Triggerheart Exelica is a vertically scrolling Japanese arcade shooter with a little bit of everything: fast-paced action, scalable difficulty, massive hordes of enemy Ver'mith, and cute humanoid weapons who can either shoot down enemy ships or capture them to use as shields or projectiles. Help Exelica and Crueltear save the universe!

In an unknown alien galaxy far away from the Milky Way, a war is waging between a group of human-like people called C.H.I.L.D.A. and a mysterious race of violent robotic vehicles known as the Ver’mith. C.H.I.L.D.A. employed their elite squad consisting of humanoid weapons known as Triggerhearts, two of the Triggerheart units, Exelica and her programmed sister Crueltear, were busily fighting the Ver’mith during an attack when a portal known as "Gate" opened and sucked both Triggerhearts in.

Materializing on planet Earth, Exelica and Crueltear soon made this planet their new home as they had no means of return, and losing their reasons to fight as they were also uncapable to know the outcome of the Interstellar Wars.

Some time later a new portal opened and the surviving Ver'mith forces appeared. Intent on making Earth their primary fortress of attack, the Ver'mith quickly eliminated the majority of Earth’s defenses. As the destruction spreads, the once buried fighting instincts within Exelica and Crueltear re-awoke. The final battle against the Ver'mith has begun, but this time the Ver'mith have their own version of a Triggerheart unit known as Faintear.

Outnumbered, but with their fighting instincts awoken, and with a reason to fight once again, the future of planet Earth and the entire galaxy rests on the Triggerheart units.