Nine Sols is a soulslike video game developed by RedCandleGames and published by RedcandleGames. In this review we will explore the lore heavy sekiro style demo and the various aspects like gameplay, graphics and sound and whether you should play or not.
The Gameplay of Nine Sols offers players a grueling 2D metroidvania with the deflect mechanic highly seen in the Sekiro Games. The mechanics are quite simple in nature as you have the deflect system, you can dash in between enemies attacks and The talismans which are almost guaranteed maximum damage upon explosion. Nine Sols does borrow a mechanic seen in bloodborne if you miss the parry you will take residual damage but by being aggressive you can regain the health back. The biggest mechanic is the parry system where there's the perfect parry which helps gain you chi to use your talismans and the missed parry which still parries the attack but you take residual damage. In between your run, you'll notice there's rest pods which help as your check point if you do die.
The skill tree is rather simple with 3 main skills to level up which is your armor, Chi to allow you to use more talismans and as well as your force to help in taking less residual damage. Once you beat the demo you can run the boss challenge which is just a boss rush using the skills you learned.
Visually, Nine Sols excels at capturing your attention with its beautiful hand drawn art style really giving you a feel of Chinese martials arts. The environments and characters are richly designed and the models are highly detailed. When having conversations with the other characters it's done in a visual novel style and you can actually answer the questions as well to make you a bit more immersed in the story.
Sound design for Nine Sols is crisp and immersive. I love the sound track in the background as it gives you a feel for like you're a samurai. Its fast paced music helps get you in the zone with the fast paced style of gameplay.
Nine Sols is an exceptional addition to the souls like genre and I really can't wait for its official release in Q1 2024. From the difficult yet engaging gameplay and the lore heavy bits of story this game will leave many lasting impressions on you and just like it did me. The demo was very short. I completed it in less than an hour but it made me want more so I cannot wait for the release to really dig my claws into Nine Sols and with the added replayability with the boss challenges i recommend you guys to check it out for yourself on Steam.