"Stunning character artwork adorns this great shmup!!!"

Ibara is another great Cave/Raizing/Taito shmup. These companies have been pumping out some great arcade shooters for some time now and this great game is another worthy addition to any shmup fans library however....

Read On...

First off with boss names like French Lace and Mount Shasta as well as several other unique boss names you know this isn't your typical shmup, these names referring to mama and her daughters of which you need to destroy through six levels of madness. The first thing you'll notice about Ibara is mama and her daughters love to wear lingere. The whole bra and panties thing I found very amusing ALTHOUGH the artwork for the main charaters is stunning and very detailed in the manual and on the cover. The copy of Ibara that I purchased came with a bonus art/hintbook and this further solidifies the artwork being stunning. I found the whole men against women theme pretty cool as well. The two main ship gunners are male named Bond and Dyne and they are just as stunning as the females. As far as I can tell controller port 1 play as Bond and controller port 2 play as Dyne. I tinkered with the options a bit and really couldn't tell if changing any could reverse or start the game with either guy.

Gameplay is your standard shmup power up and bomb you way through the six levels. There are actually two modes of play on this DVD Rom. Mode one is the standard arcade mode and mode two is an arranged mode. Arcade mode allows you infinite continues, arranged mode as far as I can tell right now allows you one continue, I haven't played arranged mode long enough to see if you can earn more continues etc.. Also arranged mode lets you pick from several different styles of weapons you can switch on the fly making your option shots random, search or rotate. The power up system is somewhat similar to another great shooter by the name of Battle Garrega meaning that picking up enough of the small bullet icons transfers them into a bomb so it is possible to stockpile bombs for boss fights HOWEVER...

This leads me to one small issue...

There are parts of this game where there is so much going on at one time that it is nearly impossible to see your ship not too mention the tiny purple bullets the enemy fires in arcade mode. Case in point there are roses that most enemies release for extra points, combine these blue and red roses with the tiny blue bullets and shrapnel and explosions in arcade mode and you ARE going to get hit, I noticed this right away and thought that this game had more than the norm of stuff basically flying everywhere, A posting on the Ibara board mentioned impossible bullet formations from level three on. I think this a bit true and the fire suicide thing does come into play. For sake of argument though in arranged mode you can choose the enemies bullet color but this doesn't help that much. There is just so much on screen at once that if you have a TV smaller than 30 inches forget it, I'm running my systems on a 37 inch HDTV and that was pushing it in standard game mode with all the madness on screen. You are able to select wallpapers to fill in the left and right of the screen and this game does offer Tate mode for those with monitors to use but most players like myself are unable to turn our tv's on the side and have to settle for the middle of the screen shooters.

Graphics look awesome on this game with lots and LOTS of detail in the enemies and bosses. There is just a TINY hint of slowdown here and there when the screen fills up but nothing major. I'm playing my copy on a Japanese PS2 and the progressive scan did kick in when the game booted for those of you like myself that want the complete visual and audio high.

Also for you audio junkies the Dolby 5.1 sounds nice with clear with bass ripping explosions as you progress through the levels. One small letdown was the music, call me old school but I love a good pumping soundtrack, the J-POP tinny rock music sounds OK in Dolby 5.1 with decent separation but I think it should have been a bit more energetic. I can say that the music for Dr Teresa the final boss of the game was pretty good. It made me want more of the same. It's not bad but I love good thumping music with lots of bass for my shmups. Mushihimesama and Raiden III are good examples of the type of music that shmups should have as they get your blood pumping for the madness that ensues. Music is the only minor gripe besides the difficulty.

This game can be imported for around 60-68 dollars. For importers like myself it's a small price to pay to get the complete arcade shooter experience at home since arcades are few and far between, and games such as this exist only in Japan.

Pros...
Stunning character artwork with a selectable gallery mode to enjoy it
Beautiful detailed levels
Two game modes for re-playability
Two player simultaneous
The radius of hit detection is small making at least the first two levels playable

Cons...
Unless you are a gaming god your ship will get hit
Music could be better
Just a hint of slowdown here and there
Like most shmups in the Cave series both modes are over pretty quickly

I'm glad I made this purchase I can see myself playing this over again just to enjoy the sights, a worthy purchase for any shmup collector if you know what to expect from these series of games.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/30/06