Randorama

My Ibara adventures, for this week, have been limited to a long session on Saturday (yesterday). Satisfying in the long distance, as i reached once the final stage, but i really am getting mad with some of the small changes....

Namely:

1) Lowered point-blank distance: I mean, Yagawa, no. It is unadmissible that i am supposed to point-blank stuff and said stuff shoots at me if i'm not hovering on it, and will do this at cornering points if it can. There are simply too many traps, like for instance the whole train stage (3), in which a pixel of excessive distance means a spread pattern on the nose, hence automatic death.

2) Aura Damage: oh dear, let's say that i don't want a power-up. I am playing in the practice mode as well, to get a grasp of rank increase. Well, power-ups, especially small icons or the simple pods, give a very small increase in the rank-per-second value, but still, i *don't* want to rely on random power-ups to trigger aura attacks on fixed spots. "Random" and "fixed" don't mix well together, and again the whole third stage seems to be focused on this.

3) Dashing enemies or death from behind: again, no. Ok, there are enemies popping up from behind only on the last stage, but i can't accept that some enemies can dash against me and get a free hit because they do half a screen in a 1/4th of a second.

4) Invicibility in the upper 1/8th of the screen. No, i mean, it seems to work only for pop-corn enemies, but it is still blatantly pointless. Please keep this Cave bullshit in proper Cave games, where invincibility in such cases=chaing going.

5) Flame throwers. I can't see them properly, chromatic choices should be taken by considering that most of us fans are poor-sighted, after years of nerdy shmupping, thanks.

From you can read here, i may sound like i find the game badly programmed. Mind you, these are small flaws, but are flaws nonetheless. I plan to write a review, soon, but the core concept is: great game, too cheap in some of the tweaks to the basic engine.

But, dear Mr. Yagawa, please remember, for your next work...

R

Ok, i quickly completed the rather boring Ibara Black Label version. Nothing worth mentioning, honestly, as i really went and handled the rank enough to clear the game.

The normal version, on the other hand, is making me mad. For all i care, hey changed everything that should have stayed like in Garegga. Point-blank distance is too short, enemies have the typical Cave invicibility if in the upper 1/8th of the screen, with a passion for dashing in and shooting, medals start dropping fast too early, and it is a goddamn nightmare to handle properly the special power-ups and not screw rank. I will go for a quick 1-cc and let it go, too many cave-isms for my taste. In other news, i'm having moderate fun with Super Puzzle Bobble and ZOOO, but i am really working like a mad-man, hence the lack of coherent updates and the short posts...

so, let me accumulate some more cursing time, ehr, gaming time.

R

First, sorry for the lack of updates, i have been dead busy and i didn't play a lot.However:

I am noticing that Ibara has a couple of flaws. First, enemies in the upper 1/8th of the screen must be bombed, because Yagawa-san decided to give them too many hit points, in that zone. Also, enemies have too much of a point-blanking passion, something really annoying in the long distance. I really would like to have a cent per every time that i died being point-blanked by someone...

Bosses are quite insane, honestly. Not cheap, just very hard. There also a few cases in which the hadou can ve useless, for instance the third and the fifth bosses have a cannon that will be able to shoot, even if the boss has been hadoued, because its cannon is longer than hadou's blast radious (the hadou, if hits an enemy, creates a sort of "black hole" of damage). This is, of course, mightly annoying. Beside that, the fourth boss (Mount Shasta: a dumber name, honestly, would have been difficult) seems to have a gazillion hit points, honestly. Well, French Lace (the fifth one) too, and she also has some downright nasty patterns. Dr.Teresa (...my mom?), instead, can be a push-over if you ammass a couple of Hadous (three is better). Mah, Yagawa knows...i would calmly think of this game in terms of score, as it has a practice mode, and i still have to solve the Homura practice. Also, some almighty rough times are close, i may have end up to skip the next week, game-wise. But, well, we'll see.

Stay tuned, R

A short note to show that i'm still alive.

Ibara is, as i said, Garegga on cocaine. This also means that many old tricks have been adapted to the new ideas present in the game, like having sections that are clearly worth a lot of points with the Hadou gun. Also, the much higher frequency of items appearing when using bombs (i.e. 1 item per enemy!) really makes medals easy to increase in value.However, many tricks are worth many more points than their counterparts in Garegga: placing the right bomb on scenery may be worth a short shower of medals, and thus a relative higher increase to score. Still, i am blatantly skipping boss battles, and keep losing medal chains on key spots...but i can do it, i know, in the name of Yagawa!

Or other random cheesyness.

R

Ibara has finally arrived.Together with the Radirgy OST, but one thing at once.

Ibara is no more and no less than Garegga (or Batrider) but on cocaine.If Garegga was fast, Ibara is hectic, as everything must be done in an extremely quick way, and the right conditions to trigger bonuses are very narrow.Boss fights are basically faster and quite harder, as the times for the single forms respect this rule of small time-frames.Also, rank seems to be more unpredictable and mean, if the wrong conditions are met: Not only that, but the special weapons are also extremely important, as the more powerful they are, the faster rank goes up.

Did i say special weapons?Yes, the game has 7 different types of options, something that was lacking since the times of Side Arms, i'd say.Also, it has a bad-ass special bomb, the Hadou gun, triggered by charging the bomb button a split-second, which locks on on an enemy, dealing massive damage and creating a sort of black hole. As all cancelled bullets turn into roses, this can also be a good source of points, in key spots.

Stages: it must be said that they are more or less in typical Raizing style, but with the addition of mid-bosses, a new train stage (something missing in precedent Raizing efforts), and some nice variations on a style that was neglected for too long. True, bosses are a bit on the cheap side, but nothing that can't be solved with the proper use of an hadou on their noses, and the stages are designed to let you accumulate hadous at will, before the bosses.I suspect that, with a bit of experience, Defeating Dr.Teresa should be relatively easy, i suppose. Much more has to come, but let it be known: Raizing, and basically Toaplan at this point, is back.

Thanks dad.

R