Gal Guardians: Demon Purge on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
In order to save their school after it turns into a massive demonic castle, two "Demon Hunter" sisters slash and shoot their way through this 2D action adventure. Players can swap between control of both characters on the fly, each with entirely different skillsets.
Gal Guardians: Demon Purge is a action, 2d platformer and adventure game
developed and published by INTI CREATES CO. and LTD..
Released on February 23rd 2023 is available only on Windows
in 10 languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Portuguese - Brazil, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
It has received 1,151 reviews of which 935 were positive and 216 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.8 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 23.99€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Gal Guardians: Demon Purge into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
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System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS *: Windows 7, 8.1, 10
- Processor: 2Ghz or faster processer
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: 2GB VRAM (NVIDIA GeForce)
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 10 GB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Really fun co-op game. Finished it on veteran difficulty in one sitting with a friend and enjoyed it. I think this game really shines in co-op. You can "stand" on your partner, and if your partner moves, so do you, automatically, you are attached to the head. Similarly, if the person being stood on jumps, the person standing can then ALSO jump to get more verticality. There's a button that makes you immediately teleport to your partner as long as you didn't just get hit which makes it possible to bait enemies (and even bosses) into attacking a position and then just teleporting out of the way right before it hits. This also makes it possible to do risky jumps that would otherwise result in death as a way of checking if there's a secret somewhere because you can TP back even mid-air. If your partner dies (provided it wasn't death by falling) you can always revive free of cost, just need to button mash and risk getting hit yourself. The items you can use make for some really interesting synergies. Umbrella + Grappling hook (with usage of teleport) gives, in essence, infinite mobility without using resources. The shield/Umbrella as cover + The healing gohei (when standing inside of each other) will make you able to safely heal. If the gohei is upgraded a single charge will suffice to get both players to max health. It just feels like a good co-op experience where the developers had co-op in mind instead of slapping it on, and I can't say that for many games released in the past few years. The second half of the game is repeating the same stages against slightly more powerful bosses but with a larger arsenal and a buffed base attack - the former allowing you see everything in the stage because you will now be able to reach places you weren't able to before and open doors and grounds with items you didn't have in the first half at that point and the latter allowing you to get through the stages quicker because you're stronger. It's got some rage-y moments, mostly in platform heavy stages as falling down results in you instantly dying which is especially prevalent the top-tower section because it has a wind gimmick combined with obstacles that, when touched, will just make you fall to your death with no chance of recovering. Even some bosses will be able to make you fall to your death if you get hit, but, as with all of the boss attacks in this game, once you see them 2 or 3 times, you "get" them. None of them are overtly complicated and the tells for when they come are clear, the only real danger is when you fight them for the first few times and don't know what to expect. For most bosses the go-to strategy is really to just get in there and deal as much damage as quickly as you can before they even get to start using their later attacks. "Carefully" trying to kill a boss will take five times longer and will be three times harder than trying to just rush him down from the get-go. The story is the most demented nonsensical shit ever. The character that most of this seems to be about is a human guy and he turns into a massive pillar in a castle (that exists as some sort of warped dimension alternative of the school they go to) and then you have to bring him underwear, drugs and a nude magazine and then he tells you where the final boss is and you go fight her with the power of love (and a rocket launcher you got from a school girl) and win. Then everything seems to return to normal and they're at a school but it turns out they're now all in makai instead of the human world. The end. I don't even have anything against it. There are a few cool CGs throughout the story, but I wish there were more. I also think most characters are pretty cool. If you've got 6 to 8 hours to spare and have someone who will actually play this with you, definitely give it a shot. I got it on sale 50% off and I'm glad I bought it.
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This game is the embodiment of good ideas compiled into a pseudo-Castlevania-like game. A lot of people from what I've seen were expecting this to be another Metroidvania/Castlevania game and of course, they got disappointed when they found out that wasn't the case. I think that doesn't matter all that much to me because the game excels at the fundamentals of what makes a 2D action side-scroller fun despite its linearity. The game gives you the ability to swap between two characters, Maya and Shinobu and they both have abilities/moves that are situational; meaning that you'll have to swap between them to traverse various sections of the game and to deal with different types of enemies. This is a really clever way of getting players to experiment with different mechanics of the game by rewarding players' creativity and knowledge. I have never seen so many innovative yet well-designed mechanics being implemented in a single game that it is kind of astonishing but this is Inti Creates we're talking about; they've been in the 2D action-platformer industry for a very long time now so it doesn't surprise me all that much. You'd get somewhere around 10 hours of content if you're only aiming to finish the base game. I kinda wished they put in individual boss trials instead of just a boss rush feature so that I could practice with a specific boss before fighting it again in the Story Mode. Overall, if you're a fan of a 2D side-scroller action game like Cuphead, you should definitely try this game out. For Metroidvania and Castlevania fans, you might want to curb your expectations a bit because this game isn't exactly what you're looking for.
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Gal Guardians: Demon Purge is a 2D action platformer that has solid boss design and platforming with some questionable level design choices. Do not be misled by Steam's user tags- this is NOT a metroidvania. GGDP is far more similar to the Curse of the Moon games than Ritual of the Night. You play as two sisters, who find that their school has been taken over by demons. Fortunately said sisters are demon hunters and resolve to take it back. The elder sister, Shinobu, deals with ranged weapons whereas the younger sister. Maya, is melee focused. While the game offers co-op action, you can play through the game single player and swap between the sisters at will. Both get unique subweapons that both work for offense and level traversal. Each sister feels like she plays uniquely and has situations both in and out of combat where each excel. While the gameplay is level based, new subweapons are unlocked with each stage which opens alternate pathways within each stage upon replaying it. None of these, sadly, lead to unique levels or significantly new aspects to stages which is a missed opportunity. Each level ends in a boss encounter and this is where the game shines. INTI CREATES has fantastic boss design in the Curse of the Night games and GGDP keeps that streak alive. The bosses are varied and while not overly difficult, are certainly no pushovers. However (at least on normal difficulty settings) if you die to a boss, when you reenter the boss room after respawning, a decent portion of the boss's health is still missing due the efforts of your previous attempt. While I embrace the accessibility this brings, I think there should be an option to toggle it on/off. The game has a total of eight levels and to progress through the story you must play through these levels multiple times. The levels are solid but playing through them several times makes it feel a bit stale by the end. It should be worth noting that the story takes a huge left turn after your first run through these eight levels which may be a bit of a deal maker/breaker for players. The reason for this sudden swerve of the plot is due to the game being a part of the GalGun universe. I was not familiar with that series before the game and if you are not either, I would strongly recommend looking it up before buying. For me, the aspects of this shared universe and its tropes usually prompted an eyeroll, sigh or occasional shake of the head but did not really negatively impact my impression of the game. What does negatively impact my impression of the game is that when you replay it there are several collectibles that are tasked with picking up. In and of itself, that's not a bad thing. However there is no in-game map of each level, so it is impossible to tell which branching path you didn't take. Also there is nothing that indicates how much of each of the various collectibles you have actually picked up in each stage, and the names of a certain type of collectible are largely randomized so even using a guide is difficult. This caused me to loop through those same eight levels significantly more times that really should have been necessary and caused my good will towards the individual level design to quickly erode. Having an in-game map or even a vague checklist for each stage could have prevented so much frustration and I am flabbergasted this could have been overlooked. Questionable game design aside, I had a good time with GGDP but would have had a great time with a decent map and clear checklist of collectibles even if they were not marked on said map. Even with that frustration, I did enjoy the game enough to recommend it, even if it comes with a sizeable asterisk.
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Gal Guardians wears its inspiration on its sleeves proudly. There's no mistaking where or what it borrows from or pays homage to. While definitely weaving a tale of pure satire (mixed with a dash of fanservice), it performs extremely well as a castlevania-like. However, unlike many of the current-era metroidvanias, it follows the playstyle and progression of past games like Rondo of Blood and Circle of the Moon much more. In addition, it also allows for coop play, as it borrows the moment to moment gameplay from Konami's Portrait of Ruin wherein you must hotswap between two characters to progress. All in all, a fun romp that only starts to become aggravating when achievement hunting. While I'd expect an extra playthrough or two, this title, to get 100%, requires quite a few things to be found. And like Rondo, it sadly has absolutely no in-game map to refer to while you're hunting. It's still fun, just forewarning if you're in a completionist.
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TL;DR: Very niche - unless you're an old school gamer looking for a 16-bit styling of an 8 bit Metroid-like (but NOT Metroidvania), or you're a die-hard Gal Gun franchise fan, you may find more confusion and annoyance than fun. Fortunately for me, I'm both of the above, so this fell right into my wheelhouse. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and am happy to support the series in hopes Inti will keep building on the franchise, but I can definitely see flaws that need to be addressed. I'll start with the big controversy that has dogged this game since launch, the question of if it is a metroidvania, and as above, I say no, or perhaps better to say, not quite. It has a lot of components of a metroidlike - multiple paths through areas, obtained upgrades and abilities that are required to open some of those paths, power-ups and collectibles and easter eggs that require exploration to find, secret rooms and triggers that those things are found in and through. It also has elements of a vanialike - room-by-room progression of platforming and stair climbing, annoying enemies that spawn offscreen and fly through screen in wave patterns to complicate jumps, wall-mounted breakables, and of course the faux-gothic aesthetics. But a key element of the metroidvania genre, as found in seminal titles like Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, is FREEDOM, which this game sorely lacks. In old-school Castlevania fashion, everything is laid out in levels, not just in style, but in progress - every time you visit an area, you start at a beginning, work through mostly in one direction on only one of two or three routes (with a lot of one-way gates limiting ability to backtrack), then reach a boss, clear it, and exit the stage. There is no ability to do the first run of a stage out of order - though you can interrupt your progress by redoing a previously cleared stage, you cannot do a stage until beating the boss of the stage before it. And you cannot easily exit a stage - the only way out is either to reach the end, or to exit the game (it does give you the option to do this in a way that lets you keep items collected, but not your progress in the stage). As for revisiting prior stages, this WILL happen - to finish the game requires clearing each stage at least twice, and to 100% it will require at least thrice, but I think I did each stage at least four times, some more. So if you're looking for later-style, free roaming Castlevania, this isn't it. And the gameplay itself is often very reminiscent of the unforgiving mechanics and harsh penalties of the 8-bit era. While it is not overly hard per se, most deaths and failures feel cheap - either from being knocked into an instantly fatal fall, or succumbing to boss attack patterns you aren't given a fair opportunity to learn, aside from dying to them again and again and again until you finally see and understand them all, including the "death spell" each does as a final unique attempt to kill you after you empty its health bar. And jumping takes some getting used to, as I found the "falloff point" of ledges to be about six inches earlier than they visually appear to be. Meanwhile, the Gal Gun influence plays out in a very odd way, that may be very offputting for those not familiar with the franchise. From the start, the game assumes you already know everything about the characters - no exposition is offered for why Shinobu and Maya are schoolgirl demon hunters, why Kurona has such an odd definition of "prank" or why she's doing her thing, who the hell "Ho-nii" is, or any of the background history. It just drops all these random references and builds on the history as though you surely must know it (which I did, but relying on that knowledge emphasized for me how little of it this game was explaining). And at first, that won't really matter - it's just a basic video game premise, after all, and gameplay built upon it is just standard pixelated action. But as the story progresses, things will start getting weird, unless you're expecting Gal Gun style. One minute you're just killing demons, but suddenly you're hunting for a porno mag to excite a column (no, that is not a typo), having random schoolgirls say assorted off-colour remarks about being your maid, that she's unworthy vermin, wanting you to dominate her, or that she's a borderline cat, and you're collecting their panties from all over the castle. If you've played other Gal Gun games this all makes sense, but to an outsider this level of comedic perviness will just seem out of place. So it is very niche. But it does what it aims to well, and once you learn the mechanics, the strategies, the ledge endpoints, and the boss tells and patterns, it's a tight, solid platformer. I enjoyed it, and so long as the oddball ecchi in the lategame doesn't bother you, an old-school platform gamer should enjoy it too. So yes, recommended. But I never want to hear the word "FEETZIEZ" ever again. . . . . Also, game does not feature best waifu Saori Fujino :-( Had to be said.
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Last Updates| Steam data | 11 April 2025 07:01 |
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| Steam price | 13 April 2025 04:29 |
| Steam reviews | 10 April 2025 11:58 |
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Online players
14
Developer
INTI CREATES CO., LTD.
Publisher
INTI CREATES CO., LTD.
Release
23 Feb 2023
Platforms