Arcana Heart

Arcana Heart (アルカナハート, Arukana Hāto) is a 2D arcade fighting game series developed by Team Arcana (originally co-owned with its former parent company Examu). The first edition was released to arcades (mostly in Japan, but a few in other countries) in late 2007. The games feature an original all-female cast, and after choosing a character, the player chooses an "elemental alignment", or Arcana, which determines the character's special moves.

Arcana Heart 2 is the sequel to Arcana Heart. It was the first game in the series to be developed and published by Examu after the rights of the franchise had been transferred to the company from Yuki Enterprise. It was also the first game for Examu's proprietary eX-Board, an arcade board based on Windows XP Embedded that would become the standard platform for the rest of the series and other arcade games published by Examu. The game was unveiled at the AOU2008 Amusement Expo. Andamiro demonstrated the original version of Arcana Heart 2 in the US at the 2008 Amusement Expo conference from September 10 to September 12, 2008. The game was running in a Japanese "candy" cabinet but with English gameplay and artwork. It was released in the US in October 2008 as a conversion kit to change other arcade games into an Arcana Heart 2 arcade game.

The game features 6 new fighters, each with their own unique Arcana. New techniques were also included, such as the Arcana Blast, allowing the player to become temporarily invulnerable; Arcana Homing, a feature allowing the player to simultaneously close the distance between them and the opponent while homing in on them; and the Critical Heart, a devastating special attack unique to each character.

On October 30, 2008, Examu released a major update to Arcana Heart 2 called Suggoi! Arcana Heart 2. This version further balanced the game and fixed some bugs. It also featured some design changes, such as new character illustrations and a red redesign for Kaya Hirotaka. New additions included an additional stage; three new characters: Akane Inuwaka, Nazuna Inuwaka, and Parace L'Sia; their respective Arcana: Fenex (Sound), Kayatsuhime (Flower), Parace L'sia (Life); new color palettes for each character, available by pressing the Start button on the character select screen; and an additional training mode. Suggoi! Arcana Heart 2 was further updated to version 2.6 on February 27, 2009.

AQ Interactive handled the PlayStation 2 port of Suggoi! Arcana Heart 2, which was released only in Japan on April 9, 2009. It was planned for a worldwide release but was cancelled due to low sales of the first one, as well as poor performance and slowdown in gameplay, making the port weaker than the arcade perfect port of the first one.

A spin-off of the series for mobile phones, Arcana Heart: Card of Glory, was jointly developed between Examu and Cave Co., Ltd. It is only available for NTT docomo phones through its i-mode service.

A manga adaptation based on the video game was serialized on the January 2008 issue of Comp Ace magazine. It was written and illustrated by Yuyuko Takemiya and was published on August 26, 2008.

The "Arcana Heart Fan Disc" was sold on October 24, 2007, at Comiket 72. The package included a DVD containing three audio dramas and interviews, and a CD containing three character songs and instrumental songs. A drama CD was included with the limited release of the Japanese PS2 game.