Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark is a 2D action metroidvania and a sequel to Demon Purge. Read on to see what it did well, what it didn’t do well, and if it’s worth buying.
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark Review Overview
What is Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark?
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark is a 2D action-packed Metroidvania and the direct sequel to Gal Guardians: Demon Purge, developed and published by INTI CREATES CO., LTD. Launching on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5 on March 26, 2025, the game introduces players to a new pair of protagonists: Kirika and Masha, demon maid sisters with a mission to restore their fallen master, Demon Lord Maxim.
Players can seamlessly switch between the two heroines, each offering distinct playstyles—Kirika excels at ranged combat with her dual pistols, while Masha thrives in close-quarters battles, wielding a magical whip with precision. Together, they must traverse a sprawling demon-infested world, face off against human realm demon hunters, and gradually rebuild their ruined castle, which unlocks vital upgrades and features to aid their journey.
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark features:
⚫︎ Anime
⚫︎ Pixel Graphics
⚫︎ Metroidvania
⚫︎ Action Adventure
⚫︎ Co-Op
⚫︎ 2D Platformer
⚫︎ Puzzle Solving
 Steam |
 Nintendo |
 PlayStation |
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| Price | $29.99 | |||||||
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Beautiful Artstyle Core Combat Gameplay is Solid |
Horrible Progression System Confusing Overworld and Terrible Travel System Lackluster Bosses |
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark Overall Score - 66/100
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark falls victim to the all-too-common pitfalls of a sequel—what one might call a case of sequelitis.
In its ambition to go bigger and bolder, it loses sight of the very elements that made the original game so beloved. While the foundation remains promising, with its striking art style and satisfying combat still shining through, the experience is ultimately weighed down by convoluted structure and design choices that dilute its charm.
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark Story - 7/10
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark won’t be taking home any awards for groundbreaking storytelling, but what it lacks in narrative complexity, it makes up for with charm. Despite its dark and demonic premise, the game maintains a surprisingly lighthearted and upbeat tone—thanks in large part to its lovable sibling duo. Kirika and Masha bring a refreshing sense of humor and warmth to the adventure, with playful banter and genuine chemistry.
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark Gameplay - 5/10
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark is a mixed bag when it comes to gameplay. For every moment of brilliance, there seems to be an equal—and often greater—misstep. While the core mechanics show flashes of promise, they're frequently overshadowed by questionable design choices: a confusing world map that hinders exploration, lackluster boss encounters that fail to excite, and a progression system that feels outdated and oddly structured.
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark Visuals - 9/10
If there’s one area where Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark truly excels, it’s in its striking visual presentation. The game’s dark anime aesthetic, paired with beautifully crafted pixel art, gives it a distinct and memorable identity. The environments are rich with detail, and the character designs—especially the sibling protagonists—are both stylish and full of personality. It’s clear that a lot of love went into the art direction, and it stands out as one of the game’s most consistently impressive strengths.
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark Audio - 7/10
The sound design in Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark is solid, though not without its shortcomings. While the soundtrack does its job in setting the mood, it often fades into the background and lacks the memorable hooks that define standout scores in the genre. However, the voice acting is a pleasant surprise—consistently well-delivered and present throughout most of the narrative. The performances bring life and personality to the characters, adding emotional weight and charm where the music falls short.
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark Value for Money - 5/10
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark is, unfortunately, a disappointing sequel that struggles to justify its $29.99 price tag. While fans of the original may be drawn in by curiosity or loyalty, what they’ll find is a game that fails to live up to its predecessor’s charm and polish. With clunky gameplay, underwhelming progression, and a lack of meaningful innovation, it feels more like a step backward than an evolution. In a genre filled with exceptional Metroidvania titles—many of which are available at a lower or comparable price—Servants of the Dark simply doesn’t stand out as a worthwhile investment.
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark Review: Serving Dissapointment
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark was easily one of my most anticipated titles of 2025. With its stylish anime flair, promising premise, and the legacy of a solid first game, expectations were high. Unfortunately—as you’ve likely already gathered from the title of this review—it’s a disappointing sequel that misses the mark in more ways than one.
What makes it especially frustrating is that the game feels like it lost sight of its own core identity. In the pursuit of making everything “bigger”—a larger world, more features, more mechanics—the developers seem to have overlooked what truly matters: fun, fluid gameplay built on solid foundations. That spark of what made the first game so enjoyable is still present in brief flashes, but it’s buried beneath layers of clunky design and confusing systems.
What’s even more perplexing is that the developers clearly listened to feedback from the original. You can see traces of effort to improve on past mistakes—but somewhere along the way, those good intentions were derailed by overly ambitious changes and a lack of focus. The result is a game that’s not just underwhelming, but at times feels like a chore to play.
It's a shame, because the potential was there. Servants of the Dark had all the ingredients to be a worthy successor—but instead, it serves as a cautionary tale of how bigger doesn’t always mean better.
The Game Looks Bloody Beautiful
If there's one area where Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark truly shines, it's in its visual presentation. The game nails a unique blend of gothic horror and anime flair, combining blood-soaked pixel art with a distinctly kawaii twist. Think Castlevania meets magical demon maids—with style to spare.
The sprite work is top-notch, breathing personality into every movement and attack. The two protagonists, Kirika and Masha, are not only mechanically different but visually distinct as well. Kirika’s crimson-themed design emphasizes her cool, calculated demeanor, while Masha’s playful green palette and expressive animations reflect her youthful energy. The contrast between the siblings makes them a delight to watch in motion, whether you're navigating grim corridors or slicing through waves of demonic foes.
It's a bloody spectacle wrapped in vibrant pixel art, and it manages to be both fierce and adorable—something only a game like this could pull off so effortlessly.
Gameplay and Progression System is a Mess
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark stumbles hardest in two crucial areas that constantly drag down the experience: its lack of player guidance and a series of baffling design decisions that feel more like oversights than intentional choices. The game rarely explains itself, offering no glossary or meaningful tutorials, while its English translation is riddled with awkward phrasing and unclear instructions. It’s as if the developers were so focused on making the game bigger—more ambitious, and be a Metroidvania that they lost sight of what makes the genre work: clarity, flow, and player-driven exploration.
This lack of direction makes progression feel like an uphill battle. Basic mechanics like leveling up or unlocking new abilities are tied to collecting “bones,” a resource with random drop rates from chests that often yield frustratingly useless duplicates. The inventory system doesn’t help either, with limited storage space and no real organization. Worse, if you want to level up or unlock traversal abilities—some of which are required to access new areas—you have to manually trek back to the castle's throne room. There’s no convenient fast travel, just tedious backtracking through multiple screens, stairs, and enemies. It’s a time sink that kills momentum.
Even understanding how leveling works is a chore. You get one glimpse of how many bones are needed for the next level—but if you forget? Too bad. The game won’t remind you. Major upgrades are locked behind these levels, creating a bottleneck where progress grinds to a halt simply because the game didn’t give you enough resources—or even the basic information to manage them properly.
Gold, too, is strangely scarce, and item prices are disproportionately high. I found myself stuck more than once simply because I couldn’t farm enough materials to power up my characters. It’s a grind, and not the fun kind.
And then there are the bosses—visually striking, yes, but mechanically dull. A perfect example is Dranis, a fierce dragon-themed boss with a stunning design, but her fight boils down to waiting for openings and repeating basic attacks with minimal variation. It’s disappointing, especially when the boss designs, like the hauntingly regal Queen Gardenas, show such promise visually.
What’s most frustrating is that the core combat has potential. Switching between Kirika and Masha in real-time is fluid and fun, especially with their contrasting playstyles—Kirika as a sharpshooting gunslinger and Masha as a whip-wielding melee brawler. The revival system, sub-weapons, and abilities like the Devil Dash are exciting in theory, but the systems built around them actively get in the way of enjoying them.
Horrible Map Design and Traversal
In any Metroidvania, the heart of the experience lies in world design. These games thrive on exploration—large, interconnected areas that invite backtracking, discovery, and memorability. For a world to truly work, it needs to be visually distinct, intuitively laid out, and rewarding to traverse. Unfortunately, Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark fumbles hard in this department, delivering a world that feels more tedious than tantalizing.
The first major issue lies in its visual clarity. Don’t get me wrong, I love the art style and how the game looks, but man, is it an issue in the overworld. There’s minimal distinction between the biomes you’ve already explored and the open gaps leading to new areas, which makes it far too easy to get disoriented. The in-game map, a tool that should support exploration, instead becomes a source of frustration. It offers little useful information—doors remain unmarked until you pass through them, chests only appear if you're close enough, and NPCs don’t show up at all. There’s no indication of area completion, like rooms discovered, chests looted, or collectibles gathered. It's a basic feature in most Metroidvanias, and its absence here is glaring.
Even quality-of-life features feel strangely neglected or stripped back. The game separates dungeon maps from the world map without allowing you to freely toggle between them. You can only view the world map when you're outside a dungeon and vice versa—an odd limitation that adds unnecessary friction to navigation.
Perhaps the most frustrating element, however, is the fast travel system—or the lack of a functional one. While technically present, it's clunky and underwhelming. To use it, you must find a boat, pay 50 gold, and travel to oddly chosen locations that rarely align with where you actually need to go.
To make matters worse, leveling up your character requires returning to the throne room, which often means an exhausting trek across previously explored ground. There’s no quick way to access these essential systems, and the sparse travel points only amplify the game’s backtracking problem.
The world is big, sure—and it boasts a variety of biomes and secrets—but it’s undermined by its own horrible progression system. Environmental interactions often go unexplained, and the game provides little guidance, leaving players to stumble around hoping to trigger the right events. Without clearer objectives or smarter navigation tools, what should feel like an exciting adventure instead becomes a test of patience.
At its best, a Metroidvania invites you to lose yourself in its world. Here, the only thing you'll want to lose is the map screen.
Is Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark Worth It?
A Lackluster Sequel
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark is a sequel brimming with potential, but sadly, it stumbles where it matters most. While it introduces new ideas and ambitions, the execution falls flat—making it a disappointing follow-up to a beloved original. For newcomers, you'd be better off starting with the first game, which captures the charm and precision this sequel struggles to recapture. And for returning fans, this is a noticeable step backward.
There’s little incentive to revisit the game after the credits roll. With no unlockable modes or meaningful post-game content, and online multiplayer delayed until a future update, Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark lacks the replay value that could have extended its longevity.
With the vibrant metroidvania genre offering so many stronger alternatives at a similar price point, it’s hard to recommend Servants of the Dark in its current state. Still, there's a glimmer of hope that the developers can take these lessons to heart and return stronger with their next installment.
| Steam |
Nintendo |
PlayStation |
||||||
| Price | $29.99 | |||||||
Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark FAQ
Is Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark Coming to Xbox Series XIS?
INTI CREATES has announced that the Xbox Series X|S version of Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark is not ready for release at this time. A launch date will be shared once it becomes available.
Can Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark be played Online?
Currently, the only way to play the game in co-op is through split-screen, as there is no online multiplayer feature available at this time.
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Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark Product Information
 |
|
| Title | Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark |
|---|---|
| Release Date | March 26, 2025 |
| Developer | INTI CREATES CO., LTD. |
| Publisher | INTI CREATES CO., LTD. |
| Supported Platforms | PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC |
| Genre | Action, Metroidvania |
| Number of Players | 1-2 |
| ESRB Rating | T |
| Official Website | Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark Website |
