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Shooter fans...

japtor said:
back to ibara, some people on shmups are saying its a bitch to play in yoko because the blur and massive amounts of debris. and my 150lb tv is tated, 50 more is nothing! id say get a cab, but then youd have to get a pcb, cause the ps2 ibara output would look fugly on it anyways.

Well, I've been playing mine for a bit now and honestly I don't see any problems with Yoko in Ibara. It doesn't look like the blurry mess that Mushihime-sama is and looks pretty close to Dodonpachi and Espgaluda. I'm not having a hard time seeing the bullets thanks to their bright colors, so I don't see it being much of an issue.

But then again I'm not a purist when it comes to shmups. I just play for the intense satisfaction of surviving X amount of mins while trying to top my previous score :) I also don't play with an arcade stick (I have one, but trying both I prefer tapping left/right on the d-pad than the arcade stick).

Game seems great btw. I prefer the arrange mode due to the cool scoring system (is there even a scoring system in arcade mode besides just blowing things up and picking up items?), and the multiple weapon switching + options makes arrange feel like Gradius meets Cave. Arcade mode is awesome too, though I'm just lacking motivation to play it atm since I don't see any real scoring system and there's no rank meter.
 
Bebpo said:
But then again I'm not a purist when it comes to shmups. I just play for the intense satisfaction of surviving X amount of mins while trying to top my previous score :)
I always considered this being a purist.
 
Bebpo said:
Well, I've been playing mine for a bit now and honestly I don't see any problems with Yoko in Ibara. It doesn't look like the blurry mess that Mushihime-sama is and looks pretty close to Dodonpachi and Espgaluda. I'm not having a hard time seeing the bullets thanks to their bright colors, so I don't see it being much of an issue.

But then again I'm not a purist when it comes to shmups. I just play for the intense satisfaction of surviving X amount of mins while trying to top my previous score :) I also don't play with an arcade stick (I have one, but trying both I prefer tapping left/right on the d-pad than the arcade stick).

Game seems great btw. I prefer the arrange mode due to the cool scoring system (is there even a scoring system in arcade mode besides just blowing things up and picking up items?), and the multiple weapon switching + options makes arrange feel like Gradius meets Cave. Arcade mode is awesome too, though I'm just lacking motivation to play it atm since I don't see any real scoring system and there's no rank meter.
A buddy of mine here at work picked it up, and we checked it out at break today, so my thoughts on the game are pretty brief...

Music rocks pretty hard. That level 1 music just gets you into the mood to take on the world! :lol Couldn't get a good read on the sonic quality of the sound effects and explosions without having a chance to pump this through a home stereo system.

I agree with you on the look of the game. Mushihimesama really suffered graphically in its conversion, but it looks like Taito got it right with Ibara this time. I didn't notice anything horribly wrong with the default Yoko mode, and I immediately put Shasta up as the game wallpaper. :D Gallery looks like it's all there without having to do any unlocks. Good stuff.

I only got a chance to play Arcade Mode once, and yeah, my impression was that it was pretty oldskool in its feel. Didn't seem to be any sort of scoring system AFAICT aside from the pick-ups and stuff like that. Can't wait to try out Arrange Mode, though! That sounds like where the real action is at.

I did find the firing rate of the ship to be sort of weak/slow, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. I'm so used to the massive barrage your ships put out in games like Espgaluda and DDPDOJ. I also miss the two firing types that all their games have (fast movement/wider firing range & slow movement/focused stream), but I can see why they did it this way.

Anyway, should be picking mine up either today or tomorrow, so I'll be back with impressions, too. So far, so good!
 
Looks like the Arrange mode in Ibara is where actual meat of the game is, especially if you like actual Cave shooter style (which I love). Too bad that you only get one credit in that mode. Is there some kind of cheat code to allow more credits in the Arrange mode?

I did find the firing rate of the ship to be sort of weak/slow, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. I'm so used to the massive barrage your ships put out in games like Espgaluda and DDPDOJ. I also miss the two firing types that all their games have (fast movement/wider firing range & slow movement/focused stream), but I can see why they did it this way.
From what I've seen and heard all of that is 'fixed' in the arrange mode
 
Cave, Raizing, and Psikyo all need to do compilations. I don't want to play Guwange or Dangon Feveron on an emulator, I want to play a legit version with a nice joystick on my television. I can only imagine how much it would be to find an original japanese arcade board, and there's no way an arcade would have import shooters running in a cabinet.

Oh, as much as folks are singing the praises of the Playstation version of DoDonPachi, its harder to get than the Saturn version...

I really should start getting some import PS1 and PS2 games. I'm missing out on a lot of good software.
 
Yeah arrange has the awesome cave "hold down button for REALLY GOOD FIRING RATE but slower movement speed (which I actually find to be a plus because it's easier to move between bullets :P)"

Even though you only get one credit, the bomb system is so awesome that it's not so bad. I've already gotten to the point where I can pretty much 1life stage 1/2 as long as I have bombs for the bosses. Stage 3 is destroying me though ^^;
 
ghibli99 said:
Didn't seem to be any sort of scoring system AFAICT aside from the pick-ups and stuff like that.
Appearently with Ibara being an 8ing game, it's all about "Rank".

I don't recall specifically what Rank is all about (despite owning Sokyugurentai) so maybe someone here can fill me in. I could go to shmups's forum and try to search it out, I guess ... but then again I could also give myself a vasectomy using nothing but a hammer, too.
 
Bebpo said:
Yeah arrange has the awesome cave "hold down button for REALLY GOOD FIRING RATE but slower movement speed (which I actually find to be a plus because it's easier to move between bullets :P)"

Even though you only get one credit, the bomb system is so awesome that it's not so bad. I've already gotten to the point where I can pretty much 1life stage 1/2 as long as I have bombs for the bosses. Stage 3 is destroying me though ^^;
I'm so frothing at the mouth right now... this sounds awesome!! Maybe during lunch, I'll check out Arrange Mode... this sounds like it'll render Arcade Mode insignificant. :D
 
dog$ said:
Appearently with Ibara being an 8ing game, it's all about "Rank".

I don't recall specifically what Rank is all about (despite owning Sokyugurentai) so maybe someone here can fill me in. I could go to shmups's forum and try to search it out, I guess ... but then again I could also give myself a vasectomy using nothing but a hammer, too.

From what I've read rank is just an unseen meter that fills up as you get points and as the meter fills up the enemies shoot bullets faster and bosses have more HP. I don't get how it relates to scoring though.

Arrange mode on the other hand is the same principle but you see the rank meter at all times and it effects how many points you get when bombing. Full meter (hardest enemies, highest HP bosses) gets you 300x per bullet you turn into rose with your bomb, whereas an empty meter just gets you like 3x. So yeah in arrange you want to play around with your rank to max scoring, while getting your rank DOWN before bosses so their HP isn't insane. But yeah, I don't see what rank has to do with scoring in arcade mode.
 




This isn't for ps2, but I've been waiting for an excuse to post these Shoot the bullet screenshots (available here). My favourite touhou game so far.
 
Bebpo said:
But yeah, I don't see what rank has to do with scoring in arcade mode.
oh :/ I thought it might have. I won't be able to play Ibara myself until I get my copy from my gf, so like normal I'll be behind everyone else and I won't know these things until it's not needed.

I was just reciprocating what I gleaned from a shumps thread about it (i.e. YOKO EWWWWWWW RANK RANK RANK ME WANT ISO DUMP). Oh well.

That dojin game looks pretty neat, but I quite literally cannot see where the ship is in those screens.
 
dog$ said:
I was just reciprocating what I gleaned from a shumps thread about it (i.e. YOKO EWWWWWWW RANK RANK RANK ME WANT ISO DUMP). Oh well.
:lol No doubt. There's some great information there, but yeah, it's a haven for pirates who want to play but don't want to pay... for anything.

Furoba said:
Mushihimesama
Really? Wouldn't have known that from your avatar or anything. :D Tell me more about ZG2. Barely touched it.
 
Just picked it up on the way home tonight! Only played Arranged Mode once so far, but I can already tell that I'm never touching Arcade Mode again. :D Got to the endboss on Stage 2, and didn't even score enough to rank in. :lol Classic.

Anyway, I'm really excited about playing this game more, and so I took a picture:

ibara.jpg


Back to Ibara! :D
 
ghibli99 said:
Just picked it up on the way home tonight! Only played Arranged Mode once so far, but I can already tell that I'm never touching Arcade Mode again. :D Got to the endboss on Stage 2, and didn't even score enough to rank in. :lol Classic.

Anyway, I'm really excited about playing this game more, and so I took a picture:

ibara.jpg


Back to Ibara! :D
Nice. I am going to pick up the same controller.
 
Miroku said:
Ghibli99,
Nice center channel speaker :)
I have a full set of CDM NTs. I love em :D
Thanks! Yeah, I'm really happy with them, although that center channel is pretty huge and heavy. It always factors into my TV buying: will it fit above or below, and if above, will the TV sustain the weight? :)

Unfortunately, I only have 1NTs for my L/R (assisted by a Velodyne 12" sub) and some crappy old Infinity quad-pole surrounds leftover from the DPL days. Once I do my full HT makeover, I'll likely replace just about everything, and move a lot of this stuff into another room.
 
mr jones said:
I can only imagine how much it would be to find an original japanese arcade board, and there's no way an arcade would have import shooters running in a cabinet.
i think the ddp pcb goes for somewhere around the $200 range. i got my galuda pcb off ebay, it was in a generic midway cab, in a warehouse in anaheim, ca. i hear theres a galuda machine in las vegas, as well as in a few other places. i think theres a few mushi machines around too.

Bebpo said:
From what I've read rank is just an unseen meter that fills up as you get points and as the meter fills up the enemies shoot bullets faster and bosses have more HP. I don't get how it relates to scoring though.
not necessarily a meter, but you got the general gist of it. its basically a difficulty thing, and the general rule is the better youre doing, the more the game will rank up.

its pretty obvious in psikyo games, if you go into stage 4 or 5 of a game with all lives and bombs, the bullets will go really fast. you can sorta force rank down by running into a ship and powering yourself down, or if you just get killed (on purpose or on accident), itll rank down to the normal level.

in raizing games, im not too sure about the specifics, but pretty much everything affects the rank, down to the amount that you shoot iirc. strategic bombs, avoiding powerups, and suicides are some ways to control rank. im not sure about their older games, but i think in ibara black, the higher your rank, the more points you get (not sure about regular mode though).

cave games are more subtle with rank. an obvious example would be in galuda when you run out of gems in kakusei mode and bullets turn red. enemies shoot more and the bullets go faster, the longer you stay in it the worse it gets. the points keep racking up when youre in it.

Billy Rygar said:
Nice. I am going to pick up the same controller.
get the hrap 2! better layout!
 
Yeah, wow the original Dodonpachi is amazing. I'm not going to compare it with Dai-Ou-Jou, but rather I'll just say that the two combined are by far the best shmups I've ever played. Something about the graphics in those games just blows me away and the simple yet diverse 3 ship setup with standard or beam guns + bombs is refined so well in the game it's like the pinnacle of the traditional shmup.

It also helps that I find them easier than a lot of these other shmups with the big slow pink bubbles :P
 
Bebpo said:
Yeah, wow the original Dodonpachi is amazing. I'm not going to compare it with Dai-Ou-Jou, but rather I'll just say that the two combined are by far the best shmups I've ever played. Something about the graphics in those games just blows me away and the simple yet diverse 3 ship setup with standard or beam guns + bombs is refined so well in the game it's like the pinnacle of the traditional shmup.

It also helps that I find them easier than a lot of these other shmups with the big slow pink bubbles :P
I'm with you. DDP is the shooter that I *always* go back to. It is quite possibly the greatest manic shooter ever made. It feels perfectly balanced and has never once felt unfair to me, unlike some other shooters that give you like 1 millisecond to react to a stream of a billion bullets coming at you at 500mph. :) The combo system is completely addictive, and I like that you get bigger stars the longer you wait to kill certain enemies, for big points. Finding all the hornets has always been fun in this series, too, and I like that it works into the comboing system as well. I'm no expert at this game, but it definitely possesses that certain quality that makes it a timeless classic. The first few bars of the boss battle music is awesome and so dramatic!

I have to give DP props for the hilarious voice samples and slap-you-in-the-face comments, too!

japtor said:
get the hrap 2! better layout!
Those SE/SA sticks were announced like literally a week after I got my RAP1... and then they bust the RAP2 on us, and I'm like WTF? :lol Still love it, but sure wouldn't mind having the newer one. Gaming sure is a vicious cycle...
 
yeah I think I want to get a RAP 2. Anyone know where I can get one?? Seems like the usual suspects are all sold out.
 
Miroku said:
yeah I think I want to get a RAP 2. Anyone know where I can get one?? Seems like the usual suspects are all sold out.
Not sure, but looking at those sticks again, is the new button layout better? I haven't tried the RAP2, but it seems like you would have to turn your right elbow in a bit in order to get the best coverage on the buttons vs. the more ergonomic layout of the RAP1 (where your fingers naturally sit on them). Thanks.
 
IBARA HAS COME

can't play it for several hours yet :(

but dear christ, what an awful cover. behold: a cluster of recently raped anime girls lying on a rock and looking unhappy. instead of...you know...airplanes and explosions and things. i greatly regret that shooters and anime fetishism crossed paths.
 
drohne said:
IBARA HAS COME

can't play it for several hours yet :(

but dear christ, what an awful cover. behold: a cluster of recently raped anime girls lying on a rock and looking unhappy. instead of...you know...airplanes and explosions and things. i greatly regret that shooters and anime fetishism crossed paths.

:( I like the art :(
 
I agree with the general DDP sentiments. It's the game that just never gets boring no matter how may times or how many years I spent playing it. It's like Galaga of manic shooters! I can never decide if that's my favorite shooter or Espgaluda. Or Guwange... DDP Daiujou is around there too.

Damn, the more I listen about Arrange mode in Ibara, the more I think I'll love playing that game. Mushi, to me was a bit crippled in some ways (as far as gameplay, not only poor scalling and slowdown problems which were applenty), but it looks like Arrange in Ibara puts cave back on track. Not only that, but the conversion is great too it seems! Same image quality as Espgaluda, and no slowdowns at all, despite completely crazy graphics and explosions. I only wish someone would find out a trick to have more than one credit...
 
Bebpo said:
:( I like the art :(
I do, too, although there is a part of me that doesn't understand what these women have to do with this Cave/Raizing mechanical goodness. :)

Marconelly said:
I agree with the general DDP sentiments. It's the game that just never gets boring no matter how may times or how many years I spent playing it. It's like Galaga of manic shooters! I can never decide if that's my favorite shooter or Espgaluda. Or Guwange... DDP Daiujou is around there too.
Heh, yeah, I feel the same way... my "favorite" changes from day to day, but at the *end* of the day, it's definitely DDP on the manic side!
 
It's great to read all these positive comments now that the game is finally out. I was getting a tiny bit worried with all the things I read online about how the port was turning out.
The 1 credit thing doesn't bother me one bit as that's how I play all my shooters, not that I can 1-credit them though. ;P

Glad that everything turned out so great!

I'll be getting my copy next week along with a new Sega Virtua Stick since I loved the DC one so much, so I'll have to be patient just a bit longer.

Also got my PSone copy of DoDonPachi a couple of weeks ago and it truly is great.
A bit like discovering the classic all over again after years of loving the Saturn port.
The only thing that bothers me a bit when playing DonPachi on PSone though is that when playing in Yoko mode the screen scrolls along depending on if you are moving up or down the screen. There doesn't seem to be a decent Yoko option in the original game.
I hate it when shooters do that. :(

Oh well, might as well play it on my flipped tv upstairs...
 
Marconelly said:
Same image quality as Espgaluda,

I think it's still a little worse than Espgaluda and Dodonpachi DoJ. It's still much better than Mushihime, but it doesn't quite look as clean and nice as those two.

Part of the that though is just the insane amount of debris everywhere. It definitely takes some getting used too and I'm still losing most of my lives from stray bullets that I back into because I don't see them. I think some of the bullets are just too small.

I'm still not sure whether I like arrange or arcade more. I keep switching back and forth. One thing though, in arcade mode I actually can get high scores on the board and then try to beat them each time. But in arrange mode the lowest score is like 4 million and I can barely get 1.5 million or so by the 3rd stage where I die :\
 
meppi said:
The only thing that bothers me a bit when playing DonPachi on PSone though is that when playing in Yoko mode the screen scrolls along depending on if you are moving up or down the screen. There doesn't seem to be a decent Yoko option in the original game.
Ugh, that's terrible. :( I think there were several Psikyo vert shooters that came out around the same time that had the same "option", although IIRC, they had a scaled-down Yoko mode as well that fit everything on the screen.

Anyway, have fun with both games!

Bebpo said:
I'm still not sure whether I like arrange or arcade more. I keep switching back and forth. One thing though, in arcade mode I actually can get high scores on the board and then try to beat them each time. But in arrange mode the lowest score is like 4 million and I can barely get 1.5 million or so by the 3rd stage where I die :\
After playing a bunch of games last night, this was *exactly* my experience. I feel "better" when I play Arcade mode because I can actually rank, but I like the gameplay itself in Arrange better, although I'm obviously not understanding the scoring system to maximize my points.
 
since this seems to have become the ibara thread, can any of our resident japanese readers tell us what the differences between the ship types are? you select them from the option menu, and if they're anything like garegga's ship types, there'll be one with a smaller hitbox. which would be nice. :lol

picture quality looks the same as mushihime to me, by the way -- i'm not usually that concerned about true low-res, but this is really blurry.

edit: found a description of the ship types here: http://shmups.system11.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4422&start=0
 
Slightly off topic but what's the difference between a RAP1 and RAP2 Hori stick, apart from the button layout? There seems to be a $20 price difference?

Also how does this Sega Virtua Stick compare to them?

PA.24132.001.jpg


Do all these sticks have a 'square' gate or an 'octagonal' gate? And can they be modified? Thanks in advance...

Back on topic, just realised I had Espgaluda stashed away for the last couple of months without playing it once! Time to give it a spin methinks...
 
j^aws said:
Slightly off topic but what's the difference between a RAP1 and RAP2 Hori stick, apart from the button layout? There seems to be a $20 price difference?

Do all these sticks have a 'square' gate or an 'octagonal' gate? And can they be modified? Thanks in advance...
Check it out here... the crew at SRK have a great breakdown on all the sticks:

http://www.shoryuken.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95713

Looking at that list, the RAP SA looks like your best bet if you want all Sanwa parts.
 
j^aws said:
Slightly off topic but what's the difference between a RAP1 and RAP2 Hori stick, apart from the button layout? There seems to be a $20 price difference?

Also how does this Sega Virtua Stick compare to them?

Do all these sticks have a 'square' gate or an 'octagonal' gate? And can they be modified? Thanks in advance...
looking at that srk link, looks like layout and colors are the only difference between 1 and 2. the special addition/edition use arcade buttons (sanwa rg, seimitsu x), which are basically rated for more presses, and cost more. if you want them, its probably easy to mod the regular hraps.

going from vague memory here... the older sega virtua stick used sega parts. not as nice as sanwa/seimitsu, but decent. i think i read somewhere the new virtua sticks (ps2 and usb) use sanwa sticks, not 100% sure at all on that though. theyre moddable if you want, but its not a straight swap, gotta hack off a little plastic here and there iirc.

theyre probably all square gated. if you get one with the sanwa stick, i think you could swap the guide. looking at sanwas joystick page here: http://sanwa-d.co.jp/p_joy-stick.htm , the model in the srk page has a regular guide on it. octagonal guides can be had for $4-5 each depending on your source. oxtsu on shmups is doing a sanwa/seimitsu group order, the guides are $5 each (today is the deadline though...). akihabarashop.com has them for a little less i think. theres also new circular and 2 way guides if you want to buy random stuff.

re: ibara image quality. going from the crap ass thread on shmups about it, its sharper than mushi, but not outputting a true low res signal like doj/galuda. for people with rgb/arcade monitors, its showing an interlaced signal.

this may or may not help you guys for scoring in arrange mode:
http://shmups.system11.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7661
 
What difficulty are you guys playing Ibara at?

I just played the game for the first time and enjoyed it a lot.. seems better than Mushihime Sama. Definitely feels a lot like a Raizing game.. even the medal system seems to be there.
 
Zweisy1 said:
What difficulty are you guys playing Ibara at?

I just played the game for the first time and enjoyed it a lot.. seems better than Mushihime Sama. Definitely feels a lot like a Raizing game.. even the medal system seems to be there.

I just keep everything at default. I figure I could make it easier but that'll only get me to play dumb and depend on the extra ships/bombs. Better to work on your skills and keep getting a little farther each time.

BTW, I HATE RANK. I've gotten to the first boss sometimes with really high rank and then suddenly there's like a bijillion patterns going at once and if I don't have any bombs left I'm dead :(
 
at least in arcade mode, you can't raise your rank very much in the first level. if the boss is firing crazy patterns at you, it's because of the parts you've destroyed. it isn't obvious from the graphics, but it has tons of destructible parts and weapons aside from the main chassis. the more you destroy the more intense its attacks get. it's very similar to the first boss of garegga. destroying all the parts without bombing is pretty hard, but the points are worth it.
 
Bebpo said:
BTW, I HATE RANK. I've gotten to the first boss sometimes with really high rank and then suddenly there's like a bijillion patterns going at once and if I don't have any bombs left I'm dead :(
:lol Yeah, same here... the first time, I got to the Stage 1 boss with relatively low Rank... few streams of bullets, nothing too bad, didn't die. The next time, I got to it with full Rank meter, and it was like RAIN OF A MILLION PINK SPEARS. (o_O;)

japtor, thanks for all the great info, BTW!
 
Quick question, did any of you guys get a booklet with the game? Reading at the shmup forums it seems like a lot of people did and that in Japan "you can't find the game without the booklet attached". But yeah, my game from P-A was just the game :(

If you got the booklet...what's in it?
 
Bebpo said:
Quick question, did any of you guys get a booklet with the game? Reading at the shmup forums it seems like a lot of people did and that in Japan "you can't find the game without the booklet attached". But yeah, my game from P-A was just the game :(

If you got the booklet...what's in it?
I didn't get it, either, but I heard all it is is the Arcadia strat guide... useless for me since I would barely be able to read the text, so I'm not complaining (too much). If it was some LE artbook or poster, then I would've made some noise. :)

In English, it's basically this (which I believe was already posted earlier):

http://shmups.system11.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=61457#61457
 
I can't read Japanese, anyone know what the differences are between the different fighter types (A - D)?

edit: nevermind, it was in one of the links above.
 
just got ibara! really good stuff!

it took me 10 minutes just to get used to what were bullets and what weren't! so much happening on the screen at once!
 
metropolis said:
it took me 10 minutes just to get used to what were bullets and what weren't! so much happening on the screen at once!
:lol I think Garegga's worse in that respect. :)

I just played some Progear no Arashi earlier. Still blows me away how awesome that game looks (and plays)! The way the firing/bullet/gem systems all interact in this game are really cool and intuitive. There's some kind of similarity there with the way Ibara BL works, but I have to play more of the latter to really put my finger on it.
 
this game is hard. i just broke 2 million in arcade mode, but now i can't see or unclench my hands. there were 7 or 8 10,000 pt. medals on screen when i died, and i had bomb stock too. :(

whatever my intial misgivings about some of ibara's visual elements, it's the amped-up garegga sequel that bakraid frankly wasn't, so it's already become one of my favorite games. it's been a while since i've really gotten hooked on a shooter, and i thought maybe i was burning out on the genre, but ibara's dispelled all of that.
 
So, after dicking around all over the place with this goddamn genre, I think I've finally found the game that really drags me in. Something I can see myself playing often, settling down with, maybe finding a nice home with and starting a family.

I've tried mostly with DoDonPachi, Gradius V, and Ikaruga. I've played a whole hell of a lot more, but those three are the ones I've put the most time into. Over the past few days, though?

Border Down.

I was really iffy on the game when I first played it, but I decided to give it another whirl a few days ago. Don't know what happened, but I got sucked in pretty damn quickly. Put in tons of sessions so far, but I still suck at it. Just now I reached the third stage (a first), with nearly five million (beating my day-old 4.4 million), and I couldn't believe how pumped I was.

Maybe, maybe, I'll one-credit this thing. How hard does it get? I should really work at being able to border up after stage 2.
 
border down's stage 3 boss is an unholy bastard. plus it's one of those games where a proper scoring run nets you exponentially more points than a straightforward survival run. it's a great game, but it wore me out.
 
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