Guilty Hell: White Goddess and the City of Zombies is a 2D action exploration game, also known as a Metroidvania. It is set an extremely dark and eerie world that sees a necromancer trying to overrun the realm of the fairies. That proves to be a one-sided fight as the fairies are quickly mauled by the undead forces of the necromancer named Vivi. With the realm on the verge of collapse and the undead growing stronger by feasting on these magical creatures, they try one last desperate measure. Summoning their goddess of white, otherwise known as Airi.
It is one heck of an introduction, and with our character being the goddess who is to save them all, we are set loose. Exiting the house I spotted a small group of three zombies feasting on a fairy, rushed in, and was promptly torn to pieces. This is not that type of game as it was all too quick to demonstrate. The enemy we face are quite powerful and even Airi can not fight them on equal footing. Our main advantage over the undead is our mobility. We can dash, triple jump, and possess a much greater attack range over them. Starting off, we also possess a magic whip spell that pulls a single enemy towards you, as to avoid having to fight a tightly packed mob.
Using your basic attacks from the ground, you will find that you can only chain three attacks together. They have a very respectable reach, but will not damage these hardy foes much. Vital to your survival will be learning how to pull off air launchers to fling your foes into the air, where they can’t fight back or defend. This is done by holding Up while pressing the attack button and will see Airi kick upwards. It has a short-range, making it important to get your timing right as you are well within zombie lunging distance. These are the most basic enemy, your skills at fighting in the air will only get more important from then on.
After defeating a foe, they will give you experience, as well as drop golden crystals. The golden crystals can be traded in with the fairies to create new items and are essentially currency. Golden crystals also pop out of any scenery you destroy, which are usually in plentiful supply. Both enemies and objects will respawn after you either die or leave that area of the map. The items you can purchase with them will be invaluable. There are not a ton of them, yet each offers their own benefits to your type of playstyle. Take an ear-ring for example. One may include things such as 30% less damage from attacks and 45% less from projectiles, while the other offers to greatly increase your mana. Each of the three (ring, ear-ring, weapon mod) things you can equip always feels like a big decision.
You can always swap out items to try new things, and you can even respec all your skill points for a cheap price. Every time you level up, all of your stats will increase. You are however given a skill point to boost a certain stat, be it Strength, Magic Power, Intelligence, or merely overall HP. There are a lot of things to try out and ways to play. With over 60 types of enemies to fight, some will naturally be better at fighting certain types over others, but all fighting styles seem viable. Before all that, we must first find a way to fend off the undead invasion from your literal doorstep. It is no easy task. Even if you are up against the most basic of foes, you are also at your weakest. After you manage to fight them off, you will see why they are so powerful once you poke your head out into the human world. It has been all but obliterated already, with not a single soul to be seen.
Roaming these desolate lands will be the undead and other, otherworldly monsters. This game has a strong horror atmosphere. It usually leaves you to the deafening silence of a dead world, with the only thing breaking that are the noises of gurgling and growls from the creatures inhabiting it now. When it does decide to use music, it is pretty impactful and no less grim. Leaving the fairy realm behind, we are thrust into the game proper. We will immediately have two directions to head to. It will show you your objective on the map, but you are free to explore as you wish. That is even encouraged as there are quite a few places you will never head to on the main story-line. Some areas are locked off for story reasons, but there are no additional abilities to impede you. You can dash under obstacles and triple jump from the get-go.
Something you may have certainly noticed by now are the graphics. The low detail 2D backgrounds highly contrast the varying degree of quality they use for the 3D models of their characters. It looks like a fever dream. Whether that is intentional or not, who knows, yet it fits this bizarre setting perfectly. This isn’t pure horror, it can be flat-out strange at times, like stumbling into Santa’s house. They play off that sense of confusion and unease pretty well. As I ventured into his house and saw the now not so jolly fat-man, I didn’t know how to feel about that. After a while of walking deeper and deeper into his house, with him making increasingly worrying comments, I was just about ready to bolt it right back out of there. I’ll leave it to your imagination as to what occurred next.
Once again, there are some truly strange things to be witnessed. They are not common, but the fear of the unknown amplifies the horror as you never know what to expect with this game. Exploring this pretty large world is like exploring a crumbling reality. An area nearby from where you start is a long-abandoned air raid shelter, in a game we were otherwise lead to believe was a medieval fantasy. Most of it is pitch black, with only a tiny bit of lighting scattered about to get a small glimpse of the Saya no Uta level monstrosities in there, as you either try fighting them or fleeing. This title is all too eager to show you its twisted nature. That area was unique in the use of near-total darkness, which so many Horror games overuse, making it that much more effective.
As a fan of horror, I adored exploring this pretty large world. I poked my head into every nook and cranny, which got me into quite a bind more than once as I ventured into difficult areas. The level next to the monster’s health-bar means nothing from what I found. Neither in the experience it gives you or its difficulty. Some areas with lower leveled monsters wrecked me far more than those with high-level ones. It depends on what you will be facing and their placement, more so than its base level. Each zone contains its own unique enemy types which can only be found there. It really helps all the areas feel terrifying your first time walking in, as the levels of these new foes are not a clear indicator as to whether you can handle this area or not.
Dying in this game is but a minor setback. Airi is a goddess after all. She isn’t powerful, yet if she has her body destroyed, she will simply create a new one from your last save point. All of your items, experience, and whatever you have accomplished will remain. Every enemy will respawn though, so it isn’t exactly an ideal thing to happen while trying to reach new areas or explore. As you progress, the story it hands out becomes increasingly frequent. It is interesting, yet by the end, it starts to stumble a bit. Things become pretty convenient and kind of cliché in its plot devices. Worse still is that it ends pretty abruptly. I had no idea this was meant to be a multi-game plot line until that cliffhanger ending.
A good portion of the boss fights will occur from the plotline, though some are left out there for you to discover and be shocked by as you stumble into them. These are the battles you truly need to have your movement and aerial attacks down. None of them can be stunned or knocked back with your basic attacks. Trying to go toe to toe is suicide. Your first one will be a true test of your skills. It occurs quite soon after the beginning of your journey and is a needed victory to access the rest of the map. Remember you can triple jump when you spot a high-up save point before that fight. You do not want to trek all the way back if you lose.
All of these bosses differ greatly. Some can be ginormous creatures, others human, and a few the size of a small dog. They all have their own methods of taking you down and are more than capable of doing so. A victory will net you a huge amount of XP and a small grin thinking back to when you got demolished by a basic zombie at the start of your journey. Scattered around the map you can find unique treasures. They can range from new spells, items, or a new weapon. It is nothing that you truly need, just some nice bonuses for those that like to explore.
This brings us to the hentai. There is a metric truckload of it. Over 300 unique animations and CGs, in fact. Every enemy has both a CG before assaulting you and unique in-game animations. Most of them occur when you get grappled by a foe and don’t manage to shake them off. It causes serious damage to you, but with the high difficulty of this title, seeing some H is inevitable. Being knocked down or dying will also trigger it to the first foe that reaches you. It is heavy on the Ryona. These undead and other monstrosities are not here to make Airi feel good. They will absolutely pummel her with their fists or snap her spine before they even finger her or insert it dry. Those are the gentle ones. Needless to say, this content will not be everyone’s cup of tea.
Not all of these monsters are after sex. Some are just happy to torture or try to consume her. It is impressive how distinct they made every foe feel. They are all pretty much Mortal Kombat fighters at this point. With the large amount of foes, you are unlikely to see all this game has to offer naturally. Thankfully, after you beat the game, you are given a “Training Room” where you can summon whatever enemy you have previously defeated. It can be a boss or a regular enemy, none of the content will be lost if you try to get through the game playing as best you can. They all cost a few hundred Golden Crystals to unlock though. Grinding up for money will give you something to do post-game, and you can even purchase new backgrounds to summon monsters in.
I’d suggest buying the ‘zoom in’ skill from the fairy store to get a better view, otherwise it can be a bit difficult to see what is happening. Things do get very pixelated if you set the camera too close, these were made for the default distance. You will need your mouse’s scroll wheel to use it as well, so keep it close if you are using your gamepad. A pretty big oversight of this title is that the attack button is used to continue dialogue. Guess what button you’ll be mashing when fighting a boss or enemy? I’ve accidentally skipped so many CGs and after-fight text due to this. CGs are not a big deal since you can buy a skill to see them every time you get grappled. Skipping parts of the story however is a more significant problem. While on the topic, the English translation are not all that great. It is understandable but contains constant errors and weird wording.
All told, I was pleasantly surprised by this title. As both a fan of horror and the Metroidvania genre, this more than delivered. It is a hard as nails, brutal world that is filled to the brim with content and stuff to see. Guilty Hell’s universe really reminded me of the manga/anime named Berserk. A rape filled, miserable place with unspeakable horrors at every turn. Airi may be a god, but the desperate situation here probably has her wishing she wasn’t. Luckily for us, the gameplay is no slouch either. It is a deeper combat system than you may expect going in. One where standing on the spot attacking will likely have you dying there, unless you build your character’s stats to be able to do so. Dashing past attacks, wailing on them from the air, and breaking off combos before our equally vicious foes can retaliate was how I did things in my pure melee, glass-cannon like build. The Ryona mixed with horror aspects of the hentai may turn off people, which is fair, yet Guilty Hell is a title well worth playing.
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