Is this the Arcade’s first Dreamcast port? I think so. Triggerheart was released in 2007 - years after Sega stopped producing the Dreamcast. Releasing retail games for a console that’s no longer on the market does seem odd, but the Dreamcast is still a cult hit in Japan. Most after-life games for the console are vertical scrolling shooters. Triggerheart is a cartoon platf……..nah, it’s a vertical scrolling shooter.
Taking control of either Exelica or Crueltear you’ve pretty much got to shoot everything in your path. There is a story, oddly in the options menu. It’s just a few paragraphs of text, and doesn’t enhance the experience. There are slight differences between the two characters, Exelica has a wider shooting range, whilst Crueltear has a direct straight forward power approach. I personally found Exelica by far the more useful of the two. Each character also carries bombs, which as well as ridding the screen of the almost unavoidable enemy fire heading in your direction, it also blows those evil buggers firing it, up. Very handy indeed. The real killer app here though, is the grapple hook. Anchor yourself onto an airborne enemy and you’ll be able to use it as a shield, a bomb or just spin and take out bucket loads of baddies. The usefulness of the grapple is immense. Sometimes the screen will almost fill up entirely with enemy fire, you’ve literally millimeters to manoeuvre yourself into a position to avoid being hit. The very limited shield you gain from capturing an enemy is often a life saver.
Triggerheart uses what the tech’s describe as a Variable Boss Attack System. Now, simply put, this system basically changes the boss’ difficulty depending on how well you have performed during the level. If you get through said level with no continues and even no damage, you’ll experience more than just the one boss you’d get if you cleared the level using 5 continues. It’s interesting, but you’re gonna have to be very good indeed, to see all there is to see. Truth be told, I breezed through the game in about 15 minutes - but I did use continues. Could I ‘breeze’ through the game using no continues? Could I hell as like! That’s the true test and is obviously what the developers are challenging you to do. I would imagine, vertical scrolling shooter addicts will rise to the challenge, others like me will just be pleased to run through the once - with each character - and be done with it. Therein lies the problem for anyone who’s not heavily into their shooters. Half an hour and you’re done. I can’t really discredit the game for this, though. It’s obvious Triggerhearts is aimed at vertical shooting fans and I’m sure those very fans will get a lot more out of the experience than I did.
Visually, the game looks OK, but I’d argue the point that it’s had an HD makeover. I just can’t see it. The text in the tutorial for instance, is unreadable. What is a nice touch is the control customisation. Obviously, vertical scrolling shooters aren’t designed for wide-screen tellies. Many of them have borders occupying each side of the screen, Triggerhearts is no different. Altering the default control scheme can turn the game into a side-scrolling shooter. Turn your telly 90 degrees and you’re back to a vertical scrolling shooter - only this time, it’s full screen. I know it’s been done before, but I hadn’t ever tried doing it before. Verging on pointless, yes, but clever none the less.
Triggerhearts is recommended by me - to those who consider shooters to be their ‘game’. It could offer one last pit stop before the somewhat proclaimed holy grail of shooters Ikuruga, hit’s the Arcade later this year. For anyone with only a very mild interest in the genre, I’d certainly try before you buy.
