left in the gauge, but the guard barrier will last as long as an entire segment would have. The guard barrier forms a large green aura around the player, and any bullets that come into contact with this aura will disappear. Fighters Ageha: Concentrated forward shots. In Kakusei mode, the fighter moves faster with reduced horizontal sway when firing shot, slower when firing the beam. Tateha: Wide angle forward shots. In Kakusei mode, the fighter moves faster when firing shots, slower when firing the beam. Chihiro: Arrange mode fighter, PlayStation 2 only. It is basically Irori Mimasaka from ESP Ra.De. Black: Arrange mode fighter, PlayStation 2 only. It is basically JB-5th from ESP Ra.De. Miscellaneous commands Holding A and B buttons for over 0.5 seconds when pressing START reverses the full-auto button setting. Holding C and D buttons for over 0.5 seconds when pressing START swaps the functions of C and D buttons. Both commands affect Players 1 and 2, and only affect the current game credit. If both players try to use a command, both commands are accepted. Development Espgaluda was produced by Kenichi Takano and directed by Tsuneki Ikeda, co-founders of Cave whose previous works include the DonPachi series. Ikeda also served as co-programmer alongside Takashi Ichimura. Akira Wakabayashi, Hideki Nomura, Hiroyuki Tanaka and Kengo Arai also acted as co-designers. Artist Tsukasa Kado was responsible for both world building and character designs. The soundtrack was composed by "SOU1" under supervision of Toshiaki Tomizawa, another co-founder of Cave. The team recounted its creation process and history through various publications. Release Espgaluda was first released in arcades by AMI in November 2003. On March 15, 2004, a soundtrack album containing music from the game was published in Japan by Cave. On June 17 of the same year, a conversion for the PlayStation 2 was developed and published by Arika in Japan. The PlayStation 2 version included different modes such as arcade, simulation, arrange, and a walkthrough DVD video featuring high-level replays. In arcade mode, players can configure screen orientation and other settings. Simulation mode simulates an arcade mode stage where players can practice of sections under pre-defined conditions. Arrange mode is a PlayStation 2-exclusive feature and introduces more aggressive enemy patterns, new playable characters, an arranged soundtrack, among other additions and gameplay changes. In 2005, Espgaluda was split into two separate parts and distributed by Cave through the Gaesen Yokocho