Ibara is very similar to 8ing/Raizing's Battle Garegga and Battle Bakraid games.So much so that Ibara could be considered a pseudo-sequel or, at least, a spiritual successor. The similarities are numerous - some are subtle, some are easily spotted. These include combining archaic technology such as biplanes with more advanced machinery; firing and power-up system; and a medal collecting system which drastically increases scoring. The game features a similar method of earning bombs and a delay when launching them as well. A notable feature of Ibara is the inclusion of a variable, real-time difficulty system by way of the Rank system. The player's rank increases as they acquire more items and cause more damage, increasing the difficulty of the game along with it. The number of enemies does not increase but the number of bullets fired towards the user does, often reaching a ridiculous level of bullet density. There are ways of lowering this rank system if the odds appear too much. The only known way of decreasing the player's Rank in Ibara is to die. The more lives you have, the less the rank decreases when you die. In this later version, Ibara Kuro: Black Label, Rank can be decreased by cancelling bullets with a bomb, however Rank also increases much faster in this version, potentially increasing from minimum to maximum in a matter of seconds.
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In Kuro, you pump rank/difficulty up by collecting medals and other items, and then you just fucking surf on meticulously-well-placed and visually-gorgeous waves of pink and blue bullets. You watch a number with a very nice font skyrocket above your ship (the wonderfully-named "X-Treme Terror Counter), and when you can't take the heat anymore you smash that bomb button for huge bullet cancels and, if your timing was right, massive points.
True veterans will take this one step further and map out the specific points in each stage that Cave has built in a cancel, allowing the player to cash in without spending resources; and even sicker weirdos will revel in delicious boss milks, utilize insane aura-flash/hadou gun (bomb HOLD and release) strats for huge damage and gobs of max medals, and laugh maniacally as they rake in extends (one every 10 mil).
The original Ibara is an amazing shmup, underappreciated in its time and still a blast to play; but, for me, Kuro bests it. It's a risk/reward mecca for deeply experienced players, a goading test of nerves as much as skill, and wears all of its mechanics on its sleeve (as opposed to the notoriously secret-heavy and obfuscating Shinobu Yagawa-designed original).
It is an STG where you can sip tea and check your phone while easily milking tens of millions of points from a boss. That, my friends, is living, and anyone who tells you it's not needs to find inner peace.