like Batrider and Garegga, it's precisely that kind of "tribute" that is part of this game's failing - Ibara, like it's spiritual predecessors, is a vicious game, designed to tear apart the players who lack even the slightest bit of skill.

I love it to bits though, and have not had any hardware problems despite clocking up well over 50 hours on it since I've had it. I love the design and the gameplay, and for me those are it's strongest points.

Ord · Post by **Ord** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 8:53 pm

Yeah, I also REALLY wanted Ibara the minute I saw the first screenshots, and I had to get it. It was the one Cave game that really got me excited and when I saw RFK's "Return Of The King" video it pushed me over the edge! I really doubt that i'll ever pay full whack for a new pcb again as £800 is a lot of money for a game, however I have absolutley no regrets shelling out for it. I sold some stuff to pay for it and I pulled an extra couple of shifts at my work and financially I was back on top of it, so that was fine.
Having said that though, Espgaluda II is looking rather lovely.

Hmmmmm December eh?

Valgar · Post by **Valgar** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 9:40 pm

It isn't a suprise if you just look at the credits. Ikeda didn't even work on the game. It was directed/programmed by Shinobu Yagawa and watch out...

http://www.arcade-history.com/history_d ... obu+Yagawa

Post by **Icarus** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 11:00 pm

Yeah, I'm quite familiar with Garegga's head honcho and his involvement with Ibara. That's one of the reasons I was so excited about the game. That and the fact that it's a Raizing styled game (as opposed to a Cave styled one) always gets the thumbs up from me ^_-

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 11:11 pm

All that puprle burned my eyes. It's a beautiful game, and the fact that you can pretty much get a kit for 100,000 yen was very tempting, but I just don't have the time or energy to really learn it at this point. I might pick it up when it's down in the 40,000 area.

Valgar · Post by **Valgar** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 12:23 am

GaijinPunch, when you played ESPGaluda II, did it look like CAVE had taken the graphics/animation up another step (compared to Ibara/Mushi)? I noticed they were using new explosions.