Cosmo Machia acquires rights to TriggerHeart EXELICA

Cosmo Machia has acquired the rights to the game and other aspects of vertical scrolling shoot ’em up game TriggerHeart EXELICA, the company announced.

The Tokyo-based developer filed a trademark for the TriggerHeart EXELICA logo on January 27, but this is the first official confirmation of its acquisition.

Going forward, Cosmo Machia will actively produce and distribute TriggerHeart EXELICA with the goal of making the game known to users around the world. For areas that Cosmo Machia cannot commercialize the title, the company is seeking licensees to increase opportunities for more people to become aware of the title.

Cosmo Machia also said it would also like to respect all of the original creators and carefully pass on their content.

Specific TriggerHeart EXELICA-related products will be announced at a later date.

TriggerHeart EXELICA was originally developed by Warashi and released for arcades in Japan in May 2006. Ports were released for Dreamcast in 2007, Xbox 360 in 2008, NTT Docomo’s i-appli service in 2008, and PlayStation 2 in 2009. The Xbox 360 version is the only version that received a worldwide release.

Here is an overview of the game, via Cosmo Machia:

TriggerHeart EXELICA is a vertical scrolling shoot ’em up game released by Warashi Inc., marketed as an arcade game at the end of May 2006.

Unlike other shoot ’em up games of the time, the game featured a “mecha girl” design, in which the character of the ship was a beautiful girl equipped with a mecha. The appeal of these characters also attracted attention, and the game was featured in articles in magazines related to bishojo characters and mecha-girls. The main character, EXELICA, was ranked No. 1 in the “Monthly Arcadia” character poll of 2006, published by Enterbrain Inc. at the time.

Later ports were developed, with the Dreamcast version released in 2007, the Xbox 360 version (Xbox Live Arcade only) in 2008, the i-appli version in 2008 and 2009, and the PlayStation2 version in 2009.

There are two types of ship to choose from, with different shots depending on the EXELICA and CRUELTEAR (either a diffuse shot that spreads out like a fan, or a narrow shot concentrated forward).The game is vertical screen, vertical scrolling, and overhead view type, but the most distinctive feature of this work is the ability to eject (shoot) “anchors” at enemies and use their wire connections to knock them down and destroy them. The controls use an eight-way lever and three buttons: the A button is used for the “shot,” which fires in rapid succession; the B button is used for the “anchor shoot,” which captures enemy aircraft for use in attack and defense; and the C button is used for the “bomb,” which attacks enemies across the screen.