{"id":9023,"date":"2025-04-10T21:13:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T21:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/9023\/"},"modified":"2025-04-10T21:13:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T21:13:10","slug":"gal-guardians-servants-of-the-dark-review-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/9023\/","title":{"rendered":"Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark Review (Switch)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Gal<\/a>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld\/Undocked)<\/p>\n

Inti Creates is a fascinating development house that has spent the past few years crafting throwbacks to beloved genre archetypes. The team tends to take a specific model and iterate on it across several titles. Aside from Comcept’s infamous Mighty No. 9<\/a>, Inti has a strong history with the Mega Man<\/strong> series, and another beloved template the devs continue to refine is the Metroidvania<\/a>, most notably through their work on the venerable Bloodstained<\/a> series.<\/p>\n

Branching off from the popular on-rails shooter series Gal Gun<\/a>, Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark<\/a> follows 2023\u2019s Demon Purge<\/a> in applying the skills Inti gained while working on the Bloodstained games. It features strong character design, varied combat, and the familiar exploration loop that you’ve come to expect.<\/p>\n

The story takes place in a world where three realms \u2014 demon, heaven, and human \u2014 are precariously balanced. Masha and Kirika, students from the demon realm, return from vacation only to find their castle under attack. Their leader, Maxim, has been defeated and is now just a shattered remnant of his former self (or more accurately, a floating head). To restore him they must find and defeat Lord Lyzenorg, the head of a rival demon faction.<\/p>\n

\"Gal<\/a>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/p>\n

If you played the previous game or are familiar with the universe it spun off from, you\u2019ll feel right at home. However, newcomers might find the plot a bit overwhelming. Fortunately, you can largely ignore the story and just focus on the flashy combat and the parade of outrageous enemies.<\/p>\n

The deuteragonists have distinct fighting styles tied to their primary attack. Kirika wields the genre staple whip for close combat melee, while her sister Masha straight up blasts monsters with an Uzi. It\u2019s incredibly fun to run around as a bish\u014djo-style magic schoolgirl that shoots enemies like it\u2019s an ’80s action movie. Masha even has a shotgun blast slide, for close encounters.<\/p>\n

Heaps of attack variation come in the form of secondary weapons that can be gathered from enemies and chests. Swords, projectiles, explosives and utility items can all be equipped in two support slots. This encourages experimentation and also means that any challenging enemy, like the game’s many punishing boss fights, can be tackled in a number of ways.<\/p>\n

\"Gal<\/a>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/p>\n

The ability to swap between sisters on the fly adds an extra layer of complexity to the combat. They have separate health pools and one can resurrect the other in the heat of battle. If you have the room to do it, it\u2019s useful to be able to mash ‘Y’ and shove your sister\u2019s soul back into her body.<\/p>\n

The floating head of Maxim will also help you out, his support changing based on items you can equip on him. Collecting his bones and bringing them back to the castle will also grow Maxim\u2019s strength and the core stats of the sisters.<\/p>\n

The castle itself is an evolving hub area that grows as you make progress in the story. Picking up lost souls and putting them back into their corpses will introduce NPCs to the hub, most of which add an actual function to the game.<\/p>\n

As fun as it is, Servants of the Dark stumbles in its lack of original ideas and bland environment design. While the enemy variety is often exceptional, the levels themselves don’t quite measure up. Aside from the many nooks and crannies of Maxim\u2019s castle, none of the areas really stand out. You\u2019ve got the usual themed lineup \u2014 forest, dungeon, ice, fire \u2014 but there’s not much happening in the background or foreground to make the basic terrain feel interesting. On the innovation side, there isn\u2019t much difference between this and its predecessor, which in turn was a pastiche of genre luminaries.<\/p>\n

\"Gal<\/a>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld\/Undocked)<\/p>\n

Co-op is back for this sequel, though, and it\u2019s just as fun as the last time. Having both sisters on screen at the same time heightens the already solid combat. Mixing gun, whip, and secondary attacks while dashing around the screen is fun and significantly decreases the game’s more difficult sections.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/p>\n

This will be a blast for Gal Gun fans and well worth a try for newcomers. There isn\u2019t much beyond the usual Metroidvania trappings, but the build-based combat leaves lots of room for experimentation. Lack of originality aside, a strong imitation can still be an enjoyable experience, and Gal Guardians is never less than a great time. The character-swapping and revive mechanics make solo mode just as engaging as co-op, while the weapon slot system encourages replayability with new builds for Masha and Kirika.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld\/Undocked) Inti Creates is a fascinating development house that has spent the past few…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[60,6081,6083,123,6080,6082,131,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-9023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-action-adventure","9":"tag-gal-guardians-servants-of-the-dark","10":"tag-inti-creates","11":"tag-nintendo-switch","12":"tag-review","13":"tag-reviews","14":"tag-switch","15":"tag-technology","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114315736374165411","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}