YMMV / Ibara

• Good Bad Bug — Pink Sweets has this in the form of infinite lives, which is triggered by obtaining 6 lives. It's used in order to crank up the rank so high that it makes Mushihime Sama look like a walk in the park. At least that would be the case, if not for the ability to cancel bullets...
• It's Hard, So It Sucks! - 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.
  • In particular, Pink Sweets is hated for the fact that the game is significantly harder than Yagawa's other games, due to the fact that you can't decrease rank in this game, and the rank is also cranked up faster than other games (especially in regards to the Rose Crackers). This means that no matter what you do, without the Infinite Lives bug, the game will become Unwinnable by Design eventually. Oh, and extends are not score-based.
• Scrappy Weapon:
  • The Rose Hips in Pink Sweets. Shooting enemies with them adds nothing to your score.
  • The Rose Cracker, due to the quick rank increase that results from using it, and the fact that, unlike Yagawa's other rank-based games, rank cannot be decreased at all. It also decreases the "zan" counter that is used to generate 1-ups.
• Vindicated by History: On release, Pink Sweets was generally regarded as a lackluster follow-up to Ibara, with an art style that contrasted with the steampunk aesthetic of the previous game, and gameplay that similarly diverted from Yagawa's signature rank-based gameplay. Nowadays, opinions on Pink Sweets tend to be more positive, with the rise of guides (like this one) that showcase the true depth of its scoring system (such as the ZAN system and how to control the rank), which lead to an uptick in both popularity and reception among the shmup community.

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