Ibara

Ibara

Ibara title screen

Developer:	CAVE
Music:	Shinji Hosoe
Program:	Shinobu Yagawa
Art:	Toshiyuki Kotani
Release date:	Arcade JP: July 15, 2005 PlayStation 2 JP: February 23, 2006
Next game:	Pink Sweets: Ibara Sorekara

Ibara 鋳薔薇

Gameplay Overview

(ED: Someone just copied from Wikipedia for this, lol. This is really bad and will be improved in due time. In the meantime, even though I hate it, it's probably still better than no introduction)

Ibara (鋳薔薇) is very similar to 8ing/Raizing's Battle Garegga and Battle Bakraid games. So much so that Ibara could be considered a pseudo-sequel or, at least, a spiritual successor. The similarities are numerous - some are subtle, some are easily spotted. These include combining archaic technology such as biplanes with more advanced machinery; firing and a power-up system; and a medal collecting system which drastically increases scoring. The game features a similar method of earning bombs and a delay when launching them as well. Some of the enemies and their attack patterns are very familiar such as the large cranes in stage 1 and the minigun-wielding first boss. The enemy's explosions spiral around when destroying some of the heavier weapons/scenery and thin, while seemingly camouflaged enemy bullets are scattered around the play area in comparable patterns. More subtle references include the HUD layout which lists the name of the current stage at the top of the screen and, when starting a stage, tells users the title of the background music that is playing.

A notable feature of Ibara is the inclusion of a variable, real-time difficulty system by way of the Rank system. The player's rank increases as they acquire more items and cause more damage, increasing the difficulty of the game along with it. The number of enemies does not increase but the number of bullets fired towards the user does, often reaching a ridiculous level of bullet density. There are ways of lowering this rank system if the odds appear too much. The only known way of decreasing the player's Rank in Ibara is to die. The more lives you have, the less the rank decreases when you die. In the later version, Ibara Kuro: Black Label, Rank can be decreased by cancelling bullets with a bomb, however Rank also increases much faster in this version, potentially increasing from minimum to maximum in a matter of seconds.

Controls

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Control Explanation

Ibara uses only two primary buttons and an 8-direction joystick in gameplay. Each button can fulfill multiple functions based on how it is pressed or released, which can be a bit confusing for new players.

Joystick	Movement.
A (Tap)	Fire a short burst from the Main Shot and any Options. While tapping, Options will not lock in position, and will change their angle based on movement. By rapidly tapping and then holding A, the autofire rate can be increased. Autofire rate will remain elevated until the next death.
A (Hold)	Continuously fire the Main Shot and any Options. While the button is held, Options may lock and hold a fixed angle. Which Options will lock, if any, is based on what Ship Type is selected.
B (Tap)	Use a Bomb if at least one Bomb Fragment is in stock.
B (Hold)	If you have at least one Full Bomb in stock, holding the B button will 'Arm' a Hadou. A Hadou will remain Armed until the button is released.
B (Release)	If you have an Armed Hadou, releasing the B button will cause the Hadou to fire.
Start	Begin the game or Continue after a Game Over. While in game, removes any Special Option formations the Player may have collected.

Movestrips

• 

  Original Japanese movestrip issued with the PCB.

• 

  Custom English movestrip created by Emphatic.

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Weapons

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Main Shot

The Main Shot is fired by pressing or holding the 'A' button. The Main Shot has a built-in autofire system that will fire continuously when the button is held down. Similar to Battle Garegga, rapidly pressing and then holding the Main Shot button will increase this autofire rate; however, unlike in Garegga, raising the autofire in this way does not have a known multiplicative effect on per-frame rank. Any elevated autofire rate will be reset upon death, but can be raised again in the same way.

Though the Main Shot itself behaves the same when tapping or holding the 'A' button, holding the button down may trigger Options to lock depending on what Ship Type was chosen at the start of the game.

The strength and spread of the Main Shot is influenced by the Ship Type chosen, and by the Power-Up system. Again similar to Battle Garegga, there are both small and large Power-Up items; as the level of the Main Shot increases, the amount of Small Power-Ups needed to raise the Shot strength to the next level also rises.

(ED: Add images showing the Main Shot at different power levels and/or with different ship types)

Options

The Player can have up to three Options in Ibara; one Option can be placed on either side of the Player ship, with the third in the rear. Options fire automatically every time the Main Shot fires, and cannot be used independently of the Main Shot. Increases in the Main Shot fire rate will also increase the fire rate of Options, though the relationship is not 1:1. Depending on the Ship Type chosen by the Player, one or more Options may be 'lockable', and will hold their current angle when the Main Shot button is held down. Options are collected in the form of items, and are not directly linked to the main Power Up system used for the Main Shot. There are seven different Option weapons that can be collected, and each of the three mounted Options may use a different weapon type.

Prior to having all three Option slots populated, any Option picked up will be used to 'fill up' open slots, regardless of where on the Player ship the Option item is collected. However, once the Player has all three Options, the position on the Player ship where an Option is collected will influence where the new Option will try to mount. A newly collected Option that tries to replace a mounted Option of the same type, in the same position, will contribute 10,000 points to the score.

For example, if the Player already has a single Option in the right position and collects a Machine Gun on the right side, it will be automatically assigned to the left or rear Option slots. However, if the Player already has three Options, the Machine Gun will try to mount on the right side. If the existing Option mounted to the right position is already a Machine Gun, and the Player already has three Options, the Player will gain 10,000 points instead.

(ED: Add images to explain the Option positions and collection mechanics).

Below is a table describing the different Option weapon types that are available in Ibara. Note that weapon 'availability' is used to describe consistent drops; there are some enemy types (notably, fixed turrets) that can spawn with random weapons, so their drops may vary between runs. For the purposes of clarity and utility as a reference, this table indicates only drops that are consistent between runs regardless of enemy RNG.

	Machine Gun Common; available in all stages Low damage, high continuous rate of fire. Great for precision damage against large enemies, handling zako rushes, or drone milking.
	Gatling Common; available in all stages Low damage, short burst fire. Similar applications to the Machine Gun, but slightly less consistent due to gaps between bursts.
	5-Way Uncommon; available in most stages Very wide spread shot, great for crowd control or point blank damage. 3x 5-Way can be excellent for survival in parts of Stage 4, 5, and 6.
	Burner Rare; available in stages 2 and 6 High damage in bursts. Persists on screen for a while, good for space control. Produces the most tick points per second of any Option type.
	Napalm Uncommon; available in stages 2, 3, and 6 High damage with a small AoE explosion. Has some gaps between shots, so it can sometimes struggle against dense zako rushes.
	Rocket Common; available in stages 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 Medium damage, but pierces multiple enemies or boss parts. Excellent against large targets. Raises Rank at the highest rate of all Option types.
	Homing Rare; available in stage 3 and 5 Medium damage homing weapon. Extremely rare, the only consistent drop is Kasumi (Stage 3 Boss). Generally outclassed by other Options.

Aura Flash

Aura Flash is a tiny 'flash' around the Player ship that will appear when you Bomb, Power Up to the next full power level for the Main Shot, gain a new or different Option, build a full bomb, or ready a Hadou. Aura Flash makes the Player 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.

Aura Flash counts as 'Bomb' type damage for the purposes of destroying enemies or scenery, so can be used in some situations for scoring purposes or to trigger certain drops. It can also be utilized in conjunction with invulnerability after respawning to 'aggressively suicide' and use the Aura Flash damage from collecting Options to deal heavy damage to Bosses and large enemies; this technique will be explained in more detail in the Strategy section.

Items

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Item Drop Table

(ED: Under construction)

Bombs

^{(ED: Verify point values)}

Icon	Point Value		Rank Contribution		Description
	Base	?	Decimal	8,192	Bomb Fragment Found very commonly on all stages Adds one Bomb Fragment to the Player stock. If the total number of collected Fragments reaches 40, the Fragment count is reset and the Player is awarded a Full Bomb instead.
	Surplus	100	Hexadecimal	2,000
	Base	?	Decimal	131,072	Full Bomb Obtained as a pickup by destroying all parts of large tanks in Stage 2 and Stage 5, or dropped by the Player when losing their last life Adds a Full Bomb to the Player stock.
	Surplus	1,000	Hexadecimal	20,000

Shot Power Ups

^{(ED: Verify point values)}

Icon	Point Value		Rank Contribution		Description
	Base	?	Decimal	4,096	Small Shot Power Up Dropped by enemies based on the Item Drop Table Increments the Player's Main Shot power by one 'tick'. Depending on the current Shot level, it may take multiple Small Shot Power Ups to raise the shot strength to the next level.
	Surplus	100	Hexadecimal	1,000
	Base	?	Decimal	65,536	Full Shot Power Up Dropped by enemies based on the Item Drop Table, or by the Player when losing a life Increments the Player's Main Shot power by one full power level.
	Surplus	1,000	Hexadecimal	10,000

Rose Items

Rose Items are created when canceling enemy bullets with a Hadou explosion or trail, or with the explosion from a Player death animation. They can be collected for a small amount of extra score.

Icon
Value (Points)	100	200	400	800
Rank Contribution (Decimal)	256	512	768	1,024
Rank Contribution (Hexadecimal)	100	200	300	400

Point Medals

Point Medals are dropped by enemies based on the Item Drop Table, or through fulfilling certain special conditions. They are the primary source of score in the game, and can be collected for points.

Initially, the value of Medals is set at only 100 points. By collecting every Medal currently on the screen, the value of the next Medal to drop will rise to the next value above the most recently collected Medal. This 'chain' of Medals can eventually increase up to 10,000 points per Medal. Medal value will reset to 100 points if a Medal falls off the edge of the screen (or, rarely, when it otherwise despawns).

It is possible to 'rescue' a dropped Medal chain by collecting a medal of a higher value. For example, if a 10,000 point medal is on the ground, but the Player misses a Medal dropped from an airborne enemy, collecting the 10,000 point Medal on the ground before it scrolls off the screen will maintain the Medal chain at 10,000 points. This will work even if the Player collects a lower value Medal; in the same hypothetical scenario, if the Player collects a 100 point Medal, then a 10,000 point Medal, the chain value will still rise to 10,000 points - provided there were no other Medals lower than 10,000 points in value on the screen.

Icon
Value (Points)	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
Rank Contribution (Decimal)	256									1,024									4,096
Rank Contribution (Hexadecimal)	100									400									1,000

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 known 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 will gradually increase. 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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Development

Programmer Shinobu Yagawa previously worked on the games Recca, Battle Garegga, Armed Police Batrider, and Battle Bakraid. Ibara has much more in common with these games than with much of Cave's other releases, many of which were primarily developed by Tsuneki Ikeda.

During the development of Ibara, Yagawa was allegedly instructed to remake 'that game' - a veiled reference to Battle Garegga.^{(ED: needs sourcing!)}

Release

The game was released in arcades in July 15, 2005, and it was released on the PlayStation 2 on February 23, 2006.

To remedy some of the concerns fans had with the original version of the game, Cave released an updated version in limited distribution called Ibara Kuro: Black Label. It was released on February 10, 2006. The update contains many additions, some of which appeared earlier in the released PlayStation 2 port in the form of Arrange Mode.

A sequel, Pink Sweets: Ibara Sorekara, was released in the arcades on April 21, 2006.

Reception

Ibara was not as well received as other Cave games upon release. It is often claimed that Ibara was not very popular with arcade players or operators; several Ibara PCBs are known to have been sent back to Cave to be converted into other games that work on the CV1000B hardware platform. ^{(ED: needs sourcing!)} Weekly Famitsu magazine awarded the PlayStation 2 version of Ibara a score of only 26/40 based on four reviews (7/7/6/6).

References

1. In-depth rank info from an unpublished document written by Archer (dated September 17th 2011)
2. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-11-02-super-bank-breakers
3. https://www.famitsu.com/cominy/?m=pc&a=page_h_title&title_id=11135
4. https://www.famitsu.com/cominy/?m=pc&a=page_h_title&title_id=24103
5. https://www.famitsu.com/cominy/?m=pc&a=page_h_title&title_id=24093
6. http://www.cubed3.com/news/4566/1/nintendo-reviews-baten-kaitos-gets-top-honours-from-famitsu.html
7. https://web.archive.org/web/20060427111442/http://www.taito.co.jp/d3/cp/ibara/
8. http://www.cave.co.jp/gameonline/ibara/index.html