Pink Sweets: Ibara Sorekara

Pink Sweets: Ibara Sorekara

Title screen

Developer:	CAVE
Program:	Shinobu Yagawa Yuji Inoue
Art:	Tomoyuki Kotani
Release date:	Arcade JP: April 21, 2006 Xbox 360 JP: February 24, 2011
Previous game:	Ibara Kuro: Black Label
Next game:	Mushihimesama Futari

Pink Sweets: Ibara Sorekara (ピンクスゥイーツ ～鋳薔薇それから～, Pinku Suītsu: Ibara Sorekara, abbreviated: PS) is a bullet hell shoot-em-up developed by CAVE in 2006. In terms of story, this game is a sequel to Ibara.

Pink Sweets was later ported to the Xbox 360 in 2011, included in a double-pack with Muchi Muchi Pork!.

For replay videos, visit the Video Index.

Gameplay Overview

Controls

---

Pink Sweets is a 2-button game in normal play, with an 8 directional joystick for movement.

• Not shooting will build up your Shield and charge your Rose Cracker (often abbreviated as RC). 142 frames after the last regular Shot from your ship, the Rose Cracker Gauge is fully charged.

• A: 1) Fires Shot & Rose Hips. When pressing the button fast enough, the internal autofire rate will be raised; 2) In case the Rose Cracker Gauge is fully charged, the player will additionally release a Rose Cracker. However, if A is pressed only for a single frame, it is possible to deploy just a Rose Cracker without any regular bullets from Shot or Rose Hips being released.
• B (press): Cycles through the Rose Hip Formations if any Rose Hips are equipped. The Rose Hip Formation cycle is as follows: Forward > Wide > Back > Reverse > Turn.
• B (hold): Fires bullets from the Rose Hips only.
• A+B (press): 1) Speed change; 2) The current charge of the Rose Cracker Gauge is cancelled.

Reset Command: Anytime during the run, press ↑, ↑, ↓, ↓, ←, →, ←, →, A, B, Start. Resets the game and returns to the title screen.

In-Game HUD

1) Rose Cracker Gauge: When fully charged you'll be able to release a Rose Cracker

2) Speed meter: There are 4 different levels of speed

3) Internal autofire rate: #10, #12, #15, #20, #30 (for #60, see Internal and External Autofire)

Characters

---

Each character has four different sub-types to choose from. These types usually have slightly different attacks from Shot Level 1 onwards. Shot Level 0 is the same for each type. The types are decided by which button you press when you select a character: A, B, A+B, and Start.

The four types of each character and their Rapid Shot as well as their Wide Shot at Shot Level 3 are as follows.

		Meidi & Midi Rose
		Gloire de Meidi & Midi
A	Rapid	Six straight shots to the front
	Wide	Five wide shots to the front
B	Rapid	Four straight shots to the front Two straight shots to the back
	Wide	Five wider shots to the front
A+B	Rapid	Four straight shots to the front Two straight shots to the back
	Wide	Five even wider shots to the front
Start	Rapid	Two straight shots to the front Three wide shots to the back
	Wide	Two straight shots and one shot each at 45° to the front One shot each at 45° to the back

		Kasumi Rose
		Hana Kasumi mk2
A	Rapid	Six missiles to the front, which accelerate in the center and your level 0 Shot
	Wide	Six homing rockets to the front and your level 0 Shot
B	Rapid	Six missiles to the front, which are fired first on the sides and your level 0 Shot
	Wide	Five homing rockets from each side and your level 0 Shot
A+B	Rapid	Six missiles to the front and your level 0 Shot
	Wide	Five homing rockets from each side and your level 0 Shot
Start	Rapid	Six missiles to the front and your level 0 Shot
	Wide	Homing rockets from all sides and your level 0 Shot

		Shasta Rose
		Child of Mount Shasta
A	Rapid	Two fixed laser beams to the front
	Wide	Two laser beams to the front (leaning angle 20°)
B	Rapid	One fixed laser beam and your level 0 Shot to the front Single straight shot to the back
	Wide	One laser beam (leaning angle 60°) and a 5-way shot to the front
A+B	Rapid	One fixed laser beam and your level 0 Shot to the front 3-way shot to the back
	Wide	One laser beam (leaning angle 80°) and a 6-way shot to the front Laser locks on to enemies
Start	Rapid	One fixed laser beam to the front 4-way shot to the back
	Wide	One laser beam (leaning angle 90°) and a 6-way shot to the front Laser locks on to enemies

		Lace Rose
		French Lace S
A	Rapid	Three straight lightning beams to the front
	Wide	3-way wide lightning up to 30° to each side
B	Rapid	Two straight lightning beams to the front One straight lightning beam to the back
	Wide	3-way wide lightning up to 45° to each side
A+B	Rapid	Two straight lightning beams to the front One straight lightning beam to the back
	Wide	3-way wide lightning up to 60° to each side
Start	Rapid	One straight lightning beam to the front Two straight lightning beams to the back
	Wide	3-way wide lightning up to 90° to each side

Hitbox

Left: regular hitbox
Right: smaller hitbox in Harder mode

The hitbox for all ships is 2x4 pixels big. Only in Harder mode, the hitbox is reduced further and now measures a mere 2x2 pixels. The grazebox is significantly larger. The image to the left shows the hitboxes (in yellow) for all of the four ships.

In relation to the center of the ship, the hitboxes of Kasumi and Shasta are located higher compared to Meidi & Midi and Lace.

Speed

There are four levels of speed you can switch to by pressing A+B anywhere in the game. In terms of speed, Meidi & Midi and Shasta are both faster than Kasumi and Lace. The speed values in the table below are measured by counting the frames it takes to cross the screen horizontally. Therefore, a high value corresponds to a slower speed and a low value to a faster speed.

	Speed 0	Speed 1	Speed 2	Speed 3
Meidi & Midi	140	105	71	53
Shasta
Kasumi	171	128	86	64
Lace

Internal and External Autofire

#60 displayed in the HUD in Special Version

Left: internal #30
Right: external 30 Hz

By pressing the Shot button repeatedly, the autofire rate can be increased to a maximum of up to #30. This is indicated by a flashing number in the HUD. The autofire rate has no effect on rank and has no other drawbacks which is why the player is advised to increase it early on. The rate cannot be lowered again and stays high for the entirety of the run.

Reaching #30 manually can pose an issue to some players. To reach the highest frequency, the player can mash the button during moments of heavy slowdown. A good place is the very first stage transition into stage 1 when an additional Rose Cracker is deployed.

The highest autofire rate can be achieved with 30 Hz external autofire, which is faster than internal #30. If an external autofire rate of 30 Hz is used during pause buffering in the debug mode (aka Special Version), it is displayed in-game as #60. Using external 30 Hz in the regular game achieves the same rate but does not change the display to #60.

Aura Flash

Similar to Ibara, Pink Sweets features the Aura Flash. Aura Flash is a tiny 'flash' around the ship that will appear when the player powers up to the next power level, gains a new Rose Hip, or changes the Shot type (from Rapid to Wide or vice versa). The Aura effect is represented by a ring around the ship that persists for a few frames and grows slightly before fading. The Aura Flash cancels a very small ring of bullets around the player, and does a huge amount of damage, but it lasts an incredibly short time and has miniscule range. The damage is done in two tics during the time it's in effect, if both tics connect it does about the same damage as a Rose Cracker.

When enemy targets are destroyed by the Aura Flash, points are awarded the same as if they were destroyed by Shot. The targets also count toward the Zan counter.

Items

---

	Shot Power Up Increases your Shot Level by 1 Surplus score value: 1,000
	Rapid Shot Changes to Rapid Shot or increases your Shot Level by 1 Surplus score value: 1,000
	Wide Shot Changes to Wide Shot or increases your Shot Level by 1 Surplus score value: 1,000
	Rose Hip Adds a Rose Hip to your ship Surplus score value: 1,000

Special Upgrades

Fulfilling certain conditions, the following special items can be triggered. A special item is indicated by a faster flashing item.

• Special Power Up: Let four shot power items (Shot Power Up, Rapid Shot, Wide Shot) fall off screen in succession.
• Search Rose Hip: Let four Rose Hip items fall off screen in succession.

If the special item is not picked up, the player has to pick up a regular item first before starting to set up for the next special item again.

1 Up Item

There are three general methods of making a 1 Up item appear:

1. There is an invisible counter known as the Zan counter which goes +1 if an enemy or any type of destructible object (including destructible bullets) is destroyed with Shot and goes -1 if they are destroyed with Rose Cracker. Every time the counter reaches 2,500 a 1 Up item will appear and the counter resets to 0 again. Destroying enemies or other objects with Rose Hips does not affect the counter in any direction. It is important to stress that the Zan counter only resets upon the appearance of the item not by the collection of it. Moreover, even if the 1 Up item appears after e.g. an additional 500 targets are shot down, the surplus count is lost and the counter is always fully reset to 0.
2. A midsize tank rolls over another standing tank. This can be achieved in Stage 3 and Stage 7 (twice with the correct setup). Damage the wheels of the first tank and then let the second one roll over it.
3. Destroy all 12 towers in Stage 5. The 1 Up item is in the last one if done correctly.

There are no score-based extends in Pink Sweets.

Rose Items

100	200	400	800

Rose Medals

100	200	300	400	500	600	700	800	900	1,000	2,000	3,000	4,000	5,000	6,000	7,000	8,000	9,000	10,000

Item Drop Order

---

Generally speaking, ground enemies drop Rose Items in a fixed appearance while airborne enemies drop regular items determined by the item drop order below. Moreover, a couple of ground enemies, e.g. the laser towers in stage 2 or the trains in stage 5 are also guaranteed to drop regular items.

As for airborne enemies, under normal circumstances, every eighth popcorn enemy destroyed will drop an item. Airborne enemies with more than 1 hp will always drop an item. These kills do not contribute to the popcorn enemy count.

When a popcorn enemy is destroyed in the deadzone, it will neither drop an item nor does it contribute to the kill count of 8 (it does, however, still contribute to the Zan counter). On the other hand, airborne enemies with more than 1 hp will always drop an item, even in the deadzone or when they are off screen. In this case, if the spawned item happens to be a medal, it will immediately break your medal chain.

The items are determined according to a specific order, governed by the following table. This item drop order carries over between credits.

Drop Number	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Item

• If you fulfil the conditions for a Special Power Up, it appears as the next Shot Power Up, Rapid Shot, or Wide Shot item. As a visual key, this item is flashing rapidly.
• If you fulfil the conditions for a Search Rose Hip, it appears as the next Rose Hip item. As a visual key, this item is flashing rapidly.
• If you fulfil the conditions for a 1 Up item, it appears before the next item drop. Succeeding this, the regular item drop order then continues. The 1 Up item will not replace a regular item.

Rank

---

See Pink Sweets: Ibara Sorekara/Advanced Rank for a detailed discussion on rank in Pink Sweets.

Rank is the dynamic ingame difficulty and affects the following gameplay elements in Pink Sweets:

• Enemy HP increases. This includes all types of destructible projectiles.
• Higher shooting frequency / more enemy bullets.
• More enemies for certain enemy waves (e.g. the snakes in stage 4).

When playing without infinite lives, rank in Pink Sweets can only be kept low by not making it escalate. Once it is too high, there are no reasonable strategies to lower it again and the player loses control. As there are no regularly gained score-based extends in this game, suiciding for rank control is not advised. The best way to keep rank low is to collect as few items as possible and avoid using Rose Crackers whenever possible. Moreover, excessive speed and formation changes can have a bad effect on rank in the long run. A higher autofire frequency has no effect on rank.

When playing for score, the player does not have to worry much about rank control as a higher rank generally also means higher score gains all throughout the game.

Scoring

---

See Pink Sweets: Ibara Sorekara/Strategy for a detailed discussion on score routes and character-specific considerations in Pink Sweets.

Scoring in Pink Sweets involves the following main mechanics:

• Item Collection: Maintain a chain of maximum-value Rose Medals throughout the entire game. In addition, other items will also award bonus points when collected in excess.
• Destruction with Shot or Rose Cracker: Many enemies throughout the game will award different point values depending whether they are destroyed with your Shot or the Rose Cracker. Particularly important are Shot kills of midbosses and bosses. Killing them with Rose Cracker instead is often worth only 1/10 of the score. See Pink Sweets: Ibara Sorekara/Enemy list for more information. Note that destroying enemies with Rose Hips will always result in no points at all.
• Dismantling Bosses and Milking: Some bosses consist of several parts that yield additional points. Moreover, many bosses have milkable phases, e.g. the discs on stage 2 boss, phase 2 which also drop items.
• Grazing: If the player ship is close to a bullet or an enemy, the score increases by a tiny bit. The score gain increases with the number of projectiles and objects in close vicinity. Moreover, the closer the player is to these objects, the higher is the score increase. Grazing usually gives negligible amounts of score while involving a high risk. However, in some sections of the game it can turn out to be very lucrative. When playing with the infinite lives bug, grazing during the iframes after respawning is one of the key scoring mechanics.
• Tick Points: Hitting a target will award tick points. While this source of points is incredibly important for Lace and Kasumi, it is less so for Shasta and can generally be ignored with Meidi & Midi. Tick point optimization includes shooting enemies (particularly bosses) beyond the invincibility line to milk extra points without dealing damage.
• Bullet Absorption: The player is awarded with points if enemy bullets are absorbed with the Rose Cracker or Shield (absorbing bullets with Rose Hips gains no score). The score gain is the same in both cases. Most of the time, this is not a big source of points. However, this can be very important in certain situations, e.g. the timeout pattern of stage 4 midboss.

Enemy Point Values

Main article: Pink Sweets: Ibara Sorekara/Enemy list

Advanced Techniques

---

RC Tick

When a Rose Cracker hits an enemy (for instance, a boss), the target will receive damage every 7 frames. This is the maximum damage output frequency which cannot be increased any further. Therefore, hitting the same enemy during the effect of a Rose Cracker with Shot or Rose Hips does not deal additional damage to the target. This fact can be exploited when playing for score, as the player is still awarded with tick points from shooting the target while no additional damage is inflicted. Therefore, when playing for score with a character that gains high tick points (e.g. Lace, Kasumi, Shasta) it is advised to shoot (about five lightnings with Lace on #30) during a Rose Cracker to take full advantage of this. This will also leave enough time for the Shield to build up again and keeps the player safe after the effect of the Rose Cracker wears off.

Fully Charged Shield: Forward diagonal movement through bullets

The shield hitbox is large and protects your front. In fact, it is large enough that you can fearlessly fly forward and diagonally to navigate curtains of bullets without being hit. Quite useful when you need to take a position but are trapped by bullets filling the screen.

Forward Rose Hips: Side to side movement through bullets

The best defensive and offensive formation for your Rose Hips. When combined with a fully charged shield you have full frontal protection from cancel-able bullets. But even while shooting it's safe to clear bullets out of your way with the Rose Hips, while moving left or right in one swift motion. This technique can also be used with Back Rose Hips, though it is not nearly as reliable.

Reverse Rose Hips

Within the yellow cone, the player is safe from any of the boss' bullets.

While set to Reverse formation, the Rose Hips can be used to cover the hitbox of the ship. In order to achieve this, lateral movement is required to place one Rose Hip above the player ship. Moreover, a specific angle in relation to the source of the enemy bullets is needed. This technique can be used for scoring (for instance, to milk destructible bullets) and likewise for survival particularly on certain boss attacks. The image to the right shows the required angle. In this situation, the player is completely safe without a Shield and is free to hold down the Shot button to milk the destructible bullets for score.

Increasing the Rank

When playing for score, it is paramount to control the rate at which the rank increases. The reason for this is that a higher rank means more enemy spawns to take advantage of and more bullets to destroy, absorb, or graze. Due to their higher HP, bosses can also be milked for longer on higher rank. Without the infinite lives bug it is useful to increase the rank at least a little bit in the beginning until it maxes out eventually at the end of stage 3 or the beginning of stage 4. Upon reaching max rank, the limited number of lives prevent the rank from going down reasonable amounts, as it will quickly climb to max rank again after the player has lost a life.

When playing with infinite lives, however, rank can be treated as a resource that can be increased for certain parts where the player wants to execute suicide iframe grazes. In this playstyle, rank is much more flexible and goes up and down several times throughout the game. In order to handle rank increase most efficiently, it is important to play with an autofire button for B (preferably 30Hz, but 20Hz may turn out to be sufficient). Even though, changing speed once increases rank by 4,000 and a single formation change of the Rose Hips only by 1,000 (see Advanced Rank), there is a buffer between speed changes, which ultimately makes rapid Rose Hip formation changes the best method to increase rank the fastest.

Exploiting the Dead Zone

The dead zone is above the yellow line. At least the two options immediately to the left & right of the midboss are invincible.

Just as it is the case with its predecessor Ibara, there is a dead zone at the very top of the screen in which enemies are generally invincible. This can be exploited with characters that gain a reasonable amount of tick points (e.g. Lace or Kasumi) as enemies can be milked for score just a little bit more.

While the extra point gain from this during stages is marginal (but can add up over the course of the entire game), this exploit becomes much more significant on certain bosses. The idea then is to shoot the boss only when it is in the dead zone to milk for tick points and stop shooting once it leaves the dead zone and becomes vulnerable again. The dead zone can be located approximately above the text of the stage name as the image to the right shows.

A particularly important place where the dead zone can be exploited for score is phase 2 of the stage 3 boss. Since only the orange shoulder pad is vulnerable during this phase, it often happens that it parks fully inside the dead zone during the even attacks. As a visual cue to know about the boss' exact position on screen, the player can look at the blue hat. If the blue hat is either completely off screen or just barely visible, the boss (or rather the vulnerable shoulder pad) is inside the dead zone and can now be milked for tick points.

The boss is inside the dead zone and invincible.

The boss is too low and takes damage.

Deathblow Priority

When a Rose Cracker is contacting a target while your Shot is also making contact: Shot will take priority for the deathblow. However, this only applies 100% to constant contact weaponry such as: Kasumi's Rapid Fire, Lace's lightning weaponry, and Shasta's laser beams. With other shot types you are hoping that the shot makes contact at the exact frame the deathblow is dealt. This knowledge can be great for claiming the 100,000pts bonus from bosses or mid-sized enemies who also have a Shot Bonus. Oppositely, there are times you don't want your shot stealing deathblows, as mentioned in the Frame Perfect Rose Cracker details.

Frame Perfect Rose Cracker

By tapping Shot for 1 frame while a Rose Cracker is charged: there will be no following attack from your main shot afterwards. This is useful for circumstances such as the intro to Stage 2, when you want the Rose Cracker to make the deathblow on the airborne formations for the Rose Cracker kill score bonus, see: Deathblow Priority. For example, Lace's laser weaponry will instantly target everything ahead of her. It is of minor note that if you do hold Shot for more than 1 frame (2 or 3 frames), this does not add to your next Rose Cracker charge time. Nor does a Frame Perfect Rose Cracker help subtract charge time from your next charge. There is a small delay before the next Rose Cracker can charge.

Stage Maps

---

The following images are taken from CAVE's official website.

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

Stage 5

Stage 6

Stage 7

Bugs

---

• Infinite Lives Bug (Japanese 残機無限バグ): The original version (2006/04/06) has a bug present that grants infinite lives to the player. In order to trigger this bug, the player simply has to reach six extra lives. Upon picking up the final 1 Up item for this, the life count is displayed as 2 and does not decrease anymore. This bug cannot be triggered by reaching a score-based extends (selectable via non-default settings). This bug was removed in a later version (2006/05/18) and is neither present on the Xbox 360 port.
• Freeze bug: The original revision "2006/04/06 MASTER VER." can freeze during the final rush in stage 6 and the final form of the stage 7 boss. This bug was fixed in later revisions such as "2006/04/06 MASTER VER...." or "2006/05/18 MASTER VER." and is likewise not present on the Xbox 360 port.
• When the player starts a run of Normal Mode while the Harder Mode ranking is displayed during the attract cycle, a number of enemies will fire denser attack patterns. This increases the score potential significantly in some areas. Conversely, when a Harder Mode run is started while the attract cycle displays gameplay of any of the stages, less dense bullet patterns are present. Since the attract cycle is missing, this bug is not present on the Xbox 360 port.
• In Extended Mode, the 1 Up item from destroying the twelve towers in stage 5 can only be triggered once over the course of the two loops and will always appear after the twelfth tower has been destroyed. For instance, if the player destroys six towers in 1-5, the count carries over into the second loop and the 1 Up will appear after destroying six more towers in 2-5. If the 1 Up is already triggered in 1-5, it will not appear in 2-5 at all.
• Search Rose Hips are sometimes triggered by flying close to the item without actually picking it up. This is probably due to a larger hitbox of a separate overlapping invisible item triggering only the special effect.
• The message "Defeated the Enemy" is sometimes displayed incorrectly for one frame after the stage 2 boss fight.
• The attract cycle can desync and sometimes the player ship is missing entirely.
• During the second phase of the boss fight in stage 2, a front pod can be spawned behind the boss with the movement properties of the disc enemies. This is presumably triggered when a front pod is destroyed exactly the moment a disc enemy is about to spawn. A similar phenomenon can be observed on the midboss of stage 7 when the sprite of a turret is fired as if it were a spike mine. This might be a purely visual bug without any gameplay consequences. This bug in both forms is present on PCB and the Xbox 360 port.
• The circling laser of stage 7 midboss can sometimes go past the player ship and not kill it. This is most likely not a bug but simply a reflection of the inconsistent hitboxes of the lasers.
• Occasionally, the Bombers (large green circular explosions) used by the Stage 3 boss and Final boss: will be invincible to Rose Cracker damage. It remains uncertain if other forms of damage circumvent this occurrence.

Version Differences & Other Modes

Selectable Modes

Besides the regular game, the following additional modes can be accessed on the arcade version by holding certain inputs when starting the credit. All of them can be activated via the options menu on the Xbox 360 port, too.

Mode	Unlock Code	Description
Harder	Hold ↑ and press Start	More difficult mode featuring suicide bullets. No changes as for rank.
Extended	Hold ↓ and press Start	Two loop mode. Higher starting rank and minimum rank cap. Further increased for loop 2.
Score Attack	Hold A+B and press Start	Caravan style mode for stage 6 with infinite lives and a 5 minute timer. Timer is increased by 1 minute every 1 million points.

Arcade Revisions

The undocumented 2006/04/06 revision with two periods

There are two main versions of Pink Sweets. The difference is the presence or absence of the infinite lives bug.

2006/04/06 Version

The original version of Pink Sweets. The infinite lives bug is present. Further sub-revisions of this version exist which are indicated by the number of periods. 2006/04/06 MASTER VERSION. Freeze bug is present. 2006/04/06 MASTER VERSION.. [undocumented] 2006/04/06 MASTER VERSION... Freeze bug presumably removed. 2006/04/06 MASTER VERSION.... Freeze bug is removed. A score entry clearing all stages is displayed in green color on the ranking.

2006/05/18 Version

A later version of Pink Sweets which removes the infinite lives bug. Freeze bug is also removed. No further sub-revisions exist. Version 1.00 of the Xbox 360 port is based on this version. A score entry clearing all stages is displayed in purple color on the ranking.

In terms of distribution, the original 2006/04/06 MASTER VERSION. seems to be the most common PCB revision.

Prototype Version

In 2008, a prototype version PCB of the game has surfaced. This version shows the game still in an unfinished state.

2006/xx/xx Version	Unofficial prototype version presumably not intended for sale or distribution. Differs from the finished game in many ways.

Differences include:

• Continues cannot be used
• Extra lives are dropped at 3,000 instead of 2,500 Zan
• Stage 4 boats do not drop Rose Medals but merely low value Rose Items
• Several different bullet patterns and enemy placements (particularly in stage 6)
• Destroying enemies with Rose Hips gains regular points
• No noticeable rank but rather a gradual increase in difficulty
• No intense timeout attacks of the first few midbosses
• ...

Due to the lack of rank, the prototype version starts out much easier. However, key aspects later on in the game are a lot harder. For example, the frequency of lasers during the snake/laser section of stage 6 is much higher. The final onrush of enemies before the stage 6 boss is presumably impossible to survive without a death, as the attack lasts longer than a Rose Cracker. Moreover, the timeout attack of the last boss (head form) is activated much quicker. These changes combined with the fact that extra lives are much more scarce due to the higher Zan counter make this prototype version extremely difficult. Not a single clear has been achieved so far.

This attack consists of destructible bullets in the finished game

This attack was replaced by homing lasers in the finished game

The final attack of the stage 6 boss spins faster and is much more frantic

Frequency and number of lasers was toned down a lot in the finished game

Pink Sweets Suicide Club

Title screen of Pink Sweets Suicide Club

An unofficial romhack with the title Pink Sweets Suicide Club (Japanese title Pinku Suītsu: Jisatsu Kurabu ピンクスゥイーツ 自殺倶楽部) was released by the developer Four Horsemen in 2017. The PCB revision shows the date 2017/10/31. In December 2017, the game was playable for a brief period of time at Game Center Mikado in Takadanobaba, Tokyo.

There are numerous gameplay changes in comparison to the original game. Among the most notable differences are a new button layout (now using three buttons) and the presence of a rank as well as a Zan counter on screen.

Modes Exclusive to the Xbox 360 Port

Version 1.01

Version 1.01 is a novice mode of the game exclusive to the Xbox 360 port. The changes from the main game are as follows:

• The player ship can be modified with three Rose Hips instead of only two.
• Shorter death animation and quicker respawn. Additionally, a Shot Power Up item as well as a Rose Hip item appear upon each death.
• Rose Crackers can be deployed before the Rose Cracker Gauge is fully charged to throw a Rose Cracker of shorter duration.
• Rank is lowered by dropping 10k Rose Medals.
• Enemy HP is not affected by rank.

Arrange

Another mode that is exclusive to the Xbox 360 port. Arrange features a great variety of changes including a scoring system revolving around enemy chaining in the vein of Battle Bakraid.

MAME Overlay

In June of 2022, an overlay for MAME has been released by the users Olifante and baf. This overlay is inspired by the gadgets of the M2 ports and makes various information explicit, for example:

• Zan counter
• Rank meter
• Boss HP and timer (including number of attack cycles)
• Counters for dropped Rose Hips and Power Ups to set up for Special items
• Input display

The overlay can be downloaded here. In order to make it work, the user has to enable overlay plugin support and cheats in the MAME config from the main UI screen.

References

• Primary info provided by Pearl and Plasmo
• All item sprites taken from CAVE's official website https://www.cave.co.jp/gameonline/pinksweets/system/item.html