Anytime M2 says they're going to announce something I hope it is an M2STG release of Ibara. This is a probably vain hope that is based 100% on absolutely nothing other than the fact that I want them to do an M2STG release of Ibara and I think it would be pretty neat.
I absolutely hated Ibara the first time I played it. I was in the midst of my run through all the CAVE shmups and I chafed against the different gameplay stylings and the fact that bullets were much harder to see. CAVE hired Shinobu Yagawa after Raizing stopped making STGs and instead of making a CAVE game he kinda just made Battle Garegga again. Garegga-style games are notoriously complex, so going in cold I had a bad time and had no desire to play it again.
Later on I returned to Ibara after learning more about and becoming fascinated by its systems and I started to really enjoy it. I went through a week-long period a year or two back where I was just playing a ton of Ibara and trying to make it as far as I could on one credit. Admittedly I'm still pretty bad at the game, and at Garegga-style games in general, so I could only make it to near the end of Stage 2.
I'm really fond of Ibara for a couple of reasons. I really like the game's aesthetic (wow look at that flyer!) and its soundtrack, but I am also very interested in its complicated underlying systems. The amount of management you have to do to be successful at this game, from knowing routes through stages, medal-chaining, the weird bombing system, being selective about weapon pickups to keep rank down, and the need to suicide to reset rank and manage the game's difficulty is very very complicated and overwhelming and intimidating...but it also means there is a LOT to sink your teeth into, a level of complexity beyond bullet-dodging and muscle memory and pattern-recognition, layers of systems to peel back and come to grips with, and that fascinates me.
Ibara has never gotten a home release beyond the flawed and hard-to-find PS2 port and that's a bummer because it deserves to be more accessible. That's part of why I wish there was an M2STG release, but I also think this game, more than any other CAVE title, would really benefit from the M2STG treatment. M2STG releases do a lot to help peel back the complexity of shmups and help you understand their underlying systems with training modes and various widgets, and Ibara's systems are ripe for that.
