Pink Sweets: Ibara Sorekara

Pink Sweets

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!.

Gameplay Overview

Controls

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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 your Shot & Rose Hips. However, pressing the button fast enough will raise the internal autofire rate; 2) In case your Rose Cracker Gauge is fully charged, you will additionally release a Rose Cracker.
• B (press): Cycles through your Rose Hip Formations, if you have any collected on your current life. Cycling between: Forward, Wide, Back, Reverse & Turn in that order.
• B (hold): Fires your Rose Hips only.
• A+B (press): 1) Changes your speed; 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 auto-fire rate (#10, #12, #15, #20, #30)

Characters

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Each character has 4 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 4 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

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

Advanced Techniques

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 makes the ship briefly invulnerable, 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.

RC Tick

WIP

Items

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	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.

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

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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.
• Higher shooting frequency / more enemy bullets.
• More enemies for certain enemy waves (e.g. the snakes in stage 4).

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

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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, Shield, or Rose Hips. The score gain is the same regardless of the method of absorption used. 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

Bugs

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• 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 a*ttract 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. The bug is present on PCB and Xbox 360 port.
• The circling laser of stage 7 midboss can sometimes go past the player ship and not kill it.

Version Differences & Other Modes

Unlockable 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.
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.

Moreover, there is an unofficial prototype version 2006/xx/xx MASTER VER. which differs from the finished game in many ways.

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.
• Quicker respawn after death and a Shot Power Up item as well as a Rose Hip item appear.
• 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.

Video References

Video index for Pink Sweets

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
• Rank info from Archer's website: http://archerstg.web.fc2.com/pinksweets/bitterrank.htm with additions by Serrara Mayfield