Review – Gal*Gun: Double Peace

Gal*Gun: Double Peace, a sequel to Inti Creates 2011 Gal*Gun is about as anime as anime can get, and if you look past the absurdity and put aside some preconceived notions you’ll find a fast paced and fun game.

I was uncertain about Gal*Gun: Double Peace when I first popped it in. I’d seen some gameplay of it, read about it in the news a few times, but otherwise didn’t know a ton about it. What I did know was you rolled around a schoolyard giving girls ‘euphoria’ so they’d stopped chasing you. It seems like a concept that could only work in Japan, where they have a very different media acceptance to this kind of material. That’s not to say everything out of Japan is perverted, but anime and many video games are known for some over-the-top fan service for a reason. That’s really all Gal*Gun is using here, it’s fan service. There’s no nudity, no sex, no foul language, just goofy self aware fanservice and engaging on-rail shooting.

The basic premise of the game is you play Houdai Kudoki who is a pretty unremarkable high school student. By unfortunately circumstances he’s hit by what is essentially an overpower cupid arrow which makes all the females he encounter fall irrationally in love with him. The Cupid (Or Angel as the game refers to her) Ekoro that shot him basically becomes his guide through the game. She explains that you’ve got to use the overpowered pheromones you now have, in the form of a Pheromone Shot, to send the girls into a fit of euphoria that will knock them out and thus give you a chance to carry on. The catch here is, if he doesn’t get together with his ‘True Love’ by the end of the day, the powers wear off, but he will never have affection from another living being, even from family or pets.

This is of course made more complicated by the fact that there is a demon also on the loose, who is messing with people, making their darkest versions come out. This basically translates to the girls still being in love with you, but being much more violent about it. Luckily there are two girls, sisters in fact, on campus who not only are unaffected by the Angel or Demon, and just happen to be old estranged friends of Houdai, but are also Demon Hunters. I’m sure you can see where this is going.

If you’re an anime fan, the story here isn’t all that out there. Young guy needs to find his true love or his something bad will happen. Obviously the sexual nature of the game takes it down a different road than you’d usually see in anime, though even then it wouldn’t be that absurd of a notion, but the story is still pretty straightforward and non-offensive. Gal*Gun: Double Peace is very self aware, at multiple times Houdai says how ridiculous this is and how he feels like a creep for actions he’s forced to take. That could of course vary depending on the type of profile you start with, as Gal*Gun offers you different variations. Things like athlete, bookworm, or even pervert are available, and claim to offer different combinations of girls who will fawn over you. I only played it through once so far, so that is yet to be seen for me.

There is some decent replay value here if you’re into it also. It’s not a very long campaign, a couple of hours will have you through it, but with several potential paths you could be playing for hours till you get what you want. There are also several locked paths and character types that you’ll unlock by playing through, personally I want to unlock the “Nothing special” character option to see what his zero stats do to the game. There are multiple endings too, which follow the usual trend of the better you played the game / made the right choices then the better your ending will be. Each path comes with occasional dialogue choices which if don’t correctly can go towards landing that perfect ending. I for instance, apparently made some bad dialogue choices and ended up with a confusing mess of an ending. Depending on your level of investment you could easily spend weeks replaying the game, trying to get better endings and unlock the various paths.

The art style is a standout in the game with really bright and vibrant colors. Some cutscenes are drawn in a slightly different style that anyone who enjoys anime styled art will just adore. The one downside are the dialogue boxes and menus looks so drastically different, and almost stand out as if it were done for a different game. It’s a minor complaint, but there is a very stark contrast while seeing this beautiful drawn scenes only to have a very out of place blue box popup for dialogue.

I mentioned before that this is an on-rail shooter, as such you don’t control where Houdai goes, though you do get to choose which school location to go to before some stages begin, and occasionally decide a direction when multiple are available. Ga*Gun: Double Peace shines really well when it comes to the shooting. There are lots of targets and collectibles to get all while the game moves at a fairly quick pace. Triggers allow you to zoom in, and see through some objects, among other things.

Houdai has unlimited ammo with his pheromone shot, and also has the ability to charge that shot up, causing extra damage to the primary target and doing some splash damage or stunning other nearby targets. I very rarely found myself using the charge shot, simply because the enemies were so abundant it rarely seemed viable. For the most part you could just spam fire constantly and be fine, but that’s going to mess up your accuracy stats at the end of a stage. There are also bonuses awarded for accuracy, the girls have an area that will award you instant euphoria. It’s usually noted by some japanese text over the girl when you’re aiming at the area. You’ve also got the ability to zoom in on someone and analyze that section of their body, getting a percentage for how much euphoria could be caused by shooting them there.

There is also the Doki-Doki mode, which is the most overtly sexual portion of the game. You use the cursor to poke, rub, and generally touching the target until she hits euphoria. This generally includes them in a bit of a compromising position, of which you can purchase more via ingame currency. Doki-Doki mode was the least fun part for me, aside from not being interested in the sexual nature of touching cartoons, the mechanics didn’t really work all that well, and the few times you’re forced to do it feel like more of a chore than a game. Luckily, you’re only required to do this mode a few times throughout a playthrough so it’s not too bad. This also goes along with some of the boss battle or other gimmicky sections, where you need to please your target then perform touch motions on the Playstation 4 touchpad or the screen of the PSVita. One instance is an ally is stuck in a window and you’ve got to first soften her up with some pheromone shots and gentle poking before using the touchpad to swipe various ways to free her. This are fairly easy sections to get through too, and getting a perfect or better requires little skill which will help towards getting better endings.

For its few minor faults, Gal*Gun: Double Peace is a fun game with a really nice visual style and super fast gameplay. If you’re on the fence simply because you’re turned off by the fanservice and sexual nature of the game, don’t be. While it’s front and center the whole time, it’s never in an offensive manner, and almost always comical and self aware. At a time where rail shooters aren’t so prominent Gal*Gun: Double Peace is a great way to scratch that itch without trying to find the last remaining Time Crisis at a local movie theater.

Gal*Gun: Double Peace Developer: Inti Creates Publisher: PQube (NA) Platforms: Playstation 4 and PSVita Released: August 2, 2016 (NA) Score: 7.5 out of 10

The Playstation 4 version of the game was used for this review

Reviewer and site have a long history and friendship with Producer at Inti Creates

Chris talks a bunch on PodQuest each week. He's also been known to write about stuff from time to time. You can Email Chris or follow Chris on Twitter @Just_Cobb or Facebook

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