My critical gaze from Gal Gun Returns

10 years ago, Alchemist released Gal Gun, an arcade shooter that raised a stir for its spicy component, developed by Inti Creates, a studio founded by former Capcom members (and creators of the four Game Boy Advance Mega Man Zero, as well as Mighty no. 9 with Comcept), this new version fixes many of the defects of the original.

Gal Gun Returns tells us a story well known to fans of the series. We play a Tenzou Motesugi, a Japanese student who fits the role of "loser" or failed with the girls, that so many animes have presented to us. But his life takes a U-turn when a trainee angel stabs him a long dozen arrows of love by mistake, and his effects will make him the most irresistible guy on the planet.

The problem? Well, he has until nightfall to conquer the girl of his dreams, or after the effect of the arrows, he runs the risk of staying alone forever. For this reason, as soon as we start playing we have to choose our "crush" between four different girls, and go "hard" after her until we win her. Each offers different personalities and dialogues.

The problem is that all the girls from the institute come like crazy for us, dozens of girls, teachers included (but not like the 60-year-old Miss Paquita about to retire who is in all schools), who will want to give us love letters , or good rather blows with them, and talk to us. Surprisingly, there is not a single boy in a 200 km radius.

And since the girls are so effusive, we have to try to keep our distance. Our pheromone gun will calm them down, very quickly also if we shoot them at their weak point, which can be from the face to the ankles, at everything in between. Sometimes we will put them down with one shot out of sheer luck, and other times we will have to riddle them.

This pot going takes the forms of an arcade shooting on rails in the purest Time Crisis style (hence the mention of the headline) or House of the Dead, but with its own ideas. We don't control progress like we do in games like DOOM Eternal; This is automatic and we only move a reticule with which we aim, and a button to fire both the girls and the projectiles that some send us as voices (Japanese kanji).

We do not have any special action such as hiding or anything similar, but there are some mechanics that make the game unique. For example, if we are making Ecstasy Shots or perfect shots that appease the girls the first time, we will fill in a special bar that will allow us to execute the so-called Doki Doki Time.

As for the technical plot, Gal Gun Returns fixes some of the flaws of the original game. The loading times are somewhat shorter, the character models have a much higher level and what in our opinion is more important, in terms of stability and frame rate, their backfires and slowdowns have disappeared.

It is a bit lacking that the scenarios have not received the same care as the characters, since they are empty, simple in some cases (flat textures, without much detail) and in general, although they recreate well the facilities of a typical institute Japan, it would not have hurt a little more variety.

Perhaps the most bloody thing is that, incomprehensibly, when updating the game, some aspects have been left that could have exploited this version of Switch much more. We are referring to the fact that it does not use the touch screen (for example, in the Doki Doki), nor the gyroscope to score more precisely (with the newly calibrated Joy-Con, it is difficult to hit the exact pixel we want to shoot) .

This is even missing in minigames that require speed and aim, like this one that we show you below these lines, in which we must shoot the books that light up on a shelf while holding a ladder on which our intended is up. Yes, it's all very filthy, we know...

All this makes Gal Gun Returns the "whitest" title in the entire series, taking into account where it comes from, and that it is still a simple title aimed at a very specific audience. If you are not scandalized by this kind of thing and you are used to ecchi and Japanese oddities, you have many tickets to enjoy it.

The rest can be in a strange terrain: if you try it, you may find it amusing, or perhaps you will find it somewhat rough and crude, apart from the fact that, as an action game, it has shortcomings such as not very varied development... but perhaps in this type of games is not the most important thing.