Ibara Kuro ~ Black Label [Strategy guide]

[EOJ]

1.0 Introduction
Ibara Kuro: Black Label (henceforth IKBL) was released in February 2006 in the Japanese arcades as a JAMMA PCB.

Basically IKBL is a total overhaul of Ibara, with all new scoring systems, life bars for the bosses, a weapon change bar on the bottom of the screen, a rank gauge at the top middle of the screen, and new (more visible) bullet patterns. Enemy patterns have also changed in some cases, for example the enemy layout in the first half of stage 5 is very different from Ibara. IKBL is also fundamentally different from the PS2 Ibara Arrange mode, and it would be a grave error to confuse the two. They are different beasts entirely.

1.1 Controls:
A: shot (slows down ship, makes hitbox visible)
B: bomb (just as in Ibara, hold B when you have at least 1 full bomb to release a Hadou gun)
C: rapid shot
D: weapon change

The A shot is a "search" shot, while the C shot is a "normal" shot. There are no other shot types available in this game.

Any time you are not holding the A shot you suck in all the medals and items which are within a certain proximity to your ship (roughly half the distance of the screen area). The Dio Spirossi ship can suck in items further away than the Silister Similis can.

1.2 Ships
There are two ships: Silister Similis (straight shot) and Dio Spirossi (wide shot). The Dio Spirossi is exclusive to IKBL, it is not found in Ibara or the PS2 Arrange mode. You still select Bond or Dyne as your pilots, but like the original Ibara, Bond can only be used on the 1P side and Dyne is restricted to the 2P side.

Each ship has 4 different shot types (A-D), which vary in their speed, power, and range. Among the two pilots, there are 16 total ship combinations, giving this game a lot of variety. The most popular types seem to be Bond Silister Similis type D, and Bond Dio Spirossi type D.

1.3 Rank Gauge
The rank gauge is at the top of the screen. It increases from green (low rank) to flashing red (max rank). As it increases, the bullet fire of the enemies gets more and more intense. There are two ways to increase the rank gauge: 1)to collect medals and items on the screen (the larger the value of the medal, the faster the rank gauge increases), 2)to destroy sections of the stage bosses. The XTC counter (see below) has no effect on the rank gauge. There are two ways to lower rank: 1)use the Baradise system (see below), or 2) die.

1.4 Extends
Extends are at every 10 million. There is also a 1UP in the stage 4 midboss, exactly the same as Ibara. Each time you die you get an extra full bomb.

2.0 Scoring
There are 3 scoring systems in the game, and they all work together.
These are the Baradise System, the XTC System, and Medal Chaining.

2.1 Baradise system
The Baradise system has a max multiplier of x300. Basically you just bomb enemy fire, or a large structure (like those big factories in Stage 1), and any enemy fire in contact with the bomb will turn into roses which are worth up to x300 their normal value. The only way to get x300 is to have the rank gauge at max (flashing red). Otherwise it will be a value between x1-x299. This scoring system does not give big points by itself (as it does in the PS2 arrange mode), and is used more to clear the screen of bullets and lower rank at some points in the stages, as well as cash in on modest amount of points in the process. As will be explained below, you need to combine this with the XTC counter in order to get big points in the game.

On the bosses, any time you destroy a phase, you automatically cash in on the Baradise multiplier. You do not need to bomb here to do it.

2.2 The XTC System
This is where the big points come in IKBL. XTC stands for Xtreme Terror Counter. Your ship has an invisible ring around it, similar in size to the Kakusei ring in Espgaluda. We'll call this the XTC sphere. This sphere becomes visible when you are holding the A shot and enemy fire passes through it. It does not work when you're holding the C shot or not holding any button at all (in other words, this is not like bullet scratching in Psyvariar). As the fire passes through the sphere, your counter increases from +1 to a max of +9999. You need to have the rank at or near max to increase this counter quickly, especially when milking the bosses (the sphere is green when the rank is low, and red when the rank is high). Every time you scratch a bullet, it adds points to your score. The value of the XTC counter is added to the normal value of each "scratched" bullet. The ultimate purpose of this counter is for it to be used to cash in on the Baradise system. Basically, you bomb a large enemy, or defeat a boss?s form, and the value of the XTC counter is combined with the Baradise multiplier for huge points (you can get almost 15 mil in some spots).

If you stop holding A at any time while building up your XTC counter, it starts to fade. Once it has completely faded away (it takes a few seconds), you have about 1 second to find a bullet to pass through your XTC sphere or your counter is reset to zero. When you die, this counter is normally set to zero as well, but if you start shooting with the A shot immediately after your death and you're close enough to enemy fire, it is possible to retain the XTC counter's value and keep building it up. RAM does this on the last boss in his replay on the Ibara superplay DVD. He actually dies a bunch of times, but never loses his XTC counter, as he respawns amidst a ton of enemy fire each time.

Normally when you bomb and cash in on the XTC multiplier, the XTC counter is reset to zero, so it's only profitable to cash in on this multiplier during boss fights and a few times in a stage (after stage 3 it's better not to cash in at all during a stage, as you get more points from just keeping your XTC counter high throughout the level). There are ways (difficult ways) to get around this, but I've only seen this done on the stage 2 boss. Basically you have to have excellent timing and be in the right position just as the second phase of the boss is destroyed. If you do it right you can carry over your +9999 XTC counter to the next phase of the boss, for huge points.

The best weapon to use for optimal XTC counter milking and a fast increase is the machine gun, and sometimes the Gatling (on bosses).

2.3 Medal chaining
This is the third scoring system in the game, and the only one taken from the original Ibara. It's exactly the same as Ibara, so see that guide for more details. Basically you want to get the medal values up to 10,000 and keep them there throughout the game. The larger the medal value, the faster it fills up your rank gauge.

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I think that's about it. If there are any questions, please post them in this thread.

[Geezer]

I've been watching the INH replay and I notice that RAM frequently swans around with several lives in stock, plus he suicides mostly for the bomb fragments instead of as a technique to lower rank.

So the number of spare lives doesn't affect the minimum and maximum possible rank like in Ibara/Garegga?

[EOJ]

Spare lives have no effect on rank. If you want to score well, you need to suicide at the right times though.

[Plasmo]

You can easily control the rank in IBL with collecting roses so 5 lives in stock is absolutely no problem.

[Geezer]

Cool, thanks for the replies

[bitkid]

Is Ibara Black Label pretty much a different game entirely from the original release of Ibara? Would it be worthwhile for someone to get a copy of each game if they could?

[EOJ]

It's very different. I think it's worth it to own both if you really like Ibara, though I'd rather have Ibara Kuro than Ibara.

[Eight One]

Any pictures of the Kuro Dio?

[bitkid]

How much different is scoring IKBL than Arrange Mode? If I understand correctly there are some similarities but I don't see this ring system of scoring in Arrange mode which you talk about in IKBL.

[brumma]

1) What determines whether the factories in Level 1 contain medals or not?

2) Besides cashing in using a bomb to get flowers, what else causes them to appear (seemingly at random during the stage)?  For example, when you reach the first factory on the right in Level 1 it seems to cash in.


Thanks.

[Plasmo]

1) They only give you medals when destroyed with bomb

2) Roses will also appear when you destroy large objects like the factories in stage 1, the big tanks in stage 2 or simply a boss.

[brumma]

1) They only give you medals when destroyed with bomb

2) Roses will also appear when you destroy large objects like the factories in stage 1, the big tanks in stage 2 or simply a boss.

Thanks!