Gal guardians 2 as I will call it is an interesting change from the first game, the first was a more traditional castlevania style game that somewhat expanded to feeling a bit like a metroidvania in some regards but realistically remained more true to castlevania, here we have a somewhat unique take on a metroidvania that has done a lot right and once I started playing updated in some much needed fixes one of which I will talk about in the full review lower down, still it's the most fun I've had in a metroidvania in a long while, could it use some improvements here and there? For sure (although I hear they've been doing a good job of that so it could still improve) but as it is I feel it's a game well worth buying with an interesting alternate look at another part of the gal gun universe dood.

Okay full review for gal guardians 2! So The game takes place in the demon world shockingly enough with two entirely new protags, I find this funny because due to one of the endings of the first game I even thought how fun it being based here would be and here we are XD the story is that semi serious with fun humour here and there goodness and some real nice visual both for the characters, enemies and NPC's, the music is a little on the meh side which was shocking but nothing bad, just nothing outside of one particular track that's of any note, at least to me personally dood.

Combat is similar to the first but obviously different too in that you have the gun user and the melee user but their styles and what they can do with those styles is vastly different, one has what looks like an Uzi and also a shotgun which allows for more close range combat if needed at the cost of more ammo, the other has a whip that is a longer range style of combo melee with the ability to jump back mid combo and attack again to get some distance along with a charge attack with some variety to it dood.

Then we have sub-weapons, this is a category all it's own because it does some interesting fancy stuff! Now besides having a variety of different weapons in general, they also have more powerful variations with random effects or elements attached to them that drop from enemies, on top of that you have ways to customise those effects eventually, on top of that you can also fuse up to 8 of the same type to buff that weapons damage and also boost it for a special unique effect to that weapon, the main issue here sadly though is you need to do all 8 weapons fuses in one go or you can't add more and once the effects are on the weapon they are there for life which is an issue for certain...unique sub weapons, a more expensive option to move specific effects or remove them would be nice considering how rare some effects are to even get in the first place but hey maybe they'll add that eventually dood? (hopefully)

So weapons are done with but how about levels!? Well those are unique too, you have 50 levels in total, to get them you need to collect a certain something (that I won't spoil lol) and once you get enough you level up increasing damage, DP (skill usage points essentially for sub weapons) and health at various levels but more importanly you also get skills, in fact some of which you will need to progress in the game at all, which is actually a great way to stop players from going in underlevelled, which is great because things huuuurt a whole lot <_> you can gather them off of enemies or find them in chests among other things, it's certainly different dood.

You also have equipment of a sorts, these can be equipped for a variety of different effects ranging from attack and defence, the ability to jump more times or dash more times, ect ect, there's some other unique effects to it too of course but I'll leave those as a surprise dood.

What bosses there are look real cool with some fun attacks and animations to them at times, they can range from difficult to easy based on how you play, I kinda played it hard because things are expensive in this so I never upgraded my sub weapons XD oopsie I guess but they made for some fun fights either way dood.

Okay the world! It's a cool looking world but also freaking huuuge!! In fact possibly to it's detriment in certain regards, it's a slow burn until you get a certain thing we'll say but once ya do travel becomes fun in it's own right, the improvement they made which was a huge fix is that the save points take you back to home base but if you use a save in home base you can return to the last save you came from, something that wasn't there originally, there's also kind of a quick travel mechanic other than that but honestly it's not all that handy and expensive too at that which for a game with such a decent sized map is a hassle for a while dood.

Things that need adding? Well only two things, both are staples of the genre in my eyes so I was shocked they weren't in there, especially considering one achievement really requires you suck early on to get...or are a pervert o3o lol I missed it (which is shocking, I won't tell ya which reason though :P ) but eh I started again, by which I mean fully started again because the first issue is no NG+ like wow! And the other which is part of the issue I mentioned is no boss rush, honestly not needed but still it's one of those it's been done so much, why stop now? Especially for that one silly achievement dood. X3

So yeah it's a really fun game with a lot of variety and ways to play, it's missing some stuff for sure, especially when it comes to replayability but it certainly was a blast to play, I should also mentioned they added an arena I expected to be a boss rush but was an absurdly hard other thing XD but regardless it's got a bunch to do and I would be more than happy to suggest this to metroidvania lovers, hope the review helps! thanks for reading and if ya buy the game hope it's all the fun times dood! ^-^7

Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark is a sequel to Gal Guardians: Demon Purge, and both are spin-offs of Gal Gun. This means that you can expect light sexual humor and tropes but not any actual porn or hentai, just references to things from those genres as jokes. It's also worth noting that GG SotD is not the same genre as GGDP.

GGDP is a traditional level-based 2d Castlevania game with light branching paths and re-treading of stages, and is a shorter game.

GG SotD is an actual 2d Metroidvania with a huge interconnected map and much more to do; it is a significantly longer game (roughly 2x as long).

It is important to note that both of these games have co-op, and you might have more fun if you play this experience with a friend. If you go it solo, you swap between the 2 characters with a button press.

If you want another old-school Castlevania game that plays like CV3, you'll want to play Bloodstained CotM or GGDP. If you want an experience more like Hollow Knight or a conventional Metroid game, you'll want GG SotD. The games are very different despite shared references.

With that out of the way, how is Servants of the Dark on its own. Unfortunately, this game is a pretty solid but never exceptional experience: constantly feeling like a 7/10 or 8/10 the entire way. It's perfectly serviceable, and I had a lot of fun, but every system has something holding it back. For example, there are some cool enemies but you quickly start to fight pallet swaps that have the same attacks and frame data, just bigger numbers or an extra status effect: so enemy variety quickly starts to feel lacking. For another example, each area has different music themes in parts of it based on context, and you'll really like those songs... until they get re-used in the next area: 99% of the game's overworld re-uses the same 4 songs instead of each part having different music. The whole game is like this... fun enough to keep playing but not nearly polished or diverse enough to elevate the experience or the score. The one exception here is Inti Create's legendarily polished 2d art: this game has some full-screen CG scenes that are epic. You'll definitely want to grab screenshots of these, but that's just a tiny part of the overall game.

A lot of *really* good Metroidvanias have come out in the last 2 years, and GG SotD came out a few months after Ender Magnolia. Competition is fierce in this increasingly crowded genre, and a game like Ender Magnolia absolutely bodies GG SotD in every way except cuteness and amount of demon maids. I can still recommend this game, but not ahead of a laundry list of other games first. In a very real way, I even preferred GGDP over this one.

In some ways, it's a dramatic step up from its predecessor; the map is more intuitive to explore and it feels more directly like a Metroidvania (rewards from exploration, equipment system, subweapons that you can upgrade/customize) than a classicvania with some progression gates. The "endgame" of the first game felt more satisfying and fun to explore, and the fanservice towards GalGun was better done in it. This was more of an original game with some light GalGun stuff sprinkled in very rarely.