It’s not quite on the level of Curse of the Moon, its closest relative, but it’s not far off - and the sibling switching idea is at least novel and fun to work with. Getting to grips with combat negotiations and levelling up your weaponry brings with it a sense of reward and progression, and it’s enjoyable to backtrack for secrets. For those that prefer to explore old ground with new abilities early on, this can reap secret weapon power-ups, amongst others, but certain locked doors will stay impenetrable until the appropriate time.įor Metroidvania fans and lovers of Inti Creates' works, Grim Guardians certainly does enough to please. That said, magical portals can warp you back to previous stages at any point, regardless of whether it’s your first or second run. Once you clear all stages, you can take on the second loop (much like Curse of the Moon) where bosses return with newer, tougher attack patterns, before taking on the true last boss to complete the game. Its Metroidvania-lite properties also extend to doing away with maps altogether, encouraging you to stray from the beaten path in search of extra lives and kidnapped school friends. Unlike something like Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth, grinding and levelling-up are removed from the equation in place of item-based power and utility increases. You can accrue a lot of lives, too, making the Veteran difficulty the only one we would recommend, and the infinite life Casual Mode too soft to sustain a satisfying loop. Then, things that initially frustrated are quickly overcome and dispatched in a smooth and enjoyable staccato rhythm. Grim Guardians is relatively short, and is only trying until you get a feel for the combat beats, maiden switching, and enemy patterns. In a really nice touch, the game supports a two-player co-op where two friends can independently control their preferred heroine, which is a very fresh idea for this genre. While this revival will get both girls back in the game, it won’t fully top up the life bar, and at times - especially at the beginning of a boss battle - you really need to be on point to complete the revival without taking an additional hit. You’re returned to a checkpoint, and the sister still in the runnings has to do a Dark Souls-style reconnaissance to find the body of her downed sibling and perform a resuscitation by hammering the 'X' button. If one dies, however, it isn’t game over just yet. Her superior overall properties come at the detriment of a smaller amount of HP, however.Įach girl has an independent life bar, meaning if one is close to death, you can switch over until a health drop appears. Additionally, she can crouch lower and has a crawl ability, allowing her to get through gaps her sister can’t reach. Maya strikes with power, cleaving the university’s monsters with ease, but requires a more up-close-and-personal strategy. Shinobu, while useful for keeping out of harm’s way, is very underpowered compared to her sister, Maya Kamizono, who wields a close-range, combo-ready scythe. You can reload by double tapping down, prompting a brief animated pitstop that requires some distance from encroaching enemies. Shinobu Kamizono is a range attack character, who wields a machine gun in a style very reminiscent of the developer’s Gunvolt series. Instrumentally, you control the two sisters in tandem, able to swap between them with a trigger tap. Inti Creates has a lot of experience in the genre, building here on Curse of the Moon's template - complete with boss desperation attacks and two-loop trials - with a few novel tweaks. Standing out these days with a Metroidvania means doing something different with the formula. Playfully aware of how the schoolgirl-turned-heroine trope has been done to death, it plays light with the premise. When two sisters find themselves cast in a demonic netherworld university altogether different from their own, they need to pair up to battle their way to the spire, defeat cute demoness Kurona, rescue their school friends, and return to their realm of sunlight and Seifuku. There’s a touch of knowing satire in Grim Guardians: Demon Purge's narrative setup. In terms of detail and general beauty, however, it falls a way short of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night’s gothic showboating. While some areas are a tad bland, others, like the theatre backdrop and haunted galleon, are visually opulent. From Inti Creates, developers of the critically acclaimed Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon duo and the Mega Man Zero/ZX series, comes a new Metroidvania rendered in a 16-bit graphical style, utilising modern hardware for various special effects, animation, and sprite creation.
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