Triggerheart: Exelica

In the distant future humanity will develop intelligent weapons called Trigger
Hearts. Despite their awesome offensive strengths, Trigger Hearts
aesthetically closely resemble humans, and overtime even develop unique
personalities. Of three existing Trigger Hearts one, named Faintear, has
mysteriously vanished two years ago. The story begins as the two remaining
Trigger Hearts – Exelica and Crueltear (who took on the personality of
Exelica’s big sister) are summoned to quell a mysterious rebellion of military
machines against their human creators.

Trigger Heart Exelica is an arcade-style top-down shooter and is composed of 5
stages of shooting mayhem. Most levels take place in futuristic environments
such as sky cities and space stations. The player is given a choice of one of
the two Trigger Hearts at the beginning of the game – Exelica, who emits a
wide fan of weak shots, and Crueltear, who fires a narrowly concentrated
barrage of projectiles. However, the firing pattern of guns matters little
during the game, as Trigger Heart’s most awesome weapon is common to both
models, and is called the Anchor Shot. By using the Anchor Shot Trigger Hearts
are able to grab, swing, use as a shield, and hurl back any flying enemy
vehicle in the game, including even the most giant of enemy battle cruisers.
When thrown, the enemy cuts a path of destruction across the entire screen,
causing explosive chain reactions between adjacent ships and occasionally even
obliterating bosses in one hit. The Anchor Shot is a tricky weapon to use, as
it requires the player to circle the joystick in order to give enemy ships
more inertia while continuing to dodge enemy fire. The trajectory of the
released enemy is also somewhat difficult to predict. Another innovative
feature of Trigger Heart Exelica is AI-adjusted boss difficulty level, which
will cut more slack to the inexperienced player, while attempting to punish
the pros.

In addition to the original Arcade mode the home version of the game includes
a Story mode, which adds fully voiced cutscenes, additional endings and bosses
throughout the game, and Arranged Mode, which is just like the arcade mode,
but is limited to Normal difficulty, no continues, and only two lives, and
serves as a challenge to the most experienced players.

The PS2 port includes a new opening movie, story mode and CG sequences. TH44
Faintear is now a player selectable fighter and The Triggerheart Backupper
C’r_na, originally only a story concept, now appears in the game.