Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark

Castlevania like game its super lengthy but you play as OP maids.

I really liked this game. The pixel graphics, the exploration, the platforming and combat. This is a very decent metroidvania game. True, it has unfinished elements, such as the online multiplayer, but the rest is very good. The game rewards exploration - the leveling can only be done by finding Maximilian's bones, some are dropped by killing enemies, some are found in chests, some are quest or boss rewards, and some can be bought. And once the limit per area is reached - you can't earn more, so you won't be over-leveled, and will have to progress the story, and also open up new areas to explore. Speaking of exploration, as in every metroidvania, some areas are inaccessible without specific tools or moves. The game does not explicitly tell you this, but the necessary moves are locked behind specific levels, so, again, exploration and discovery is the only way to progress. Sometimes the game does not tell you all the traits of the weapons and special moves that are essential to traverse...

The game certainly has its flaws, mostly with explaining stuff like travel via Karon's that straight-up lies to you by saying she can take you ANYWHERE and not only to other Karons. But aside from that, once you understand how everything works, this game is phenomenal. It's a proper sequel with a much bigger map, non-linear exploration, and a big assortment of sub-weapons that you can upgrade and add attributes to. Most complaints in the reviews are about people not understanding the game mechanics or crying that the game doesn't follow the cookie-cutter formula like other metroidvanias from the studio. I understand that introducing changes in a sequel of a franchise might be disruptive or discouraging to some, but these are not bad mechanics by themselves. The only thing I slightly agree with is that platforming gets easy in the late game, doesn't mean it gets super simple tho. Overall, I love this game, and I'm having tons of fun with it both as a standalone game and as a sequel....

This game is super fun despite them removing shotgun jumping and out of bounds jump storage. There are however a few caveats to this recommendation. First off the game has some optimization issues which cause it to slow down at times. AIn't terrible but ain't perfect. Second is that the games overall flow and design is closer to that of a GBA Castlevania title, so expect dying to be a bit punishing. The game is definitely worth it though.

This game infuriates me in so many ways I can't believe it was made by one of my favourite game developers of all time. There are so many things wrong in this game that could've been fixed easily by not implementing it in the first place. I am quite disappointed in how Inti handled the sequel to Gal Guardians and hopefully they learned something from their mistakes in this game. It's a shame given that I do love some things they added to this game but not enough to overshadow the negatives. I think that Inti should go back to making 2D action games instead of a metroidvania because it's really clear that they couldn't make one that is fun to play without frustrating their players. I don't have anything bad to say about the fact that there's no fast travel between save points in the game like other players are mentioning because I think a lot of Metroidvanias do this (ie. Hollow Knight) so if you hate this game simply because the lack of fast travel it means that you've never played ...