People were disappointed that the first game wasn't a metroidvania. Then they make the sequel a metroidvania and people are even more disappointed even though it's a great game. It's ridiculous. That's not to say that this game is perfect, it has some significant flaws, but like 90% of the complaints are just "Wah! Wah! Why do I actually have to learn and play the game?!" while nitpicking every tiny detail.

Let's start with the pros:

- There is a massive map with various biomes that you will be traversing over and over, for the most part. A true metroidvania in every sense of the word.
- The combat is fun and fluid, just like the first Gal Guardians, with one character focused on melee and the other focused on ranged combat. Just like before, the enemy designs will force you to switch back and forth regularly so both characters will see a lot of action (although Masha's melee is better in most situations).
- The boss fights are awesome and challenging (unless you get one of the broken subweapons and just spam it).
- Great looking 2D sprite animations and cutscene CGs with lots of voice acting.
- Subweapons now have traits that can be applied and stacked in whatever way suits your playstyle.
- Shinobu & Maya! <3 <3 <3

And a few cons:

- Save and fast travel points are a bit sparse. At the beginning of the game, when your movement options are limited, you can easily go an hour or more between save points which can be problematic if you just want to save and quit or if the game crashes (which it did crash twice in my 30 hours playing). This becomes less problematic in the latter half of the game as you gain movement options and can cover more ground faster.
- Some quality of life improvements would be nice. For example, you can teleport back to the castle or throne room from any save point but if you teleport to the throne room then the save point in the throne room only gives you the options of returning to the previous save point or teleporting to... the throne room that you're currently in?... Why is the second option not the castle? If you want to go to the castle from the throne room, you have to teleport to the previous save point and then back to the castle. It's a mild annoyance but you do this ALL THE TIME. It can also be mildly annoying clearing your inventory of unwanted subweapons. You collect these things FREQUENTLY but then you have to manually go through your inventory and discard them one by one.
- The "if one sister dies, the other respawns at a save point and has to revive her" mechanic is super pointless in this game. You can't actually recover anything by playing as a single sister, you just enter the boss fight that you just died on in a more vulnerable state. There's zero reason to not just reload to get both sisters, which will also restock your seeds and consumables, or just kill the second sister so you can start the boss battle at full power with both sisters.

There's probably a few more minor annoyances that I'm forgetting. This game is not quite as polished as some of the best metroidvanias out there but the issues are just minor annoyances. Nothing to give a negative rec over. The criticism for this game is WAY overblown. The game is plenty of fun and well worth the time and money if you enjoyed the first Gal Guardians.

Inti Creates has changed up the feel just enough from the first game along with the tone. It feels like a really good step in right direction. This game is charming and its fun, its difficulty generally feels about right too. Has a nice resemblance to the first game while finding its own style and grace. It seems like Inti creates toned down the unnecessary lewd bits from the previous game a significant amount, which it never really needed as the gameplay itself was already fun and interesting. Playing it co-op is some of the best fun I've had in a long while. The general removal of instant death pits removed a lot of the frustration of the first game too. The sprite art is again fantastic and varied with lots of attention to detail that deserves appreciation and significant praise.

The fast travel is a bit rough and if Inti Creates continues with a metroidvania style game for the next iteration, then I suspect they will have it refined even more. The way the fast travel is themed is quite nice though and I give it a bit of leeway because I find it to be a charming in game explanation for its limitation. Inventory management of sub-weapons can be improved too as its currently a lot to deal with given all the possible attributes and weapon combos. Missing the crouch walk that Maya could do in the first game as another negative.