Where is the Ibara love?

[ciox]

Yep, think this goes for all Yagawa games, nothing reduces rank like staying on 0 lives no matter how many extends are thrown your way, any extra life - you gotta drop it like it's hot. No way I could clear Bakraid Advanced with my garbage skills and without realising this.
I think it started with me slowly getting really suspicious about my "bad runs" turning out a lot better than the runs where nothing went wrong.

[moh]

and i thought to myself "wtf is wrong with you? kill yourself!"

that's exactly how i feel when i play ibara, too!

[Obscura]

Yep, think this goes for all Yagawa games, nothing reduces rank like staying on 0 lives no matter how many extends are thrown your way, any extra life - you gotta drop it like it's hot. No way I could clear Bakraid Advanced with my garbage skills and without realising this.
I think it started with me slowly getting really suspicious about my "bad runs" turning out a lot better than the runs where nothing went wrong.

Actually, in most Yagawa games, there's no penalty for flying around with extra lives. You just need to drop it before the next one comes in, since the rank drop from dying is greater when you have fewer lives.

Also, in Garegga, the penalty for having extra lives is tiny unless the number of spare lives you're carrying gets truly absurd.

Clearing Ibara is not as hard as its reputation has it seem. You just have to understand that you can never have 2 spare lives in stock ever for 1 second other than in the final stage and you need to avoid items you don't need, if you need to keep the rank down in order to clear the game. The only thing that lowers the rank significantly is suiciding down to 0 lives in stock. So play with 1 man in stock and whenever you are about to get a 1UP, suicide. If you die a man prior to that, treat it as your suicide. Bombspaming is not required for survival, at all. That's for scoring or if you are good enough to play it at high rank. For basic survival/your first game clear you are better off building up hados for the bosses.

I just played a couple credits this way, and was finally able to get to stage 3 by hado-spamming the stage 2 boss whenever she did anything remotely difficult, but playing this way isn't fun at all.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

Theoretically you could probably still score big with medaling if that is what does it for you so long as you follow the same suiciding plan because you would be raising the rank with the medals but you would be scoring more thus getting more extra men thus suiciding way more, so you would have that much more pushing the rank back down.

[Elaphe]

The PS2 version wasn't very good, so I've enjoyed it better with MAME. However, when I've really felt in love with it is with the Black Label edition. The addition of focus movement and the possibility to select different specs for your ship is an amazing step forward in terms of playability. Also, from a technical point of view, this game is possibly the most amazing shmup I've ever seen. The art by Styleos is, as usual, gorgeous and the the soundtrack is also amazing. I remember the first time I heard the music in stage 1, kinda Stratovarius. :O

[O. Van Bruce]

After watching that replay on youtube I reached a conclusion... even if I love Yagawa games I have to say that right now they are 3deep5me. Too much unintiutive thinking going there, specially since I'm still on the "survivalist" phase.

I still like Pink Sweets So I'll continue jamming my head against a wall from time to time but if someday I 1cc that shit I may start taking Yagawa games more seriously... Meanwhile, I'll try to stick to simple mechanics shmups.

[Never_Scurred]

Are you there, Cave? Its me, Never_Scurred. Please consider putting out a port of Ibara+Kuro for the 360, thank you.

[Vyxx]

Best STG of all time.

The difficulty comes in because it plays differently every time, and all the DDP-game-chainers can't handle this.

Every successful run is a hard fought achievement, not an exercise in muscle and mental memory.

Perfect description.

Ibara4life

[trap15]

Best STG of all time.

The difficulty comes in because it plays differently every time, and all the DDP-game-chainers can't handle this.

Every successful run is a hard fought achievement, not an exercise in muscle and mental memory.

Perfect description.

Ibara4life

This indeed.

[shmuppyLove]

[Never_Scurred]

Best STG of all time.

The difficulty comes in because it plays differently every time, and all the DDP-game-chainers can't handle this.

Every successful run is a hard fought achievement, not an exercise in muscle and mental memory.

Perfect description.

Ibara4life

This indeed.

Cosign.

[MintyTheCat]

How's this for Love?

1. Played ibara for the first Time at Replay in Blackpool UK in November 2010.
2. Bought ibara PCB in January 2011 - having searched for it; I actually bought it from a Shmups-Forum Member too
3. Bought a Supergun to be able to play ibara.

...And it never disappointed. I fell in love with it the first Time I played it.

I've never played the PS2 Port. I posted a Question a few Years (2010) asking "Which Version should I get?" and the Concensus was that the PS2 Port was over priced and I might as well just buy the PCB. PCBs will always more 'real' to me than a CD any Day so that was simple.

It would be nice to see further Ports and I do believe that it has its Fans.

[Never_Scurred]

How's this for Love?

1. Played ibara for the first Time at Replay in Blackpool UK in November 2010.
2. Bought ibara PCB in January 2011 - having searched for it; I actually bought it from a Shmups-Forum Member too
3. Bought a Supergun to be able to play ibara.

...And it never disappointed. I fell in love with it the first Time I played it.

I've never played the PS2 Port. I posted a Question a few Years (2010) asking "Which Version should I get?" and the Concensus was that the PS2 Port was over priced and I might as well just buy the PCB. PCBs will always more 'real' to me than a CD any Day so that was simple.

It would be nice to see further Ports and I do believe that it has its Fans.

I preordered the PS2 version, joined here and found out it was the shitty version, lol. Not too bothered about it, though. Got plenty other shmups to tide me over.

[IseeThings]

maybe accessibility has something to do with it?

It's very obvious from posts in this thread that a significant number of people on this forum would like to see a more modern port of the game, that to me indicates that the existing game isn't that accessible in terms of 'I want to play this now!'

I think to a larger community a lot of Cave titles are 'sleeper hits' They're not fully recognized by the masses at the time, only by a more hardcore audience who go out of their way to buy them / play them.

There are various contributing factors to this, obviously the lack of publicity most games in the genre get, but also suicidal business decisions such as region locking / no release outside of Japan and the limited runs of games, and the high prices they attract even in resale. Cave also suck at advertising their products, almost intentionally wanting to limit ownership and exposure to 'elite' groups.

I say this as an outsider, but since Ketsui was emulated I've seen a lot more positive opinions of it about, and rather than people saying it's a dull generic looking shooter there instead appears to be a wider audience raving about the quality of the game having actually pumped some hours into it. I think Ibara might be suffering a similar fate, it was released a long time after the days of shmups were over in the public eye, and is hardly the easiest game to lay your hands on. Even with it emulated the emulators available have very high system requirements, which again limits exposure of the game, and the C&D request from Cave also means nobody else is really being exposed to it that way either.

So my gut feeling is that you'll see more Ibara love a couple of years from now, once more people have played it, and it's started to earn a greater reputation than it has right now.

Of course people might just decide it's a bad game and forget it, but I think a lot of people simply haven't played it properly yet, and therefore cannot judge or form a fanbase.

[DocHauser]

...the Black Label edition. The addition of focus movement and the possibility to select different specs for your ship is an amazing step forward in terms of playability.

I thought that until I played it again recently and checked out the strategy thread. I'm pretty sure that all the ship options from Black Label are actually available in Ibara as well, they're just a bit more 'hidden', i.e. you just have to hold down A, B, or A+B when you press Start; or play as Player 2. Still no focus movement, though.

[Obscura]

...the Black Label edition. The addition of focus movement and the possibility to select different specs for your ship is an amazing step forward in terms of playability.

I thought that until I played it again recently and checked out the strategy thread. I'm pretty sure that all the ship options from Black Label are actually available in Ibara as well, they're just a bit more 'hidden', i.e. you just have to hold down A, B, or A+B when you press Start; or play as Player 2. Still no focus movement, though.

This is correct.

[ancestral-knowledge]

First of all noone owns Ibara so noone can play and therefore love it. I would never buy the PS2 JAP only port because I saw people ranting about it. The game seems like a ton of fun: The explosions are amazing, the visual presentation is beautiful, the music and the announcer sound good and the ship with all the various firing options seems cool.

The problem is the suicide system. Noone is going to like that. It's totally absurd and contradicts the very principle of the whole genre. I don't like scoring but the scoring system is badly designed too in this game. A scoring system which allows for 5 minute boss milking bullshit is just bad design. In addition to that the game is hard as nails. And if you combine all these together it's pretty sure that no average person would play it over a longer period of time. But a good port on the XBOX360 would be amazing and could revive this forgotten game.

[TLB]

First of all noone owns Ibara so noone can play and therefore love it. I would never buy the PS2 JAP only port because I saw people ranting about it. The game seems like a ton of fun: The explosions are amazing, the visual presentation is beautiful, the music and the announcer sound good and the ship with all the various firing options seems cool.

The problem is the suicide system. Noone is going to like that. It's totally absurd and contradicts the very principle of the whole genre. I don't like scoring but the scoring system is badly designed too in this game. A scoring system which allows for 5 minute boss milking bullshit is just bad design. In addition to that the game is hard as nails. And if you combine all these together it's pretty sure that no average person would play it over a longer period of time. But a good port on the XBOX360 would be amazing and could revive this forgotten game.

Post of the year...?

Anyway, G, I think you should write a blog about shmups. I'd love to read it. Alternatively I'd like to see what you think of "Dodonpachi", "Ikaruga", "R-Type", "Gradius", "Soukyugurentai", "Rayforce", "Armed Police Batrider", "Battle Bakraid", "Raiden", and "Battle Garegga" respectively in a post or series of posts in a separate thread, if you would.

[ancestral-knowledge]

no problem. i just stated the obvious.
be my guest

[KAI]

Ibara love <3

[Never_Scurred]

I'm gonna go fire up my PS2 copy and think about what might have been, simultaneously getting my ass kicked from lack of slowdown.
Ibara love <3

[Special World]

So is the port that much different, or is it a case where the visuals are a bit muddy and the slowdown's not quite perfect?

[moh]

So is the port that much different, or is it a case where the visuals are a bit muddy and the slowdown's not quite perfect?

the muddy visuals are normal, even the pcb has those. *ducks for cover*

[cools]

The PCB is crystal clear, it's the interlacing crap on the port that screws it.

[shmuppyLove]

But a good port on the XBOX360 would be amazing and could revive this forgotten game.

Especially if they make a novice mode.

[BulletMagnet]

Especially if they make a novice mode.

They'd have to tie Yagawa down and sedate him if he ever found out.

[Never_Scurred]

The PCB is crystal clear, it's the interlacing crap on the port that screws it.

Its not as bad as people were/are making it out to be. Of course the PCB is gonna have the better visuals, but I felt Mushi PS2 was worse than the Ibara port in that regard. It's the lack of slowdown thats the bigger issue, for most of us, at least.

[drunkninja24]

The PCB is crystal clear, it's the interlacing crap on the port that screws it.

Its not as bad as people were/are making it out to be. Of course the PCB is gonna have the better visuals, but I felt Mushi PS2 was worse than the Ibara port in that regard. It's the lack of slowdown thats the bigger issue, for most of us, at least.

Yeah, Stage 3 in particular is where it becomes highly apparent on the PS2 port. The first time I played on PCB, I was shocked at how much slowdown was in that stage, when close to none existed on the port.

[CptRansom]

Yeah, Stage 3 in particular is where it becomes highly apparent on the PS2 port. The first time I played on PCB, I was shocked at how much slowdown was in that stage, when close to none existed on the port.

It's even MORE fun in MAME!

NOT THAT I KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THAT

[Obscura]

Yeah, Stage 3 in particular is where it becomes highly apparent on the PS2 port. The first time I played on PCB, I was shocked at how much slowdown was in that stage, when close to none existed on the port.

It's even MORE fun in MAME!

NOT THAT I KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THAT

Tab -> Slider Controls -> Blitter Rate to 61%.