Triggerheart Exelica

"Amazing in my opinion, but certianly not for everyone."

Let me start off by saying that this is a SHMUP. In particular, a bullet hell. Which is a SHMUP where upwards of 16,000 bullets cover the screen(No exaggeration) but only the very center of your ship can be hit. So it stresses precision. Now on to the review.

In Triggerheart Exelica, the game makes you take the role of one of two cybernetic Valkyries. Which shoot the **** out of everything of course. Exelica and Crueltear. Exelica fires in a spread while Crueltear shoots straight but shoots way more at a time. It is pretty easy to destroy stuff, but how you go about destroying stuff affects your score. I won't go into detail about the story because it is crappy.

The scoring system is the core of the game. And the particular part where my review title comes into play. If you are one of those people who just plays through the game once and then drops it and never plays it again, then don't bother with this game. The core of the game comes from replaying it over and over to get the highest score. It has a very short length(5 levels, which are about 4 minutes long each). But playing through and playing through well is incredibly difficult. Most players would press "start" whenever they see the continue screen. This leads to the game being extremely short lived. I VERY highly recommend you start over whenever you see that screen. Even on normal mode, it took me forever just to get past the second level. One of the best aspects of bullet hells comes from it's hard difficulty settings. This happens to be one of those games that gets BETTER the harder the difficulty setting. Unlike...say...Call of Duty 4(I scoff in your general direction, Veteran mode).

Where the game is unique comes with the scoring system, the anchoring system and the boss system. The scoring system, while you get score for killing stuff you also get score for collecting these particles that enemies leave behind. The bigger the particle, the more score you get. If you let go of the fire button, all of the particles on screen gravitate towards you. The longer a particle is left on screen, the bigger it grows. Now, it eventually FALLS OFF the screen so you have to grab it quickly while still allowing it to grow a bit before sucking it in.

Next comes the anchoring system. Instead of a focus fire like in most bullet hells, you get an anchoring system. If you press B, you throw an anchor at an enemy. If the enemy is flying, then you can use it throw it at other enemies. Enemies killed by being thrown at by another enemy leave very large particles. It's the same "throwing system" as in Super Mario 64 except without wearing out your analogue stick. Where as you spin around and let go to release it in a direction. Anchoring is required to get a good high score. If you anchor a ground based enemy, you can choose to send bullets through the anchor which concentrates all of your bullets into the line that connects you to the enemy and fires it at the enemy. This is useful for tougher enemies. And it slows down your character's movement...but that is CERTAINLY not a bad thing, considering that you have to maneuver around projectiles. It is certainly the most useful aspect of the game.

And lastly, the bosses. If you just hit the bosses until they die, they will die quickly and you will get a small allotment of points. However, if you handle the boss a certain way, then you get FAR more points for it as well as new bullet designs to maneuver around. Like, one phase of a boss requires that you throw enemies at it until it switches phases in order to continue. This may sound restricting but over all it is incredibly fun. I'm not sure but I believe that if you complete all phases on all bosses then you get a secret ending.

Both the graphics and the sound are nothing special, but they serve their purpose well. So no complaints here. The story isn't too special either. But 2D bullets and 3D character models can be disorienting at first so beware.

Overall though, if you are a fan of SHMUPs, arcade games or anime mecha girls then I suggest you check it out. Though, if you are used to just playing through a game then moving on, then I suggest you stay away.
Gamplay: 9.9/10
Graphics: 7.5/10
Sound: 7.0/10
Story: 4/10
Lasting value: x/10(Variable)

Overall: 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/03/08

Game Release: Triggerheart Exelica (US, 02/27/08)