Ibara
Ibara is a Bullet Hell Shoot'Em Up by CAVE. Teresa Rose announces the creation of a massive Rose Garden with the power to take over the world, so two "negotiators", Bond (Red) and Dyne (Blue), must stop her and her daughters.
It received a sequel named Pink Sweets in which the bosses of Ibara (except for Teresa Rose) are now the playable characters. They must rescue their mother from her ex-husband Big Burn and his maids.
The game series as a whole is notable for being programmed by S. Yagawa, who also worked on many 8ing/Raizing games such as Battle Garegga and Armed Police Batrider.
A region-free port for Pink Sweets for the Xbox 360 was released in a double-pack with Muchi Muchi Pork.
Tropes used in Ibara include:
- Absolute Cleavage: Teresa Rose in Ibara and Socie Soar in Pink Sweets.
- Announcer Chatter: Announcing all pickups in Ibara.
- Art Shift: The character designer for both games remained the same, but the backgrounds and enemies changed significantly. In the first game, everything was designed to look like Steampunk-esque contraptions with rose-like designs. For example, tanks had rose-shaped blades instead of treads or wheels. In the second game, the backgrounds are made of simple geometry and the enemies look like candy and colorful blocky toys.
- Boobs of Steel: The bosses of Ibara are fought in order of how big their boobs are, starting with the flat-chested Meidi Rose and ending with the displayer of Absolute Cleavage Teresa Rose.
- Calling Your Attacks: Especially in Pink Sweets.
- Charge Attack: In Ibara, this is how the hadou gun is used. Each playable character can do their own charge attack in Pink Sweets. The X-box 360 arrange mode of Pink Sweets uses both the original charge attack and the hadou gun on the same button.
- Chinese Girl: Uni Ulysses from Pink Sweets.
- Creator Cameo: Bond and Dyne from Ibara are voiced by staff members.
- Dynamic Difficulty: This game series has Rank, just like the "Bat" series, thanks to programmer S. Yagawa.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: Especially Kasumi Rose.
- Evil Counterpart: The Rose sisters were not exactly good, but Big Burn and his candy maids are even more evil, with each one corresponding to one of the Rose women. Big Burn is a fatherly figure to each of the maids as well, corresponding to how Teresa was the mother of the Rose daughters in Ibara, except that all but one of the maids of Pink Sweets were borne by other women. Big Burn is also this to the heroes of the first game, since he can do the hadou gun just like them.
- Fan Service: There's hardly any reason for the bosses (and in Pink Sweets, also the playable characters) to look or dress like they do, since they are seldom seen outside of their ships.
- Gotta Catch Em All: True to the game's spiritual roots, it has medal chaining.
- Hot Mom: Teresa Rose, pictured right, is the mother of the other Rose women.
- Hot Teacher: Teresa Rose was originally a professor.
- Humongous Mecha: Many of them in Pink Sweets.
- Macross Missile Massacre: In Ibara, this is the result of equipping three rockets or homings. In Pink Sweets, "Viper missile, where?".
- Marathon Level: Pink Sweets stage 5 is extremely long compared to the previous four.
- Meaningful Name: The word "ibara" means thorny rose. There are many flower motifs throughout the game, to say the least, and mechanical objects are also purposely designed to look like they have thorns or are rose-shaped.
- Meganekko: Lace Rose starts wearing glasses in Pink Sweets.
- More Dakka: In Ibara, this is the result of equipping three gatlings or 5-ways.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The two player characters of Ibara.
- Say It with Hearts: Socie Soar speaks like this in Pink Sweets.
- Sexy Backless Outfit: Shasta Rose in both games.
- Sexy Secretary: Lace Rose, especially in Pink Sweets.
- Shock and Awe: Lace Rose's shots in Pink Sweets: "Lightning Laser..." "Thunder Storm..."
- Shout-Out: Shasta Rose is named after Mount Shasta, a real place in California
- Spiritual Successor:
- The gameplay, bullet patterns, stage transitions, and other minor aesthetic touches (such as displaying the song name in the bottom-left of the screen) are all heavily based on Raizing's "Bat" series.[1]. It helps that all of these games were programmed by the same guy, S. Yagawa.
- Pink Sweets gives further nods to Armed Police Batrider by having the playable characters be slightly visible and riding on flying machines, and having stage 6 be longer than the previous five stages combined.
- Steampunk
- Stripperiffic: Especially Shasta Rose.
- Tank Goodness: Goes with the genre, notable because they have spiky wheels instead of treads.
- The Unfavorite: This game in comparison to other cave games with the main reasons being Yagawa's trademark rank systems, the bugs, and the sheer fact it's nothing like a typical Cave game. (Yagawa games encourage rank control, bombing for score, strategic suicides and avoiding power ups) It shares this distinction with Muchi Muchi Pork, another Yagawa-programmed game of Cave's.
- Another factor is that the few Cave games Yagawa did are easily counterstopped (a black sign for a shmup) while his Raizing games would go into letters upon hitting the number cap.
- Wave Motion Gun: The result of holding down the bomb button, and it is literally translated as "wave motion gun" (hadou gun). Then in Pink Sweets, Shasta Rose can do SHINING BEAM!. Big Burn can also do the hadou gun from the first game.
- White-Haired Pretty Girl: All of the Rose women.
- You Shall Not Pass: The bosses of Pink Sweets say many variations of this.
- Zeerust: The enemies of Pink Sweets are strongly influenced by 50's science fiction.
- Zettai Ryouiki: Lots.
- ↑ Battle Garegga, Armed Police Batrider and Battle Bakraid.