Ibara

Ibara 鋳薔薇

Gameplay Overview

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Rank

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Rank System Overview

Ibara features a dynamic difficulty, or "Rank" system similar to that found in Battle Garegga. Most actions taken by the Player will increase the Rank, which also continuously rises with every frame of play time. The only way to decrease the Rank is to die, either by accident or with planned suicides.

Almost every action taken in the game will increase the Rank:

• Firing a bullet from the main weapon or Options
• Collecting an item (all items, including Power-Ups, Options, Medals, and even the 1-UP item, will increase Rank)
• Using a Bomb or Hadou
• Sealing enemy bullets

Ibara's Rank system is quite complex, but there are a few basic principles that can help new players:

• The Rank will decrease more if you die with fewer lives in stock. In other words, if you have only 1 spare life and die (thus leaving you with 0 stock), it will decrease the difficulty twice as much as if you died with 2 lives in stock.
• Partial Bombs will increase rank more rapidly than Full Bombs.
• The Hadou Gun will increase rank even more rapidly than either kind of Bomb.
• Collecting Power-Up and Option items will always increase Rank, even if the items do not impart a change to the Player (IE: collecting Power-Up items while at full shot strength will still raise rank).
• Raising your autofire rate does not affect the per-frame Rank; however, since you are firing bullets more rapidly, it does still affect the rate at which Rank will build over time.

Rank System In-Depth

Rank value is stored internally as a hexadecimal value, which is actually 'inverted' compared to the Player's experience of it - as this value decreases, the game gets harder. Because it is more consistent with the user experience, it is customary to refer to the increase in game difficulty as 'increasing the Rank', even though that is not technically accurate to the internal implementation.

There are two separate settings determining the rank in Ibara. Difficulty 1 determines only the starting rank and has no further effect on the gameplay. After the player has started a run, the rank is then gradually increasing determined by difficulty 2, which is the per frame rank increase.

Depending on the number of runs played during one continuous session, the starting rank is gradually increasing. Starting rank can be reset either by entering the test menu or by powering down the PCB. The values in the table below are taken from the first run after powering up the PCB.

Difficulty 1 (starting rank)	Decimal	Hexadecimal
Easy	15,204,352	E80,000
Normal [default]	14,680,064	E00,000
Hard	14,155,776	D80,000
Very Hard	13,631,488	D00,000
Super Hard	13,107,200	C80,000
Unbelievable	12,582,912	C00,000
Difficulty 2 (per frame rank)
Slow	12	C
Medium [default]	16	10
Fast	20	14
Very Fast	24	18
Maximum Fast	28	1C
Unforgettable	32	20

Notes:

• Rank maxes out at 00,000,000 (000,000 in hex) regardless of the difficulty settings.
• Starting rank for Harder mode is 8,808,032 (866,660 in hex) on default settings.
• Starting rank for Extended mode is the same as on Normal mode on default settings.

Rank is influenced by certain actions of the player, e.g. firing your Shot or picking up an item. All of the actions that have an effect on rank are listed in the tables below. Even though, an increase in difficulty is actually measured by a decreasing rank counter, the numbers below are listed as if the rank counter would count up. This is simply to make things easier to follow.

Action	Rank increase in decimal	Rank increase in hexadecimal
Death from 1 life > 0 lives	-2,097,152	-200,000
Death from 2 lives > 1 life	-1,048,576	-100,000
Death from 3 lives > 2 lives	-524,288	-80,000
Death from 4 lives > 3 lives	-262,144	-40,000
Death from 5 lives > 4 lives	-131,072	-20,000
Seal a bullet	4,096	1,000

Notes:

• Cancelling bullets turning them into rose items has no effect on rank.
• Grazing enemy bullets has no effect on rank.

Item	Rank increase in decimal	Rank increase in hexadecimal
100~900 Medals	256	100
1,000~9,000 Medals	1,024	400
10,000 Medal	4,096	1,000
100pt. Rose Item	256	100
200pt. Rose Item	512	200
400pt. Rose Item	768	300
800pt. Rose Item	1,024	400
Shot Power Up (small)	4,096	1,000
Shot Power Up (large)	65,536	10,000
Bomb Item (small)	8,192	2,000
Bomb Item (large)	131,072	20,000
Option Item	65,536	10,000
1-Up Item	524,288	80,000

Notes:

• Dropping a medal has no effect on rank.
• Collecting excess items for score has no additional effect on rank.
• Powering up with with a Shot Power Up (small or large) has no effect on rank.
• Reaching the next full bomb with a Bomb Item (small or large) has no effect on rank.
• Triggering any of the Special Options has no effect on rank.

Attack (per full burst)	Rank increase in decimal	Rank increase in hexadecimal
Regular Shot (Shot Level 0~2)	30	1E
Regular Shot (Shot Level 3)	40	28
Regular Shot (Shot Level 4~5 and Special)	50	32
Machine Gun	15	F
5-Way	75	4B
Gatling	15	F
Homing	40	28
Rocket	100	64
Burner	32	20
Napalm	50	32
Bomb (fragment)	20,480	5,000
Bomb (full)	8,192	2,000
Activating a Hadou Gun	69,632	11,000

Notes:

• The values for Regular Shot have been tested for Dyne (A). They may or may not differ for Bond and the different sub types.
• While activating a Hadou Gun has an effect on rank as indicated, actually releasing it has no effect on rank.

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References

1. Rank info from an unpublished document written by Archer (dated September 17th 2011)