By Chris Jackson
PLATFORM: PC, PS4/5, SWITCH, XBOX ONE/SERIES (REVIEWED) | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Demon-hunting sisters Shinobu and Maya are on their way to school when they suddenly find themselves transported to a castle which quickly turns out to be an otherworldly version of their school. In this demonic realm, some of the sisters’ classmates have turned into monsters while others are trapped with no way out. Playing as both sisters, your task is to fight your way to the top floor of the demon academy and sort the bad guys out once and for all while rescuing as many schoolmates as you can find along the way.
An action-platformer with a smattering of Metroidvania elements, each of Grim Guardians‘ levels contains several alternate paths and hidden areas. The world isn’t interconnected, though, so you’re not likely to get lost as you’re unable to revisit areas in the usual Metroidvania way. Instead, you can only retrace your steps by fast travelling from designated points within each level. Your main focus is always on reaching the end of each level rather than wandering around a gigantic map, but the game has a unique way of allowing you to return to the earlier levels…
On the easiest difficulty (which can be brutally tricky at times) it’s likely to only take a couple of hours to reach what appears to be the final boss. However, the story then takes a peculiar turn, and you’re asked to go through the whole thing again for one of the more bizarre reasons in recent gaming history – in order to rescue your boyfriend from the demon’s clutches, you need to find five items that “would get a teenage boy fired up”. Sure enough, these items are all guarded by the game’s bosses, so off you go in search of swimsuits, tights, and other saucy accoutrements, with all of your previously-earned sub-weapons now allowing you to access some previously closed-off areas. Even a few side quests are thrown in, and any sweets you find lying around can be given to rescued schoolmates who will upgrade your equipment.
With the ability to switch between sisters at the touch of a button, you’re given a wide variety of tools and weapons to play with. Shinobu specialises in long-range offences, using her anti-demon machine gun to dispatch enemies. Maya prefers to use close-range origami, of all things, using her skills to create new platforms, throw enemy-freezing paper penguins around the place, and more besides. Each sister has a range of sub-weapons too, several of which have multiple uses. Using the right sub-weapon can give you an advantage over some of the stronger enemies, in a nod to the developers’ history with Mega Man games. Controlling a pair of sisters also effectively gives you two lives at once – if one sister dies, the other will restart from a checkpoint and be able to revive her fallen sister by reaching the site of her death, but if both sisters die, then you’ll have to restart the entire level.
The absence of an in-game map to help keep track of where you’re going (or, indeed, where you’ve already been) is a bit of a downer, although those with good memories might be able to get a sense of where they’re heading from the fast travel level select screen.
While not quite reaching the top tier of developer Inti Creates’ catalogue (which contains a ridiculous amount of underappreciated diamonds like the Blaster Master Zero and Azure Striker Gunvolt trilogies), Grim Guardians is more than worth the attention of anyone who enjoys a challenging 2D side-scroller. Beating the game unlocks a Boss Rush mode and a super-fiendish “legend” difficulty setting – good luck with that, do let us know if you manage to beat it!
