I love a good Platformer or Metroidvania as much as the next guy. In fact, I would argue that the Metroidvania genre is one of my favorite styles of game to play. When I heard that Inti Creates (developers of Azure Striker Gunvolt) had created a Castlevania-esque title I was excited. Grim Guardians: Demon Purge is both exciting and disappointing in equal measure.

Grim Guardians: Demon Purge puts you in the role of the Kamizono sisters, two demon hunters who discover their school has merged with a demon’s castle. They set out to explore the castle, defeat its’ master, and rescue their fellow students. Each of the Kamizono Sisters has a completely different skill set. Shinobu uses long-range gun attacks, while Maya can only fight in close-quarters combat.

Together they can utilize a special art once their purge gauge is filled, dealing massive damage to any enemy it hits. They also each have their own sub-weapons that perform various actions. Instead of both sisters getting Metroidvania-style upgrades, defeating the boss in each level will get you a new sub-weapon for each character that may open up new traversal options.

Here is where things get complicated. Grim Guardians: Demon Purge was designed to be played either in single-player or co-op multiplayer. Maya and Shinobu have separate health pools (Shinobu’s is larger than Maya’s) and only certain abilities become available to each of them. In single-player, this normally isn’t an issue since you can switch on the fly. However, if one of the sisters dies, you have to physically get the other character to the sister’s position to resurrect them. Otherwise, you’ll have to restart from the last checkpoint.

The problem with this is that when one sister dies, the other sister doesn’t always start in the same room as the fallen sister. If you lose the sister that made you able to create platforms to reach higher places, you have no way to get to her to revive her. On top of that, just like in more classic Castlevania titles, sub-weapons have “Weapon points” and your traversal abilities (tied to the sub-weapons) consume them.

If you get halfway through a platforming area and you run out of weapon points, you’re basically screwed because you’ve lost your ability to complete whatever goal you have set. This is usually only an issue for backtracking for upgrades, but it is still obscenely frustrating. I can imagine playing in co-op multiplayer would be an easier affair because you could deal twice the damage by using both characters at once.

Single-player is incredibly difficult though, even on the lowest difficulty which gives you unlimited lives. On higher difficulties, you have limited lives before you get a game over, though you can get more lives by filling your bar with the same item drops (from destructible items) that fill your purge gauge. This is just the tip of the iceberg with problems though.

In order to get all the best sub-weapons and items, and rescue the students, you have to play each level multiple times. Instead of being one continuous map, because Grim Guardians: Demon Purge is based on classic Castlevania titles, the levels are separated out. The only way to backtrack is to teleport to the beginning of a certain level at the end of another level.

There are two issues with this. The first issue is that while you are exploring you cannot see a map of the level. Because of this, a lot of the time you have to basically redo the entire level trying to find the different unlockables you missed. On top of that, in order to get to a teleport to go to another level once you’ve done all you need to do, you have to finish the level again. This includes fighting any mini-boss involved, though you don’t have to fight the main boss at the end.

Between the punishing difficulty and the tedious way that backtracking to get upgrades and items works, Grim Guardians becomes a bit of a slog. The story is interesting and the concept of dual protagonists with different fighting styles is cool, but there are some serious issues that were overlooked. Traversal abilities should not be tied to weapons, full stop. I don’t have a problem with fighting bosses to unlock them but making them into another resource you must manage is a pain.

The mini-bosses are repetitive too, though the end boss of each level is usually interesting. I wouldn’t mind it so much if the mini-boss and main boss went away, but having to fight the same mini-boss you have already beaten multiple times gets old fast. I’m no stranger to difficult platformers or even older Castlevania games, but Inti Creates really dropped the ball here.

As a multiplayer game to enjoy with a friend, I can see Grim Guardians: Demon Purge offering some fun hours of gameplay. The Switch version plays well, and the environments are gorgeous, with great pixel art. If you are looking for the next Curse of the Moon type game, this is not it. There are a lot of other games like this (some of which Inti Creates made) that are way better.

A Nintendo Switch review copy of Grim Guardians: Demon Purge was provided by Inti Creates for this review.

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Grim Guardians: Demon Purge

$24.99 USD

6

Score

6.0/10

Pros

• Colorful Pixel Art
• Two-Player Co-op
• Interesting Concept
• Lots of Content

Cons

• Single Player is Way Too Hard Even on Casual
• Lots of Backtracking
• Repetitive Mini-bosses
• No Map in Levels
• Sub-Weapons are Tied to Traversal