Gal Guardians: Demon Purge
When a demon’s castle darkens the land, two sisters challenge its halls.
Together they can break the curse.
In order to save their school after it turns into a massive demonic castle, two “Demon Hunter” sisters slash and shoot their way through this 2D action adventure.
Players can swap between control of both characters on the fly, each with entirely different skillsets. Proceed through the castle while confronting the demonic bosses that await deep within.
Each boss yields new weapons to wield, allowing for more varied exploration and opening up new routes.
■Swap out on the fly as you traverse through the demonic castle!
Take control of both the tag-team Kamizono siblings. Make the most of long-distance focused Shinobu and close-range brawler Maya Kamizono as you make your way through the castle.
Each sibling has a range of unique sub-weapons, giving you a wealth of options to switch your strategy up whenever the time calls for it. Don’t hesitate to make use of them so long as you have Weapon Points in stock!
In the event that one of the siblings falls in battle, they can be resuscitated freely with “Sister Rescue”—provided you can make it back to where they fell.
■Defeat bosses to obtain new sub-weapons, opening up a whole new layer of exploration!
Defeating bosses will yield new sub-weapons, providing the siblings with exciting new abilities.
These sub-weapons also open up new routes and means of exploration in the castles.
■Enjoy the story your way with “Pure” or “Refined” voice tracks!
Gal Guardians’ story focuses on two main aspects: the mystery behind the school’s transformation, and the whereabouts of the other students.
Enjoy the original experience in “Pure” mode with all of the original Japanese voices for story mode, or choose “Refined” for English voice acting focused on the action, tailored for fans of the genre.
■Adjust the difficulty to your playing needs with the unique Style system!
A total of 3 different styles—”Casual”, “Veteran” and “Legend”—are available for selection, allowing players to adjust the difficulty to their needs. This can be changed at any time after beginning the game with no drawbacks.
What’s more, co-op with both Shinobu and Maya will be possible should two controllers be available. It’s possible to jump-in at any time during the game, so don’t hesitate to invite friends along on your journey to conquer this mysterious demonic castle.
Game Discussion
Steam User 15
I played this game coop with a friend of mine, and this was both his and mine only Gal Guardians game we've played (and neither of us have an interest in playing any of the actual mainline games).
This game is not a proper metroidvania like I suspected. Its actually more of a level by level Castlevania game, where each level starts you off at a spot, and you're goal is to get to the end and fight a boss. Defeating said boss unlocks a new sub-weapon that be used offensively and/or for traversal. The path you take to get to the level boss typically branches, with some paths only being available with access to certain sub-weapons. Hence, I HIGHLY recommend you don't bother trying to explore alternate paths and collect things until you unlock the hub area (which happens a little over half-way through the game).
Anyway, you either play as Shinobu (who I will refer to as Gun Gal) or Maya (who I will refer to as Melee Gal). As you can probably tell from their nicknames, Gun Gal mainly uses ranged weapons while Melee Gal mainly uses melee weapons. And let me tell you, this game REALLY favors Gun Gal over Melee Gal. Not only does Gun Gal get the more useful arsenal of sub-weapons, she also is able to deal with the enemies and bosses easier than Melee Gal. Hence, the game has a serious balance problem between the 2 characters.
But hey, at least both characters have the same problem of being more slippery and having jumps that are slightly delayed enough to cause problems. Seriously, your characters always seem to end up being positioned slightly too far from where you were wanting them to be, which usually resulted in them getting contact damage or falling of a ledge (by the way, their are bottomless pits). Also, it feels like your jump is off by a couple milliseconds, which may not sound like a lot, but trust me, you'll feel it when you try to do some of the platforming.
Now, being as this is inspired by Castlevania games, you'd expect this game to be challenging. Which it is (up until a point, and I'll circle back to this later), but enough of that challenge feels artificial. Aside from the aforementioned control issues, this game has that "classic" thing of your characters only being able to attack directly in front of them. Meaning your characters don't have compass directional attacks like say Simon Belmont did in Super Castlevania IV released back in 1991. Now, I will mention that halfway through the game, both Gun Gal and Melee Gal get a boon from heaven (seriously) that enhances their basic attacks. Gun Gal basically gets 2 enhancements (did I mention this game really favors Gun Gal), with one of those enhancements being the ability to shoot up. That prompted mixed feelings: on the one hand, that did alleviate many annoyances with combat, but on the other hand, it also made me angrily think "why did that have to be tied behind an upgrade? Why not just make that a thing from the get go?"
While on the subject of upgrades, once you unlock the hub area, you get the ability to upgrade the sub-weapons you've been collecting from bosses. And I want to mention that one of the sub-weapons for Gun Gal is a grappling hook (again, game really favors Gun Gal), which at first can only be fired in front of or above Gun Gal. The upgrade however allows you to fire the grappling hook at a 45 degree angle up, which, much like the upgrade that allowed Gun Gal to shoot up, made me think "why wasn't that available from the start? Why was that tied behind an upgrade?"
Anyway, another gripe I have against this game is that this game essentially has 8 levels. Once you play through the first 7 levels, you get sent back to the 1st level and are tasked with replaying those 7 levels again and defeating the exact same bosses again. Yes, you can take alternate paths in each level to get to the level boss, but those alternate paths are just a small part of each level, so you're still just being force to play the exact same levels again. They don't even change up the boss fights, which seems poorly planned since by this point, your characters will have all of their sub-weapons and have received combat enhancements which makes these bosses much easer to deal with. This really just screamed of "We could have just made new levels, but we couldn't be asked so you're just going to have to replay those old levels again."
If you're wondering why I haven't commented on the story, that's because it comes across as one of those stories that's only for fans of the franchise. My friend and I didn't know who any of these characters were and I can't say either of us were really invested in their stories. Just know that lolita demon girl is doing bad things and high school girl demon hunters must stop her.
This game also has 3 endings: normal, true, and joke. My friend and I got the normal and true endings, and I just looked up what the joke ending was. Out of all 3, the normal one I'd was the only decent one, which may have been because I'm not a Gal Guardians fan. So if you're like me, just get the normal ending and then, if you're curious, just look up the other 2 endings on Youtube.
My ultimate thoughts on this game are that it definitely could have been better, but what I got was still a decent enough coop gaming experience.
Steam User 15
Nice lil action platformer
Important thing before buying - this is NOT a metroidvania (SOTN), this is a level based action platformer (like OG Castlevania). Still great but trailer can be very misleading, as a huge metroidvania fan I expected metroidvania game but still enjoyed this one as u can see by positive review
+ Great castle/levels (very OG castlevania)
+ Very nice bosses (some were rly amazing, none were bad)
+ Secrets
- Most if not all can only be accessed after beating last bosses (due to "upgrades"/equipment they drop)
+ Nice story (only game I played in gal guard series and I had no trouble following the story), very 90s anime feel
+ Very anime
- Sometimes "very anime" might be in a bad/somewhat boring horny way
+ Both sisters have nice unique gameplay and I'd say ok balanced (some say "gun sister" is stronger and her kit is easier 2 shred enemies, but I think in the right hands they are close with their own pros and cons while some bosses def favor one over the other)
+- Ok length, only 7 levels good 2nd playtru replay value
+ Nice difficulty
- Somewhat easy due to way it handles lives. First if 1 sister "dies" u can res her and u only lose a life if both die which won't happen almost at all. Second, every time a boss knocks 1 sister, u go back to checkpoint where u fully heal the 2nd sister only to enter the boss fight again where u can res the other sister and boss hp is not 100% making the boss easier once u res the other sister
+ Hardest difficulty
+ Multiple endings
- Basically u have to replay each level multiple times to collect "things" u need to unlock the other endings (only difference is that the final boss gets easier due to help of others)
+ 2nd playtru of same levels is actually nice as bosses are somewhat changed up (new moves, not ice but fire, etc..) and u can try getting the secrets/alternative paths that are locked on 1st play
- 3rd playtru is basically u replaying levels till u find what ur missing (or check a guide to avoid wasting time)
If this game was a metroidvania it would have made it more fun to backtrack/replay areas making it a even better game, but even as non metroidvania this game is great
Steam User 8
OVERALL ARBITRARY SCORE: 7/10
"Solid! You can pass some time and walk away without regrets, just like playing a childhood retro game on a ROM"
*Gameplay*
~ Quite enjoyable, it played really smoothly and felt like it could've been part of earlier Castlevania IP, so it's a faithful experience for people who are familiar with the series. Getting the platinum shouldn't be a problem at all, easy to get even without any guide, though I used a fan-made map to find some collectibles that aren't indicated and would've easily added 5 extra hours of playtime, which can get repetitive specially during lategame;
~ The metroidvania elements are quite shallow, but that's not a bad thing if you're looking for a quick Castlevania-esque experience without too much backtracking, it is opitional and only required for the alternative endings and for certain character upgrades, even then, it is not a lengthy task at all;
- However, it can be a little mundane since there aren't many lategame changes to the map layout and enemy pool.
*Art Direction*
+ This game's strong suit is its visual art style, it's veeeeeery well made and fits right into that SNES / Gameboy ADVANCE era of 16 / 32 bit graphics. The sprites in their majority have a lot of personality so you'll easily recognize and tell them apart from each other; despite a good chunk of enemies being recolors/resprites, that's a common thing used in metroidvania games to represent "similar enemy, stronger or gimmickier version", so it works in favor of the game and player;
~ The sound track is pretty nice, groovy vampire stuff yeaaaa! Sometimes I mixed up the themes though and felt like they sounded a little alike, which got worse lategame, but that doesn't take away from the music being good;
+ Very simple lore but I dig it, not every game needs to be a Game Theory hell hole; some concepts are borrowed from the source material since the story happens in the same verse, which may cause some confusion for some people but tbh the absurdity adds to the experience.
*Extra*
+ I also ended up checking the source material and had a good laugh, it's so ridiculous; if you liked the characters, you can see more of them in the Gal Gun series, mind that it's a quite suggestive IP so beware if that kind of thing repulses you.
Steam User 7
When this game came out i though little of it
a spin off of gal gun
But oh boy was i wrong, how did Inti managed to create such a good love letter to the original castlevania with the theming of gal gun is a question that i'll probably never get the answer to
Steam User 5
Fun game, not a metroidvania in the regular sense as you need to restart each stage from the start to get collectibles but there are sub weapons that act as movement upgrades and are needed to access alternative paths you otherwise can't get to.
A bit annoying that it don't track what items are left on each map, so a guide to use as a checklist is heavily recommended.
It feels a little dated when it comes to QoL but was still good.
Steam User 3
Just like other Inti Creates games, this is a really fun 2D action platformer. I’d recommend just finishing the main game and not going for all the achievements, since that can make it feel overly repetitive—you end up replaying the same levels over and over again.
Steam User 3
If you are into Castlevania games, or even the Bloodstained series, this is for you. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 1 & 2 are some of my all-time favorite games and this feels very much similar but with more modern graphics. It is beautiful to look at and the controls are incredibly tight too. People complaining in the comments are missing the point... not every 2D action game has to be a Metriodvania to be good. And this has elements of that genre by making powers you obtain on your first playthough unlock branching paths in the levels, so there is some replayability here as well.