Underplayed Gems

Pink Sweets: Ibara Sorekara (2006)

Pink Sweets: Ibara Sorekara cover
Developer
CAVE Interactive
Platforms
Arcade, Xbox 360
Genres
Shooter
Where to get it
Website

How it feels

A demanding manic bullet-hell shooter with a floral steampunk aesthetic and punishing precision gameplay.

bullet hellsteampunkintensefast-pacedmanic shooterarcade

About

Pink Sweets is a manic shooter. Its story presents an alternate universe version of Ibara; in this universe, none of that game's villains died, and the player controls one of the four boss characters from the previous game. It presents a similar rose-draped steampunk aesthetic which provides an excuse for the player's ships to fly through a very floral 19th century. Designer Shinobu Yagawa drew on his experience working on Raizing games such as Battle Garegga to present a game that plays a bit differently from the traditional Cave mold. The player's ship has a traditional shmup-style shot, but is also able to charge a special attack by not firing. A fully-charged, unfired special attack acts as a form of shield that can cancel certain enemy bullets; when fired, the fully-charged special attack acts as a kind of miniature bomb.

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