Inti Creates seems to always have their fingers in the most interesting creations. Azure Striker Gunvolt is a fantastic trilogy exploration of the pixel art platformer, Yohane was a very engaging metroidvania all on its own, and Gal*Gun has its own warm, sometimes sticky place in all our hearts (some writers may not condone this statement). A short while ago, they released Grim Guardians: Demon Purge, which was a further exploration into a Castlevania adjacent experience involving twin characters that could be swapped on the fly, an interesting revive system, and a perfectly serviceable amount of fanservice. Oftentimes, when we move forward with a sequel or spiritual sequel, it takes the best aspects, amplifies them, and peppers in something new and exciting. So it’s positively mindbending that Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark is such a massive, tragic step backward for what felt like a potentially great series.

Gal Guardians has only a few mechanically inclined elements in common with Grim Guardians. The dual protagonists, Kikira and Masha, are demon maids that serve a Demon Lord who has been betrayed by another demon maid and, ultimately, is slaughtered, along with all the other castle’s inhabitants. The two survivors are now tasked with seeking revenge and simultaneously trying to revive their fellow castle dwellers and the Demon Lord himself. Across multiple landscapes and areas, you’ll find lost souls to return to their bodies, the bones of the Demon Lord Himself to raise your own power, and unlock new abilities in a dedicated quest for vengeance. Also, I hope you like almost nonstop banter between the two maids and the Demon Lord’s disembodied head, because there is a LOT.

Following in the footsteps of Grim Guardians (which was renamed Gal Guardians: Demon Purge at some point), you explore in a dual role of swapping between Kikira and Masha whenever you’d like. One uses a gun as a ranged weapon, and the other uses a whip for more powerful but melee-based attacks. Both can supercharge to have a more powerful strike, and there are also a bunch of power-up alternative attacks you can obtain. The alternatives are great, though you do need to deal with a lot of confusing repetition that bogs down your inventory. Since the alts use a magical system, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to need to pick up more than two (since you need to assign alts to the characters separately), but I’ll be damned if I didn’t need to toss about seven helmets that summon spiders.

Then the first serious trip comes almost immediately: Kikira needs to reload. Like, a lot. While a clip of sixty bullets might seem like a lot, there’s no way to reload prematurely, so you’re forced to empty your chambers before you can initiate the reload sequence. In some games, that would be perfectly fine, but the OG Guardians let you shoot infinity rounds, so this is a weird inhibitor to place. I suppose if the bullets were overpowered, that’d be one thing, but the initial damage ratio is about 6x in favor of Masha’s whip. So unless your playstyle involves a whole lot of plinking and hiding on bosses that you really can just bumrush, it’s a pithy and needless nerf that removes the incentive to utilize both characters equally. At least, for my berserker-style gameplay.

The good and bad aspects of this flawed exchange of power present themselves time and again as the game progresses. On the veteran or lower difficulty, there wasn’t a lot of thought that went into overworld mob battling, and even less as you recognized more and more enemy patterns. While this might not seem like a major issue, it keeps in form when you reach boss battles as well. That is, the most important part was simply to keep one of the two characters alive while you turned the other into a glass cannon. Do alternate weapon strikes and melee frenzy until you perish, then swoop in and do a revive with Kikira to earn a few seconds of invincibility and spam the boss till dead. There’s a touch more complexity in watching to recognize attack patterns to maximize efficiency, but the core remains constant: live, die, repeat.

Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark regains its footing in the overall design and presentation of the game from an aesthetic point of view. The use of pixel art for character sprites and landscapes works wonders, and there are plenty of dedicated animations and moments for the individual weapons and attacks. When I first cleaved a goblin in two with a broadsword alt, I was positively giddy with ruthless excitement. Different mob behavior, coupled with a plethora of damaging aspects, meant the combat continued to be engaging (at least for Masha), and I was eager to see how I fared moving into new areas.

If you felt that the voicework was lacking in the previous title, don’t worry: Inti Creates stepped up the seiyuu delivery something fierce. Kikira, Masha, and the Demon Lord all have full voices, including quips and clips that just drop through the act of jumping, striking, or taking damage. There are scripted moments of plot formation and general explanation of game mechanics where everyone gets a piece of the pie, including a host of NPCS (both friendly and antagonistic), so you can enjoy the full spectrum of personalities. Additionally, the characters will just start talking at different points during the main gameplay, so you can hear Masha fawn over the Demon Lord while you’re busy trying not to get torn apart by traps and fireballs.

But the contentious element that most cooled my interest in Servants of the Dark was the entire handling of the map and fast travel system. In theory, this game expands outwards like a metroidvania, so of course the ideas of doubling back and gradually revisiting locales when new abilities are birthed make sense.  What doesn’t make sense is how quickly the map feels vast and barren within seconds of starting. Almost all of the castle where the game began is worthless real estate after the initial setup. The Forbidden Fog offers very little in terms of explorative reward once you reach the next zone, but you’ll still be trekking through it for a while because the fast travel spot isn’t near a save space or the entrance, but somewhere almost arbitrarily deep. “This is the train stop no one likes to get off at because people keep getting mugged” deep.

Plus, leveling up is a frigging chore that’s also a bore. You gain levels by collecting the bones of the Demon Lord and then bringing them back to his throne. Through this method, the two maids get gradually stronger (HP, ATK, and DPS increase each level), and you unlock helpful skills every five levels or so. The bones drop from enemies as well as being found in treasure chests, but there’s no visible level lock on bones being generated, and enemies respawn immediately. For context, this means that I walked in and out of the very first room with enemies, attacking and slaying the slime that drops down after entering, until I got enough bones for my first level up. Not exactly a groundbreaking strategy, but I was still surprised that it was possible: the respawn is instantaneous upon departure, and the drop isn’t guaranteed, but also doesn’t seem to have a limitation.

Yet the potential to abuse the system is greatly hampered by Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark then asking you to bring the bones back to the throne, which is in the castle where you started, and no, there isn’t a simple way to get there. Even much later in the game, the fast travel locations being as spread out as they are means making a conscious, time-consuming choice to backtrack to potentially get a couple of extra points to your overall character buildout. This also means that the perks that usually come from leveling up in the heat of battle (insta-healing, addition of new skills) are put on the back burner until you can make time for it. This would be sensible if there was any customization that went into it, but as it’s a linear upgrade system, the focus on making the leveling tied into a plot-driven ritual slows down the gameplay itself.

Not every sequel is going to outstrip its predecessor, but it’s so bizarre and self-sabotaging to implement choices that defy what made the previous game work. Grim Guardians, for better or worse, married the twin protagonists and swapped necessity with a solid storyline and a well-built gameworld. Comparatively, Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark seems to have sacrificed something that wasn’t broken to begin with in order to add…nothing. Additional voicework, more portraits, and better pixel design shouldn’t come at the cost of gameplay. Unbalanced combat is forgivable when it’s tempered by power fantasy or satisfaction in the grind, and the incremental increases that are further hampered by delayed gratification nullify any goodwill. In short, Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark is tepid and flat, and the missteps make what should have been an enjoyable romp into a serious trudge.

 

Graphics: 8.0 The cutaway artwork for static scenes and portraits is cute and fleshed out with plenty of intention. The pixel art, for the most part, is well done, though certain sections are a trifle muddy. Still, the overall quality is excellent and scales well on larger displays.	Gameplay: 5.0 The combat is a bit repetitive, but enjoyable for the most part. Constant backtracking is amplified as an annoying chore by a poorly implemented fast travel system. The instant respawning makes abuse of both mobs and pickups too easily exploitable.
Sound: 8.5 Great soundtrack, very inspired by nodding to Castlevania without aping the elements entirely. Well done voicework that has a more consistent and constant presence than the first title, though it can get distracting at times due to confusing “ambient banter” with “potentially important observations.”	Fun Factor: 5.0 A game of peaks and valleys, Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark was fun as hell when I got lost in the periods of general exploration, combat, and adventuring. When the time came to level up or otherwise move in a different direction, my enthusiasm flamed out and died.
Final Verdict: 5.5

Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark is available now on PC, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4/5.

Reviewed on PC.

A copy of Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark was provided by the publisher.