Gal*Gun 2 is definitely one of the most questionable games I have ever played. It basically takes the concept of Luigi’s Mansion and applies it to a high school, although this time the ghosts are replaced by an endless onslaught of love-struck schoolgirls. Plenty of lewd antics ensue.
Pros:
Good port. It is always nice to see a good port of a previously console-exclusive title and Gal*Gun 2 definitely shows effort in that regard. The game runs smooth, looks fine, and only has a few minor hiccups along the way (more on that later). I played the game at a nice 1080p 60fps and never experienced any fluctuations during my playthrough. Sure, the game may not be too intense graphically, but it definitely looks fine for what it is. It is also worth noting that Gal*Gun 2 is a game that was developed with VR in mind. Despite this though, the game plays pretty well without the VR aspect and I had little issue getting through it with a more traditional control setup.
Several different endings. While Gal*Gun 2 may not have the most impressive story, it at least offers up a variety of different endings to go for. The game has a normal route, a few routes for the different heroines, and an additional, hidden route. These different routes add a good amount of replayability to the game – replayability that is definitely warranted as each route only takes about 3-4 hours to clear.
Cons:
Very repetitive gameplay. Gal*Gun 2 is definitely not a game that tries to sell itself through its gameplay, and for a very good reason. Behind the cover of cute girls lies some rather repetitive gameplay, enough so that I struggled to get through the game and was only able to beat it through a series of short, 30-minute sessions over the course of several days. The previous games in the series were rail shooters, but this sequel removes the whole rail element of that genre, instead opting for a stationary shooting approach. The player is still able to look around in a 360 degree field, but movement is limited to teleportation between the different parts of each level. As such, every mission boils down to the same old stationary shooter, with little variety between them. There are different mission types (attack, defend, etc.), but even then, the gameplay does not stray too far from its formula. The fact that these missions need to be replayed in order to get each ending just makes it that much more repetitive.
Wonky mouse controls. Despite the fact that the port may be good, the game is still obviously built for controllers. All of the button prompts are for an Xbox controller and there did not appear to be a setting to change that. On top of that, the actual mouse controls were rather subpar. In just about every single level I would encounter random mouse acceleration and jumping issues. Aiming slightly up sometimes resulted in my reticle going completely vertical, all the way up to the ceiling. It is the same kind of jumping I would expect from having a hair stuck under the mouse sensor. For a shooter where enemies (in this case, schoolgirls) are constantly being thrown at the player, having the aiming even slightly off can be pretty annoying. Fortunately, Gal*Gun 2 is not too difficult a game, so this problem was not as severe as it could have been, but it is still definitely something that needs to be fixed. It is also worth mentioning that the game does not allow too much in terms of mouse sensitivity settings. I lowered my sensitivity all the way to 1 and it was still far too high, especially for someone used to playing at low sensitivity in games like CSGO and Overwatch. DPI settings can remedy this issue, but the game really should offer lower sensitivity options to begin with.
Minor freezing issues. During my playthrough, I did run into a freezing issue that would last maybe 1-2 seconds at most. Most of the time these freezes would occur simultaneously with the mouse jumping issues I mentioned before, but there were a few instances where it just happened out of nowhere. The issue was rare, but is still worth noting.
This is definitely not a game to buy for its gameplay. If cute girls is all you want, then this may be a decent recommendation, as it is a pretty nice port and features quite a few endings to go for. However, for gameplay, definitely stay away, as Gal*Gun 2 is very repetitive in that regard. It also does not help that there are a few technical issues, but at least those can be patched.
You can buy Gal*Gun 2 on Steam here.
I was provided a free review copy of the game in order to write this review. Read more about how I do my game reviews here.
cublikefoot 