Revisiting Gal*Gun: Double Peace

Good morning, dear Patrons! A happy new year to you. I hope you all had a restful holiday season and, where applicable, aren't finding the return to work or school too traumatic. I am having a lot of trouble getting up in the morning at the moment, but aside from that all is well. With me, anyway; my wife has proper full-on 'flu but I have thankfully escaped that so far.

I'm going to try and make a bit more of an effort to make these Patron-Only updates a bit more regular in 2018, and one of the things I thought might be quite fun to do would be to look back on and revisit some of the games I've previously covered, particularly those that I find myself naturally wanting to return to.

Generally speaking, I'm someone who plays a single game to absolute death and then sets it aside, possibly permanently. I'll generally do my best to get all endings (and perhaps a Platinum trophy) on that original playthrough, but after that I'll set it aside and probably won't return to it for quite some time, if at all. I still keep all my games, however, since I will never rule out the possibility of wanting to replay or revisit something in the far future; I still enjoy revisiting old Atari, SNES, Mega Drive, PS1 and PS2 games, after all, so there's nothing to say I won't feel the same about PS4 and Vita games in 20 years time.

There are exceptions to this not particularly hard and fast rule, however; games that I refer to as "evergreen" games, that I always like to return to every so often, either because they're structured in such a way as to encourage replays or simply because I want to experience them again. Inti Creates' excellent Gal*Gun Double Peace, which I originally covered back in 2016, falls into the former of these two categories.

For the uninitiated, Gal*Gun is a curious hybrid of on-rails shooter and dating sim in which you guide protagonist Houdai through a day in which he has accidentally become afflicted with an angelic popularity aura that is 32x more powerful than it was supposed to be. As his clumsy guardian angel Ekoro — the source of said accident — helpfully informs him, the effect of such a high dosage of angelic power means that unless he finds his true love by the time the aura wears off, he will end up forever alone.

Thus begins an adventure in which Houdai has the opportunity to pursue several different girls, including one or both of his two childhood friends Shinobu and Maya (who just happen to be demon hunters), a demon named Kurona who was indirectly responsible for Ekoro messing up her shot in the first place, Ekoro herself, or indeed any of the other girls at Houdai's school, where he appears to be the only male person, student or teacher.

There are many reasons I enjoy Gal*Gun, but probably the chief reason is the fact that it's a game that has far more depth and replayability to it than its rather silly premise might suggest. There's a substantial metagame that involves collecting profile information on all the characters you see throughout the game, for example, and on top of that just getting the "true" endings for each of the main heroines is a challenge in itself, since doing so requires that you not only score enough points in the shooting sequences, but that you also make appropriate choices when you get a number of different dialogue options.

One of the things I like most about it is that there are no "generic" enemies. Every girl who "attacks" Houdai has a name, personality, voice, weak spot, unique appearance and, uh, set of measurements. The more you play the game, the more you'll come to recognise each girl by her appearance and name and know how to quickly deal with her. This helps you feel like you're getting to know the cast, even those members who don't play an active role in the main story.

And that story, as silly as it is, is endearing and compelling, too. Those who enjoyed the anime Gabriel Dropout will get a particular kick out of it, since the idea of inherently infallible and incompetent apprentice angels and demons is very similar to what we saw in that series. Shinobu and Maya are well-defined characters with some depth to their depictions, too, and there's even a surprising amount of non-verbal characterisation through things like their body language, the situations in which they find themselves and their responses to the various dialogue options.

Most of all, though, it's simply a really fun, well-designed game that I adore playing any time I boot it up. There are lots of different paths through it, lots of different ways to play — besides the main story routes, there's a "True Love" route in which you have to manipulate Houdai's stats to be appealing to the members of the extended cast you want to pursue, as well as a Score Attack mode — and a ton of longevity through the collectible profiles and numerous secrets to discover.

It's definitely a game that I will keep coming back to time and time again… and with a sequel on the horizon, well, you can count on more Gal*Gun on MoeGamer in the near future!