Year: 2024
Platform: PlayStation 5
Genre: Action/Adventure
Review Date: 2/17/26
Rating: **

"Gal Guardians" is a very loose spin-off of the "Gal Gun" series, using a 2D "Castlevania" formula. In "Servants Of The Dark," demon maid sisters Kirika and Masha are returning to their castle when it comes under attack by a rival demon lord. They arrive too late to save their master, Lord Maxim Onslaught, but his soul manages to live on in a floating skull. Their quest is to recover their master's bones, which are scattered throughout the demon lands, and defeat all who stand in their way.

Kirika is the cold and serious sister and is armed with twin machine guns for long range combat. Masha is the overly enthusiastic airhead sister who has an unhealthy crush on her master and is armed with a whip for close quarters combat. You can switch between the sisters at any point, and if one sister dies, the other one can revive her by stomping her soul back into her body (which is reminiscent of "River City Girls"). My natural preference was Kirika, but her guns are so weak that she's effectively useless. You have to empty an entire clip of 60 bullets on even the weakest enemies, and by then they've already closed the gap and are on top of you while you're awkwardly trying to reload. Masha is a much more effective fighter, and 2-3 hits with her whip take out most low-level enemies.

Each sister can equip two sub-weapons that consume DP (whatever that is), which brings up another problem with the game. The combat systems are overly complicated and not explained well. The onscreen guages are also not explained and aren't intuitive, except that the constantly decreasing number is your health. However, collecting hearts doesn't refill your HP like you would expect, and the only thing that refills your health is save points. In fact, it's not clear what the hearts are even for, as they don't affect anything and don't appear in your inventory. A problem with save points is that you can choose to warp back to the castle if you want, but it's a one-way trip. In order to get back to the save point and continue the game, you have to slog your way across the map to get there, and of course all of the monsters have respawned. That was a deal breaker for me.

Graphically, it's reminiscent of a Sega Genesis or PS1 game. The 2D pixel art is attractive, but the color palette seems oddly limited. The foreground elements are simplistic and platforming feels imprecise. Combat isn't particularly fun and exploration is a chore, which pretty much sums up my feelings about the entire game. I simply didn't find it any fun to play, and put it away after two hours out of disinterest more than anything. While the voice acting is very good (and probably the best aspect of the game), I didn't like the characters and I found the writing to be overly juvenile. It definitely feels like a teen anime and suffers from all of the trappings. Maybe I'm just too old for the genre and have a low tolerance for demon bimbos.