Nine Sols

Genre: Metroidvania

Players: 1

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Review:

Nine Sols is a Metroidvania released in 2024 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. In this game, players take the role of a warrior named Yi cast off a cliff face and left for dead, only to be revived 500 years later to seek out the “nine Sols” and claim their magical seals. For revenge? For justice? It’s not clear at the onset, and a part of progressing through the game has players piecing together both the lore of the game and Yi’s backstory specifically to learn what happened prior to the prologue and what drives Yi now.

The world of Nine Sols is something the game’s eShop page describes as “taopunk”, and it’s easy to see why, with the game blending Asian mysticism with high technology. The game starts out like a martial arts epic before revealing its sci-fi elements in a particularly brutal scene of extreme violence, and enemies you fight seem like tortured amalgamations of flesh and steel. So don’t be fooled by this game’s seemingly cutesy protagonist, because family-friendly this is not.

However, while it may be punctuated by gruesome violence, Nine Sols is a gorgeous game, with an imaginative world that combines nice-looking 2D with some 3D elements, along with characters that are gorgeously-animated with a ton of personality to them, especially Yi and the game’s larger enemies and bosses.

This is backed by a mostly-subdued soundtrack that does a great job highlighting the lonely, strange, and hostile areas that form much of the game, although there are also some really nice melodic themes here that underline this game’s Eastern sensibilities, grand orchestral themes to highlight the epic storytelling, and faster-paced percussion-heavy themes for combat, with some highlights including Main Theme II, The Lone Sol, Yi’s Theme, Last Man Standing, My Dream, Alchemy, just to name a few. I also need to make mention of this game’s excellent sound, that really helps to make every hit given in the game’s combat feel immensely satisfying, with larger enemies’ roars really selling how fearsome they are.

On the topic of combat, I’ve seen others refer to this game as a “Soulslike”, and I can say the comparison definitely feels accurate here, and this is one of Nine Sols’ absolute best elements. Even smaller grunts in this game need to be dealt with carefully, making use of this game’s dash/parry/talisman system.

Enemies tend to attack with white strikes that are fast and must be parried, or red strikes that are usually better-forecasted but need to be dodged. Parry with perfect timing and you’ll charge up your “Qi”, which can then be used to zip in and place a “talisman” on an enemy, which can be made to explode if you can manage to take a moment to stand still and concentrate your energy on the talisman. This means that it is absolutely vital to learn enemies’ attack patterns so you can time your dodges, parries, and talisman strikes for optimal damage without taking damage in return. And boss battles are particularly satisfying, as learning those patterns can be a grueling test of trial and error (with a lot of deaths), but once you get it down you get this amazing sense of satisfaction as you smoothly respond to everything the enemy does by punishing them, while they struggle to land a hit on you. And as you progress, even more elements are added to this combat, such as a mid-air counter that can punish red enemy attacks with a glowing green outline.

Beyond the core combat, Nine Sols also has a nice upgrade tree to let players spend experience in ways that compliment their own playstyle, as well as a “jade” system that lets players plug in upgrades they must choose between using only a limited amount of space. I do wish this gameplay mechanic were expanded on even further, as it doesn’t feel like this game gives players enough reward for exploration.

This brings me to my main complaint with Nine Sols – while the combat is outstanding, I think this game doesn’t quite succeed at delivering rewarding exploration like the absolute best Metroidvanias do. To be clear, it’s not outright bad, I just feel it could be better.

However, even with this issue, Nine Sols is an absolutely wonderful Metroidvania with some of the best combat the genre has ever seen, and though this may be a bit on the more difficult side in a way that might scare off less-skilled players, I still highly recommend this for anyone willing to put in the work to learn enemy patterns, because those who do will find this to be a truly satisfying game that is not to be missed.

tl;dr – Nine Sols is a Metroidvania about a warrior reborn after being left for dead and fighting back against those responsible. The exploration elements of this game aren’t quite as good as the best Metroidvanias, but the immensely satisfying and highly-challenging combat more than makes up for this. This isn’t a game for the light of heart, but those who enjoy working towards mastery will find this to be an extremely rewarding game that is not to be missed.

Grade: A-

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2024 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Metroidvania, Best Sound Design

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