Kiss kiss bang bang, Gal Gun: Double Peace is back!

Inti Creates has certainly been making waves recently with its love-filled title, Gal Gun: Double Peace. Since early August, players have been… shooting women with a pheromone-powered gun while looking for their one true love with the assistance of an angel…? You know what, forget it. There’s no way that I can make a normal-sounding intro considering what this game is actually about. Let’s just skip to the last part of this paragraph. *ahem* Now, in less than two month’s time, Gal Gun: Double Peace has made the jump from PlayStation exclusivity onto Steam. Does this fan-service-filled shooter manage to hold its ground on PC? Let’s find out!

The story behind Gal Gun: Double Peace is pretty short and sweet. One on a day much like any other Houdai Kudoki, the protagonist of the game, was walking to school when, out of nowhere, he felt something hit him. Before he even had time to process what it was, a trainee angel by the name Eroko appeared before him. A student herself, Eroko had been given an exam that sent her down to Earth and required her to help out someone in need (of love, obviously). Although Eroko initially had her shot lined up, she noticed that a Demon trainee also had their sights on Houdai. Panicking, Eroko accidentally pulled the trigger a little too hard and hit Houdai with a shot with over 30 times the intended power. Because of this, all of Houdai’s chances to find love would happen all at once in a single day. Nearly every girl he met would instantly fall in love (and, let’s face it, in lust) with him. Though he may have the pick of the litter so-to-speak, Houdai needed to be careful. He needed to end up with someone with someone that he actually cared about; quite a task when nearly every girl you see is literally throwing themselves at you in a desperate attempt to make you theirs.

With a setup like that you may assume that Gal Gun: Double Peace a Dating Sim, or perhaps even some sort of bizarre JRPG. You would be wrong, though; it’s a rail shooter! With all of the girls in Houdai’s local vicinity having essentially gone insane because of Eroko’s effect on Houdai, talking is out of the option. Beating them up would be pretty mean too though, since it isn’t really their fault. Clearly the best option is to shoot them, not with bullets, but with pheromones! By making use of Houdai’s newly-acquired Pheromone Shot, players are able to incapacitate the slew of oncoming ladies by “filling them with euphoria” (that’s how the game words it, but we all know what we’re actually doing, right?) until they become too exhausted to move. Each girl also has a weak area, consisting of either her face, torso, hips, and legs. Hitting a girl’s weak spot will instantly bring her to her knees and net you extra points, known as Mote Mote Points for some reason, in the process. The whole thing takes a bit of getting used to concept-wise but, strangely enough, it ends up working out pretty well (so long as you can drop your normal inhibitions for a while).

Odd premise aside, Gal Gun: Double Peace actually manages to pull off the rail shooter aspect really well and doesn’t stray too far from the traditional formula mechanically-speaking. Houdai will automatically move throughout each level, stopping at set intervals when faced with enemy opposition. Throughout certain points within certian levels Houdai will become surrounded. During these face-offs, players will be able to pivot around (albeit they remain in one place) in order to properly fend off the girls coming at him from all sides. Each level also has plenty of hidden collectibles as well, including new outfits that open up new avenues for customization (of the girls of course, not you), and books that give a brief biography of each of the game’s 70+ “enemies”. Players can also visit a shop run by Aoi, a girl who for some reason or another is immune to Houdai’s “charm”, in order to purchase upgrades. Unfortunately, while the levels themselves are enjoyable, I would have been okay with a higher difficulty threshold. Though Gal Gun: Double Peace does indeed offer multiple levels of difficulty, I’ve got to say that I didn’t notice much of a difference between them.

If having gaggles of girls invading your personal space still isn’t enough for you, things get even more personal in the game’s Doki-Doki Mode. As you make your way throughout the level, you’ll notice the heart-shaped gauge in the top left-hand corner charging up from 0 to 3. So long as you have at least one fully-charged bar, or heart I guess, you can enter the pinnacle of Gal Gun: Double Peace‘s perversion known as Doki-Doki Mode. The aim of Doki-Doki Mode is to build up your targeted girl’s euphoria gauge by locating and shooting at her weak spots but, hey now, it’s not what you’re thinking! Each girl within the game has a different set of weak spots, which vary from the face and neck, to the arms and legs, to… okay, well I guess that it’s sort of what you’re thinking. Fan service aside (trust me, there’s a whole lot of fan service going on), Doki-Doki Mode does serve an actual purpose (aside from the fan service thing). By getting a girl to maximum euphoria within Doki-Doki Mode, she will experience a pleasure so intense that it literally explodes from within her body and incapacitates every other girl on the screen. Yes, really. Due to the game’s partial lack in difficulty, Doki-Doki Mode isn’t incredibly necessary for survival from a mechanical standpoint, but it’s great when you’re trying to hit moving or fleeing targets in order to maximize your score.

Although I did specifically say earlier in this review that Gal Gun: Double Peace was not a Dating Sim (which it is not), it does have a few pseudo-Dating Sim features within it. Since the premise of the game is to find love, it’s only natural for Houdai to have a love interest. Just who is the love interest, you may ask? Well, that’s up to you! Through perseverance, sheer will, and multiple playthroughs, players can pretty much end up with whomever they’d like whenever they’d like. After the first few levels, players are asked to pick their love interest for the game; an option which cannot be changed later on. In between each level, a scene will play out between you and that girl. While these scenes are relatively static, players will occasionally be asked questions to which they control the response Each question can be answered in one of five ways, four of which are based on the player’s personality-based stats. These stats are Intelligence, Athleticism, Style, and Lewdness.

Unlike Houdai’s combat stats, which increase on permanent and static intervals, these conversation-based stats are rather fluid and can be changed in one of two ways. The first way is to purchase items from Aoi, plain and simple. The second way involves the Doki-Doki Mode. Upon successfully completing a Doki-Doki Mode session, Houdai’s stats will fluctuate. These stat changes may seem random at first, but they are actually based upon the “defeated” girl’s preferences. For example, if your latest conquest loved smart and fashionable boys, but wasn’t fond of athleticism, your Intelligence and Style would increase while your Athleticism decreased. It’s definitely possible to memorize each individual girl’s influence on Houdai’s stats but more often then not you’ll find yourself at the mercy of randomly-fluctuating stats unless you have an incredible memory due to the fact that there are a lot of girls and not a whole lot of Doki-Doki Mode activations (unless you’re specifically going out of your way to activate it as much as possible). Since these stats dictate which answers can and cannot be chosen when asked questions, and considering the fact that the answers impact the game’s ending, I would have preferred to have a little more difficulty in obtaining or maintaining them. The fact that they’re there at all though shows dedication to a deeper level of gameplay by Inti Creates however, and I can definitely respect that.

I suppose if we’re being honest here, the only thing that matters all that much concerning the graphical quality of Gal Gun: Double Peace is the girls themselves. With that being said, they did a pretty solid job. Although subject to the occasional bout of clipping or (unintentionally) odd movement cycles, things flow pretty well within Houdai’s adventure from a visual standpoint. I do feel like it’s worth noting however, that the game’s 2D gallery-esque pictures are great. While matching up with the 3D aspects of the game quite closely, the way in which the characters were portrayed in 2D was, in my opinion, actually handled a little better. If you’re looking for amazing scenery or majestic landscapes, you’re not going to find them here. Then again, playing this game with that specific goal in mind would be about as weird as the premise of the game itself.

While Gal Gun: Double Peace may boast a bevvy of beauties, it’s soundtrack is a bit more limited in numbers. Fortunately, what is there is legitimately good; a relief considering that you’ll mainly be hearing the same few songs over and over. While the soundtrack isn’t good to the point of being a pinnacle of gaming music, I can definitely see the merit in playing through certain parts just for the music. Personally, my favorite songs were “Battle”, the normal level music, and “Open Up Your Heart!”, which plays during the final part of the game (I won’t ruin anything, though).

Gal Gun: Double Peace is a lewd, shallow rail shooter focused primarily on providing as much fan service to its players as possible in a manner that almost crosses the line in several different ways. Would you like to know what else it is, though? It’s fun. It’s legitimately fun. It knew exactly what it wanted to become, and it did so without feeling the need to dance around certain topics or censor anything. It may have its shortcomings here and there, but it’s solid overall. I applaud how unapologetic and forward  it is with providing the very experience that it set out to. This game is incredibly risqué and isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be. For those who do want to see what Gal Gun: Double Peace is all about, I definitely encourage you to try it. It’s really not like anything else out there.

Final Verdict: 4/5

Available on: PC (reviewed), Previously Released on PS4, Vita ; Publisher: PQube Games ; Developer: Inti Creates ; Players: 1 ; Released: September 27, 2016 ; MSRP: $39.99 

Full disclosure: This review is based on the PC version of Gal Gun: Double Peace provided to HeyPoorPlayer by the publisher.