Nine Sols Review – A new high for metroidvanias

When talking about metroidvanias, Hollow Knight will usually be brought up as the gold standard of modern releases (well, as modern as a 7 year old title can be.) And for good reason, as it managed to offer a sense of exploration that is often not matched even by much larger development teams.

Enter Red Candle Games, a dev team known for the duo of excellent horror titles Detention and Devotion. Deciding to take things in a different direction, while still maintaining some of aspects of their previous games, Red Candle Games’s Nine Sols is an excellently crafted metroidvania that deserves to be remembered as fondly as Hollow Knight.

A Bloody Path of Revenge and Redemption

Nine Sols sees protagonist Yi waking up centuries after being betrayed, left to die but hanging on thanks to a mass of dark roots that seem to have a mind of their own. During this time New Kunlun, the home of Yi’s race the Solarians, has started to fall into disrepair. Enemies roam the streets, and things aren’t how they were 500 years ago.

Yi’s goal is to obtain the Sol Seals, with one being held by each of the nine Sols that rule over parts of New Kunlun. This goal sees him making a number of unlikely allies, discovering more about events both before and during his long slumber, and perhaps leave behind his regrets.

For a metroidvania, there’s actually quite a lot of story during Nine Sols. That’s not to say there aren’t large stretches of exploration without cutscenes or story events, but I quite liked how the narrative plays an active part in the game.

Yi himself makes for a unique protagonist, often quite unsociable and quick to dismiss what others are saying. But he grows during his time in New Kunlun, and it’s nice to see the difference between how he acts at the start and ends of his journey.

If you just plan on following the main story without reading any of the collectable notes or character descriptions you’ll get more than enough context to enjoy the overall plot. But if you take the time to read through the info you can find scattered across New Kunlun, the experience becomes even more rewarding.

Piecing together the 500 year timeline of what happened made for a fun side goal between Yi’s travels. It lets you learn some things ahead of time, or gain extra context surrounding events that are only hinted at during the main story. There’s even some excellent content to view outside of the game, which is well worth checking out after you’re done with Nine Sols.

Punishing (But Fair) Combat

I knew going into Nine Sols that the combat would likely be quite tough — the steam page opens with a mention to the game’s “Sekiro-inspired deflection focused combat”. It’s definitely on the harder side for a metroidvania since you often can’t just faceroll bosses by collecting enough stuff, but I’d say on the whole Nine Sols is rather manageable.

Yi starts with a number of moves during combat that quickly grows during the opening hours of the game. His basic three hit combo deals decent damage, and you can parry attacks at the press of a button. Parrying is instant, meaning you can stop most attacks once you get the patterns down.

Parrying is a key part of combat, since it’s connected to two other systems: internal damage and Qi. While attacks deal regular damage, they also deal internal damage (represented by a different colour on an enemy’s health bar.) Internal damage can be converted into regular damage via talismans.

Talismans use Qi, which in turn is generated by parrying enemy attacks. This leads to a loop of attacking enemies during downtime, parrying attacks, then converting internal damage with a talisman. The default talisman must be charged before detonating, leaving you in an unsafe position if timed incorrectly.

Even from the start, this makes combat feel engaging. You’re rewarded for learning enemy patterns, but their attacks aren’t punishing enough to make things feel unfair from the get go. You’re not fully punished for mistiming parries either, with late or early parries giving Yi internal damage which heals over time if not attacked.

Things get even more involved once Yi’s moveset starts expanding. He’s eventually able to dodge attacks (the arial variant of the dodge being extra helpful for performing) and make use of multiple new types of parries to deal with attacks that were previously unparryable.

On the combat side of things, there are only a few things that I would have liked to see changed. For starters, you gain access to a bow fairly early on in Nine Sols. While it can be useful for taking out groups of enemies, I often found myself forgetting it exists. The bow feels disconnected from the rest of Yi’s moveset, even if it can be helpful at times.

The second is that Nine Sols’s difficulty curve is wonky to say the least. By far the hardest parts of the game are its early sections and the very last boss, with the inbetween no being quite easy in comparison. That’s not to say there aren’t still difficult areas or enemies outside of this. I just think some early bosses could be made slightly easier, while some of the later ones get the opposite treatment.

I feel like the final boss specifically deserves its own mention, taking things to a level not seen during the rest of Nine Sols. It’s a massive jump in difficulty, but one that still feels rewarding to overcome. It was the only boss where I actually had to change up my build, making use of charged attacks over the regular combo to get damage in quickly.

Nine Sols Rewards Exploration

Speaking of builds, I mentioned earlier that you can find a lot of extra story collectables during your time in New Kunlun. But exploration is also how you’ll find most build altering items and upgrades. Scattered throughout the world are items that can increase your healing item charges, change up different aspects of Yi’s moveset, or even boost his damage (albeit slightly.)

Lots of the collectables are tied to story events as well, outside of just lore snippets. You can find items to gift to Shuanshuan, a human child that Yi saves from near death. These offer a better look into Yi’s personality and life experiences, and give collectables more worth than just something to make numbers go up.

I especially like how health upgrades are handled. You run into a human with an interesting condition, leading to poisons actually being good for him. This leads to Yi finding a variety of more dangerous poisons, this collection eventually rewarding him with a larger health pool (and a few bittersweet moments of dialogue.)

Exploration itself is actually Nine Sols’s most standard aspect, offering solid platforming with the usual metroidvania trope of requiring certain abilities to reach new areas. Collectables are often hidden out of sight or behind optional challenge rooms, though you’ll never have to do the Metroid thing of bombing every wall.

It’s also another aspect where the game’s story guides you, at least a little bit. You’ll sometimes be asked to head to certain areas to progress the plot, or gently pushed towards areas of the map you haven’t explored yet.

There’s never really a chance of getting lost, but you’re also not told exactly where to go at every moment. I appreciate this even more after playing Gestalt: Steam & Cinder, a recently released metroidvania that was far too linear for its own good.

A distinct aesthetic

I couldn’t round out the review of Nine Sols without mentioning its stylish presentation. The developer describes it as “Taopunk”, a combination of sci-fi and eastern mythology. This is absolutely present throughout the entirety of Nine Sols, from its character designs and artwork to the soundtrack.

Character designs have received extra attention, featuring lots of expressions and detailed full artwork during certain cutscenes. It even ties into the narrative, with Yi’s permanent scowl and lifeless eyes pointing to the life he’s lead and the weight of what he must do.

I do wish that some of the cave-themed areas ended up with more unique appearances. Caves don’t make up the majority of areas, and many come with their own spin rather than just the same thing again, though they do look somewhat bland in contrast to the rest of Nine Sols.

Nine Sols Review | Final Impresssions

Nine Sols is an engaging metroidvania that proves Red Candle Games can tackle more than just horror (though they still manage to sneak a little of it into this latest title.) Combat is fast and fluid, paired with a setting that I genuinely wanted to learn more about. Hollow Knight fans that are waiting for Silksong should really be checking out Nine Sols instead.

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Nine Sols was reviewed on PC using a code provided by the developer.

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