Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Welcome
everybody to the demon world! A world where might makes right, violence
abounds, and two demon maids are looking to avenge their Lord in a metroidvania
style quest across the land.
An indirect
sequel to a title that released a while ago, Gal Guardians: Demon Purge, and a
title I’ve been looking forward to for a while, Gal Guardians: Servants of the
Dark moves the main characters from exorcist sisters to demon maid sisters! So
how does their adventure stack up?
After
returning from some time off for a vacation, demon maid sisters Kirika and
Masha return home to find their Demon Lord’s castle up in smoke. Arriving at
the castle, they discover the servants dead, and their Lord has been murdered
by rival Demon Lord Lyzenorg. But fear not, as the sisters’ boss, Demon Lord
Maxim, has kept his head! Or rather his skull, within which his soul resides.
So the goal of Kirika and Masha is clear: recover Demon Lord Maxim’s bones to resurrect his body,
find the souls of the castle servants to revive them, and give Lyzenorg a good
whooping.
Gal
Guardians: Servants of the Dark plays similar to it’s predecessor, but doesn’t
require any knowledge from it so first time players can still get into it. Also
thankfully, the game has been patched to solve some of the major issues I had
while playing, so hopefully you’ll have a much more well rounded experience
than I did.
Servants of
the Dark plays in a typical metroidvania fashion with it’s own unique twists
added. You will be exploring the demon world, fighting demons, and collecting
treasure. You have some basic moves you start with, as well as learnable moves
and skills based on how many bones you’ve returned to Maxim. Both demon sisters
have the same general exploration set, but fight in combat differently. Both
demons have a jump and dash, and you can swap between them. They have separate health
bars, and you can revive one if they go down, although it does require some
button mashing so try and time it properly if you’re in a fight. Combat wise,
Kirika fights at longer range using a gun, which she has to reload, and a dash
attack where she pulls out a shotgun for more damage but more bullets consumed.
Ammo is infinite, so you don’t need to worry about stock, but you do have a
clip limit before you need to reload by double tapping down.
Masha on
the other hand fights close range with a whip. She can also collect up to five
seeds you can find either from enemy drops or in the environment. Two pro tips
for you: first up, if you collect three of the same seed and have revived the
alraune in the castle, you can give her the seeds and she will grow those seeds
for you, instantly and infinitely at no cost. Secondly, seeds have extra
properties that may not be super noticeable at first glance. For instance, fire
seeds can burn things, and ice seeds can freeze things. Keep this in mind for
later stages of the game.
Both
sisters can also gain access to sub weapons and Demon Lord Maxim’s abilities.
Sub weapons can be equipped at will, and you can have two per slot per character.
These sub weapons range from grenades, to auto-targeting floating swords, to
summoning creatures. As an added bonus, these sub weapons can be upgraded and
stats can be added to them, which affect both sisters as long as you have the
sub weapons equipped. Some sub weapons are character specific and some can be
equipped by either character. You have a resource called Demon Points, or DP,
that get consumed when you use a subweapon, but can be recovered through blue
potion bottles that can be found while exploring or from defeated enemies, who
are also the biggest source of weapon drops.
As for
Demon Lord Maxim’s abilities, these are unlocked through finding his bones,
which can be acquired in a number of ways, such as in chests or by completing
certain objectives, but can also be earned in a limited quantity from enemies
in an area. The abilities you can earn are useful both in combat, and are
generally required to progress in the game, so don’t forget to occasionally
return to the castle to hand over your bones.
Speaking of
returning to the castle, there are a couple of aspects to the game that I would
have liked to know earlier than I found out. First of all, the castle is
essentially like your home base, where any useful NPCs will be around to give
you items or advice. The NPCs are revived by finding their souls scattered
throughout the demon world. I would highly recommend looking for them, or
remembering where they are by placing markers on the map if you can’t reach the
soul yet, as they are really helpful and unlock most of the aspects of the
castle. For example, there is a fast travel from any save point to the castle,
but leaving the castle you can only go to certain waypoints. You need to revive
a castle servant to activate the fast travel from the castle, so make sure to
keep an eye out.
Also
important to note is that there is a fountain that “gives you spare change”
when you interact with it. It fills up over time and can be improved by finding
sub fountains in the wild, but early game money is rather important, so you’ll
want to return here decently often. I certainly would’ve appreciated the extra
cash. Important takeaway here is to return to the castle fairly regularly,
whether to hand in bones or collect coins from the fountain to make your life
easier.
Now, let me
mention some of my favourite aspects of Servants of the Dark. First up, you can
open the map and move around while viewing it. This is really great while
exploring for missed areas, and is super handy for filling in areas of the map.
You can also slap down map markers, although somewhat limited, to indicate
areas to return to, locked doors you haven’t opened, or other useful notes, in
addition to the built-in markers such as save points or fast-travel areas.
Another handy map aspect is that hard borders are indicated by flourishes on
the corners of rooms, meaning there are no more rooms accessible outside those
axes. While certain area transitions bypass this, for the vast majority of the
map this feature is handy for filling out unexplored areas.
Another
really cool feature is the coop functionality. That’s right, you and a friend
can play together! While certain aspects and resources are shared, there are
certain leniencies allowed as well. For example, while DP is shared, in coop
mode your maximum value is increased, giving each player some more leeway.
While
exploring the demon world you will encounter many interesting creatures, some
friendly and some not, as well as visit a bunch of different locales. With an
art style reminiscent of old-school Castlevania and some sick beats to match,
your time in the demon world won’t be dreary!
While the
game certainly has some strong selling points, there are a few issues that may
turn you away. Some aspects of the game are not exactly well explained. While
the post release patches have thankfully eliminated almost all of these issues,
there are a few things that may still get you. For example, you can get a
subweapon to destroy these gray bricks you see around. If you use the subweapon
while airborne, you’ll throw it downwards. Discovering that took me about an
hour and a half longer than I’m willing to publicly admit. Similar to what I
mentioned earlier about seed properties. Also, fast travel points tend to be
far enough away from each other that you’ll probably have to do a decent bit of
backtracking. While not a deal breaker for me, I can certainly see some people
getting annoyed with it. Add this to the fact you essentially need to find all
the castle NPCs, and those who want to focus on rushing through the game may
get frustrated.
Overall,
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark was a fun trek through a metroidvania demon
world. With interesting characters, a pretty fun battle system, and some cool
exploration techniques you can learn, the experience was quite fun. While there
is a bit of vagueness on some aspects, such as particular use of some abilities
and exploration tools, the post release patches have cleared up most of the
frustration. Maybe grab a friend to play together and help avenge your demon
lord as a pair. This quirky title was certainly a lot of fun.
Score: 8 / 10
