Gal Guardians - Servants of the Dark

To be honest PQube had me at demon maids, but let's dive a little deeper than that shall we? A follow up to the well-received Gal Guardians: Demon Purge, Servants of the Dark is a pixel-art Metroidvania with beautiful pastel coloured graphics and two new leads in sisters Kirika and Masha.

Your Demon Lord, Maxim, has fallen, and to return him to power the sisters must take on the task of battling his enemies and bringing them back under his heel. When you load the game, all you hear is the howling wind, so it's an ominous start. You're introduced to the Demon world, full of Demon Lords vying for control of the realm. After a very cool opening sequence, we join the sisters as they return home to find out what's happened.

The story takes place in the game engine, so your pixel sprites have to convey the emotion with some very cute emotions. Once you're in control, you have to get to the castle, during which you'll be taught the basic controls - even here there are secrets to be found, so look around for clues to hidden areas and don't automatically destroy all the boxes, some can be used to access hidden areas. It's all quite familiar if you've played the original or any similar Metroidvania games, and in that sense it's an easy game to jump into. 

The game can accommodate 2 player, but if like me you're playing alone, you can switch between the sisters at will to take advantage of their individual strengths. Masha uses guns, while Kirika has a whip and the ability to use seeds to power up her attacks. For the most part you can choose the Gal that suits your play style, but certain areas will require the specialties of one or the other to proceed. Masha's gun is more accurate when you're breaking things like boxes to create stairs, while Kirika's whip is initially more powerful and indiscriminate in what it blows to pieces.

Playing co-op does make life easier, essentially doubling your firepower, but it requires coordination. Impressively this play style extends to online play too, so that's a great little feature if your friends aren't local to you.

When exploring a game like this, variety is key - there's nothing worse than trudging through endless screens of similar looking areas. Happily Gal Guardians has you very much covered here - from forests to icy mountains, the game throws different environmental challenges at you that are all distinct and fun to discover. While enemies can repeat, their attacks can vary depending on their type, so Goblins may spear you with arrows on multiple levels, but some poison while others freeze you. The game always seems to go the extra mile too - enemies don't necessarily just appear, they'll jump through windows or terrify you by teleporting right next to you - it certainly keeps you on your toes!

If you want to re-visit an area, you can fast-travel via boat (for a fee) so the exploration elements are breezy and you can concentrate on finishing a level and exploring later if that's your style.

As mentioned, exploration starts very early on, so prodding each nook and cranny (and even smashing walls with your weapons) is essential if you want to uncover the game's secrets. It's worthwhile too, as these often grant you useful items - gold can be amassed for use in the game's shops, while more direct perks include sub-weapons, power-ups, demon-relics which grant you stat upgrades and even servant souls, which you can restore to life in order to gain access to their services. You also need to rebuild your damaged castle, so demon glyphs must be found to open certain doors and obtain timber for construction. Lastly, demon-bones will level up your characters and also grant new abilities such as a double-jump, essential for being able to explore fully.

Your inventory is easy to manage and contains explanations for each item - it can get full quickly, so managing available slots is key

In terms of marking your progress, the map is well realised, with it marking doors, treasure, merchants and other areas that are of interest. You can also leave your own markers for items that aren't charted automatically, so make use of this if you want to efficiently rediscover areas that might benefit from a revisit, such as areas to high to reach without a double-jump.

One thing I would recommend is experimenting with the sub-weapons when it comes to exploration - what effect might an ice weapon have on lava for example? A little bit of logical puzzle solving is required, so don't be afraid to try everything in your inventory to make progress easier.

None of this is going to be particularly new if you enjoy the genre as I do, so the fun really is about exploring, enjoying the story and meeting the beautifully crafted giant bosses that await you. No surprise that these cursed demons are usually ladies of the buxom variety, but it wouldn't be Gal Guardians without some pixelated fan-service. 

Possibly my favourite thing about the game is that the graphics are just so well thought out - you can jump behind hanging tapestries, you'll dig through treasure chests instead of just opening them, it really feels like the pixel artists had a ton of fun with this game, and it comes across in every animation and design element. You can find the sisters' private room with the little bathroom attached, you shove a soul back in its body to revive the character and even mundane actions like save areas are designed as little tea parties. It's a treat to discover each new area or action and spurs on further exploration.

Some of the backgrounds are almost Tim Burton-esque and there's variety in bosses and their attack patterns that are tough but fair

There are elements that frustrate - if your partner dies where you can't reach them, you can't revive them, though this happened rarely. The way in which you activate abilities isn't always laid out, so you're left scratching your head as to how you actually get it to fire. Sure, the game talks you through the basics, but a menu showing all your available moves (as you would find in fighting games) would be very helpful. I'd also go as far as to say the music isn't that fantastic, the soundtrack being a bit tuneless and shrill on occasion. All minor niggles that don't affect the gameplay to a great extent, so I'd certainly say it feels pretty polished all in.

The game is available now on Steam and Switch, but if you want to wait for the physical release, that's coming on June 12th, with day one editions containing a set of art cards. It's not quite the Limited Edition that Asia is getting (where the game is called Grim Guardians) but I'll take as much of the art as I can in what ever format I can get it. An artbook would have been the icing on the cake though.

For fans of Metroidvania, Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark is a superb entry into the genre, full of wit, great graphics and the addictive exploration elements that you'd expect, all presented in an easy to digest format.