Review: Triggerheart Exelica

I will admit that I was a bit harsh in my review of Triggerheart Exelica (THE). After playing it several more times, the game has opened up for me. I have not only become much better, but I’ve learned several strategies in tackling the hardest part of the game. But my opinion of the overall quality of the game remains unchanged.

My review was primarily about the immense difficulty of the game. But this attribute is shared by many games. The problem lies in the way the game presents the difficulty, in the sense that it does not prepare you for it. The simple menu and option screens let you select your character/ship and let you adjust other options but there is no foreshadowing of what you’re in store for. Before you know it, you’re under fire from all directions with bullet patterns that cover the entire screen. This rather nonchalant way the game carries itself is what really irritated me. In other words, the game either does not know or does not seem to care how difficult it is. This makes the game frustrating and boring.

In order to clarify my sentiments, I must unfortunately go into detail about something completely unrelated. If you read my Omega Five and Triggerheart Exelica reviews, you’ll see I’ve gained quite a bit of interest in the shmup genre. For this reason, I took the liberty of obtaining many shmups that are dubbed classics by the shmup loving community. How I obtained these games is irrelevant, inconsequential, and another word staring with i. As I mentioned in my review, THE is a bullet hell shmup. These type of shmups put the emphasis on endurance and pattern recognition. Unfortunately, most of the games I obtained did not fit into this category and comparisons of Strikers 1945 or Raiden to Triggerheart would be fruitless.

But one game, DoDonPachi, makes a perfect foil. DoDonPachi is referred to on Wikipedia as “the most manic shoot ‘em up yet” and that it has established “many of the conventions of this subgenre.” These comments are positive for a reason; DoDonPachi does the genre right. Right from the beginning, there are three fairly different types of ships to choose from and two different shot types for each ship. This is preferable to the two superficial ship types in Triggerheart.

But I said the biggest problem with THE is that it does not understand the genre it’s in. DDP, on the other hand, clearly does. The ship weapons are modeled to look as though they are blasting the living shit out of something. The laser weapon on the ship looks like a steady stream of lava that pours down a waterfall of oblivion onto enemies. The purple diarrhea weapons of THE pale in comparison. And the enemies of DDP are interesting and unique. Their appearance actually justifies the fact that they can cover the screen with bullets in interesting patterns. Triggerheart is filled with rather generic looking enemies like squares that for some reason have the ability to shoot walls of bullets that are literally* impossible to navigate through. The colorful and frantic art style of DDP also compliments the endurance and pattern memorizing nature of the game. In comparison, THE’s art style is bland. I would also mention that DDP’s graphics also excel past THE’s in the technical sense despite it being nine years older, but that is an observation having more to do with bewilderment (seriously, how is that possible?) than development and design. Oh, and I guess I just did mention it.

I think the biggest mistake I made in my first review, aside from the crude and unnecessary comparisons, was the omission of mentioning that THE has an easier difficulty. I think this difficulty is essential for players new to the genre or the game. The amount of bullets are reduced significantly making many the parts of the game much more forgiving. And since THE seems to be caught between genres, the fewer amount of bullets seems like a better fit.

Unfortunately I have not mastered this game yet as I did Omega Five. Part of this is because I still don’t have complete mastery of the anchor and the knowledge of when and how to use it. I can clear the first level on the default difficulty setting without dying, but completely fall apart on the second. But I can definitely see myself doing a one credit clear on Easy sometime in the near future.

I realize that this was drastically different than my original review. But that is because I feel drastically different about the game. Playing it more, understanding it more, and having something to compare it to has really lessened my ignorance. I also realize that this is not exactly 28 days later. But with Ikaruga coming out next week on XBLA, I figured my audience was entitled to something more honest and credible.

*The word literally is being used correctly here. The only way to survive these parts of the game is to kill the enemy making the wall of bullets. This is best (and can only be?) done with the anchor, although it is still very difficult.