9th Dawn III

Genre: Top-Down Action-RPG

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local)

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Review:

The 9th Dawn series of Top-Down Action-RPGs has been around on PC since the original entry in the franchise in 2012. In 2020, we saw the release of 9th Dawn III on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. This game presents players with gameplay that features old-school sensibilities with a large world to explore and potentially a large number of enemies on-screen at any given time.

I would describe the presentation here as “quaint”. The game uses 2D pixel art visuals that I wouldn’t say are especially well-crafted, and which animate simply by moving and rotating the sprites. This is joined by atmospheric music that sets the tone well enough, but doesn’t do much more than that.

Unfortunately, the story isn’t terribly inspiring either, with players taking the role of a villager sent to a neighboring town to help with a monster problem, with subsequent events unfolding from there. During my time playing the game, I didn’t feel especially attached to the story, characters, or world within the game. It’s all so generic it failed to make an impression on me.

I’m sorry to say that the same holds true for the gameplay. Combat is done simply by holding the right analog stick in the direction of your enemy, and there don’t seem to be any real tactics here other than “tougher guy wins”, though for enemies “tougher guy” might mean they swarm you with too many enemies to handle, or you ran into an enemy with more power than your current level and loadout can handle.

The RPG elements don’t really feel very fulfilling either. You’re not likely to get anything more than expendable items and materials from enemy drops, and interactive objects in environments other than chests are few and far between. Baldur’s Gate III, this ain’t.

I suppose there’s a bit of retro charm in 9th Dawn III, and the large world holds promise, but it’s hard to feel excited about that when there’s nothing interesting here to latch onto – not the gameplay, the story and characters, or the presentation. With countless truly great RPG and Action-RPG games on Nintendo Switch, it’s hard to recommend one so flavorless as this.

tl;dr – 9th Dawn III is a Top-Down Action-RPG with a retro aesthetic and a large world to explore, but sadly there’s not much here to get excited about, with an uninteresting plot and characters, tedious boring combat, and a lack of meaningful RPG elements. This is still an okay Action-RPG, but with so many great games to choose from on Nintendo Switch, just “okay” doesn’t seem good enough.

Grade: C

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