 From Cave,
one of the last remaining Japanese
games producers still rolling out 2D
shootemups, Ibara is
the spiritual succesor to the now
defunct Raizing's
cult shooters Battle Garegga and Battle
Bakraid. Set in a fictional
19th century European country called Eidelweiss,
your'e an undercover agent sent to
destroy an organization called the Rose
Garden, a band of six feisty
anime-styled females (read stage
bosses) comprising of mad scientist Dr
Theresa Rose and her five
daughters, whose hobbies include
dressing up in bondage-gear, piloting
enormously destructive steam powered
airships and tanks, and taking over
the world. Sounds like another good
excuse to blow things up then!
|
Unfortunately. unlike Garegga, only two
planes are available, one
for each player. Still.. they are quite nifty
looking craft and I like
how the propellors are rear-facing in order
to fit those enormous guns ;)
| On first play what
you'll notice most is that game
doesn't feel like a Cave
game so much as a Raizing
one, unsurprising given its
Garegga/Bakraid legacy. This is
because after Raizing's demise, Shinobu
Yagawa, programmer of the
aforementioned two games joined Cave
and worked on this title. It
certainly shows, Ibara
is basically an updated and
super-charged Battle Garegga,
taking a host of features from this
game and its sequel and distilling
them, along with Cave's own manic
shooter stylings, into an intense and
gratifying new shooter epic. |
 
Port City: the first level and right from the
start Ibara assaults
you mercilessly with attacks from all angles
and dozens of
enemy airplanes, tanks and gun-positions
taking pot-shots at you.
The amount of on-screen debris and explosions
tops even Battle Garegga.
| Cave
have long been famous for the
visually stunning design in their
games and Ibara is no exception, its
exquisite retro steam-punk styling
truly is a thing of beauty. An
unprecedented level of detail is
present in just about every graphical
aspect of the game, backgrounds,
enemies, bosses, even the design and
animation of your ship are top-notch.
Ibara is also one of
the most graphically 'busy'
shootemups to date, with an
extroadinary amount of on-screen
explosions and particle effects
thrown across the screen by wrecked
enemy craft and buildings, which
unfortunately can sometimes obscure
enemy bullets unless you are paying
very close attention indeed. This is
particularly prone to occur on the
increasingly frenetic later levels
where the shrapnel-count increases
substantially. However as this was
also a feature of previous Raizing
shooters, experienced gamers
will take it in their stride. |
(Left) The first level boss which has a very
'Raizing-esque' attack pattern.
(Right) The second stage: a wasteland
populated by nasty fire-spitting turrets
| In true Garegga
fashion you can equip your ship with
up to three outrigger 'multiples'
each of which arrange themselves on
your left, right and rear flank
respectively. However, in a genius
stroke from Cave, you now can equip
each of your individual multiples
with different weapons, by collecting
weapon icons on the corresponding
side of your ship to the multiple you
wish to change weaponry. This adds
further depth to the game as you
experiment with different
combinations of gatling guns,
rocket launchers and
flamethrowers to
name but a few of the seven different
varied power-ups available to you. |
   
IBARA WEAPON SYSTEMS
(Left to Right) 5-way, Burner, Gatling,
Homing
  
Vulcan, Napalm, Rocket
| Ibara
reintroduces the unforgiving 'rank'
system of the Raizng games of old,
which means the game constantly
re-adjusts its difficulty level as
you play. For example rank, and
therefore difficulty, increases each
time you collect power-ups and
decreases if you lose a life. Better
players that are too successful in
the game will especially find
themselves targetted more viciously
by enemies, particularly bosses,
which vary their attack forms and
defensive bullet patterns with rank.
If that wasn't enough to worry about
the games diffculty curve is one of
the hardest out there. It really is
designed specifically for hard-core
shooter fans who've cut their teeth
over many years on the rock-hard
difficulty of Raizing games.
Personally I find it a much more
difficult title than either Garegga
or Bakraid, with the game usually
destroying me completely by the start
of level three if I'm using just one
credit. If I do get lucky and get
past levels three's obscenely
well-defended armoured train
and its accompanying bullet storm the
stage boss obliterates me very
quickly indeed in a murderous hail of
projectiles. Maybe I just need
practice. |
(Left) Totally OTT exploding sub-boss.. check
out the burning fragments of baddie!
(Right) The second stage boss with typical
'bullet storm' attack pattern..
pray you still have some bombs left for this
bit..
| Other similarities to
Garegga are the floating medal 'chaining'
(bonuses awarded increasing each time
you pick up a floating medal but
being reset to zero if you let one
pass the bottom of the screen) and
the collection of 'bomb
framents' revealed by
destroyed enemies in order to add
extra smart bombs to your stock.
Standard smart bombs are supplemented
by a secondary and very enjoyable to
use bomb attack called the Hadou
Cannon which uses up bomb
fragments at a much higher rate than
the standard bomb but unleashes a
devastating attack similar to Darius Gaidens's 'Black
Hole Bomber' and lingers for
a longer time span sucking up or
turning enemy bullets into
bonus-point roses and
causing massive damage to bosses. Hidden 'special power
up' configurations are also available
to your multiples if you collect a
predetermined sequence of particular
weapon pods, for example the ability
to add 'homing'
weaponry which is very welcome
indeed!
|
  
 
The
first four bosses in Ibara correspond to the
first four characters
of Rose Garden.. each one trieds to taunt you as
you prepare to attack.
Enough with the taunting.. puts me off my
blasting! Anyway I've yet
to see past boss four to be honest on the PS2
version,
not wanting to credit feed and spoil the game.
|
