Nine Sols - 8.2/10
Nine Sols is a fantastic MetroidVania with a focus on parry-heavy combat, something I don’t recall much of in a faster paced MetroidVania like this.
Developed by Red Candle Games, a developer who had only developed survival horror type games up to this point, I wasn’t sure what to expect going in. What I got was at least an 8/10 game with fun combat, a good story, and beautiful art.
The game has a mysterious start with most of your combat skills unlocked already, including your parry and dash, which feels great. You go on a short fetch quest that teaches you the basics of combat and movement before the story kicks off and the world really opens up.
I don’t want to talk about the story or progression too much as the game’s pretty new and I think it has a very poignant story that’s worth experiencing, so my review going forward might be a little sparse.
The game has pretty straightforward progression, with abilities unlocking after major bosses and through skillpoints. Things like the ability to sprint, and different functionality for your talismans.
Side note: one of the attacks you have is the ability to put a talisman on an enemy which spends some charges and will deal damage to the enemy, including taking away any reserved health the enemy may have had. You get charges from performing parries, and it ends up being a pretty fluid system.
Digressing, each area of the game has unique art with a distinct feeling from the other areas, they range from cyberpunk, to dark, dank mines, and they all have their own lore which does a good job explaining things in the area if you’re willing to explore and read. I think it goes a long way towards making the world feel interconnected.
As the story unfolds, you start making friends and expanding your inner circle, so to speak. It really makes you feel for the characters in the story and I think this is one of the main areas the game excels over a game like Hollow Knight (which is probably it’s main contemporary) and even more than the combat, the story is what won me over.
Talking about the combat, though, it’s pretty good, if a little frustrating at times. If you’re good at parrying, this game is going to feel pretty great. The first few bosses are very parry focused and later they start introducing more mechanics, like a couple alternate parries (think the mikiri counter in Sekiro), and eventually you start having to introduce dashing during the boss fights. The progression in the boss fights feels very well thought out with each fight having unique challenges. My only complaint about combat is the hitboxes. While they aren’t egregious, there are a lot of situations where something isn’t as tight as it should be. I’ll put a gif below of an example of this.
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I can’t talk about much more in the game without getting into spoilers, but I’ll conclude by saying that this game is well worth playing if you’re a fan of challenging combat, 2D Souls-likes, or MetroidVania’s; I think there’s enough good from each genre to keep almost everyone happy. And I think the story is more than enough to carry it through, even if you aren’t fully enjoying the combat; it’s good enough that I’d recommend watching a story playthrough on YouTube just to experience it yourself.
- Zack
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