9 Years of Shadows
Fight to bring beautiful colors back to a hand-crafted world of darkness and discover the story of Europa, a young warrior, and her ghostly childhood companion, Apino.
9 Years of Shadows is a action, adventure and metroidvania game
developed by Halberd Studios
and published by indie.io.
Released on March 27th 2023 is available only on Windows
in 8 languages: English, Spanish - Latin America, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian and Simplified Chinese.
It has received 2,297 reviews of which 1,765 were positive and 532 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.4 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 9.24€ on Steam and has a 50% discount.
The Steam community has classified 9 Years of Shadows into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
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Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: Intel Core i3-9100F
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: GT 730
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
The game is good, it's an indie Metroidvania. The health system is a bit weird but you get used to it. You start with only 2 health, and mostly rely on a shield. The caveat is that shield refills as you hit and kill enemies. In addition when your shield is fully depleted you can charge it to about 90% in a few secs. This can be done in battle but requires timing. The level design and music are good quality. The only thing I didn't like was that the dash is backwards like some vampire style games. A directional dash would have been more fluid. There are a few particular enemies where this gets annoying and ends up making you get hit when you meant to dash away. Overall worth playing and supporting.
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It's a little on the short side but I think that works for it, especially given the lack of a proper fast travel system. The upgrades/map parts aren't too difficult to find which absolutely helps you out in the long run. The story and characters are charming, the visuals are stunning and the music is fantastic. It's got a nice balance of difficulty, minus the somewhat small spike with the final boss - which I feel was down to the lack of a checkpoint if nothing else. Overall, I loved this game. Sure I have my gripes with it, but it was very enjoyable throughout.
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It's a short but fun metroidvania game. My only complaints are: 1. Combat is simple. I wish there was more depth. 2. There are a lot of color-swap enemy types. 3. Final boss is such a huge difficulty spike compared to the other bosses.
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So like.... I'm torn. I picked this up after backing this studio's new game to see what their first game was like, and it definitely feels like a first game. Let's start out this way - I would recommend this game. It's a fun game, the music is really good, the art style is cool, the character portraits look good, the combat is overall fun, the different armor is neat, the traversal is enjoyable, and some of the bosses are a blast. If you like Metroidvanias, you'll like this! ...IF If you can deal with the whole 'first game' aspect. Bosses are fun... except some have awkwardly long runs back if you die, and unskippable too-long intros. Bosses are fun... except when you just have back luck and they chain strings of their most annoying attacks, and it stops being about fighting the boss and just repeating the same jumping pattern until they calm down. The music is really good... and you'll hear the same tracks a LOT. Traversal is enjoyable... but there's not really a good fast travel system, so the game feels padded out by the traversal. The different armor is neat... but ultimately kinda same-y. Each one gives you a different traversal skill, but doesn't really change combat in anyway other than matching colors up with enemies. By the end, I was honestly kinda hitting a wall. Instead of scouring the map for the last couple items I missed, I just went to the end boss and banged my head against some of the things I mentioned before (Thankfully that one has a short run time) But lemme be clear - there's AWESOME stuff in this game too. Some of the boss fights are absolutely fantastic, and the controls are tight enough to make you feel like a lot of close wins are super earned. I really liked the overall look and sound and feel of this game, it just got a little long in the tooth trying to cram in a bunch of extra boss fights without making the core of a Metroidvania--going back and forth across the same map--more engaging. Still pick it up if you love Metroidvanis though!
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9 Years of shadows is a game i feel people are being to harsh on. It's honestly an amazing metroidvania that while more linear than most, exceeded my expectations in many ways. Mostly in its visuals, the pixel art on display here is top of the line and deserves to stand next to blasphemous, rain world, moonscars and death's gambit! I was constantly in awe with the spritework and environments. Truly a gorgeous game but that alone isn't enough for a pleasant experience. Luckily 9 years of shadows also nails the gameplay! Exploring the world of 9 years of shadows is a joy, not only due to the gorgeous visuals but also because the level design is tight. And while yes, i agree the game is relatively linear and backtracking is rarely needed, the exploration is still pretty metroidvania like. With side paths for collectibles, shortcuts and ability gating. This is an area the game is critiqued a lot for, but i actually like a more focused one every now and then. What also helps make the level design fun is the diverse and extremely satisfying movement. It starts of with a basic but responsive control set but the new mechanics added on top of that are very unique and fun. The system of switching between different elemental armors or stances, each with their own moveset and traversal mechanics, was really well executed. The water armor that let you smoothly jump between columns of water was especially fun. Later areas that chain these different types of movement together are very satisfying. In part because the game quickly switches stances for you when you jump into the according element so you don't need inhuman reaction speed to quickly switch. Just direct the joystick in the right direction and enjoy the smooth platforming that while not hard, is still satisfying. In fact the whole game leans more on the easier side, especially for regular enemies. This is because the health system in 9 years of shadows is that you have a few hearts that you can only regenerate at save points and a shield bar that protects said hearts. This shield is depleted on taking hits but also when using the rather powerful magic attacks. This creates a risk reward gameplay loop where you trade survivability for damage. You can ofcourse regen this shield by channeling for about 2 seconds. For regular enemies this is easy, just go stand away from them and heal up but for bosses this is a different story. This game has a HUGE array of bosses for you to fight. Way more than i expected for a game of this size. Luckily nearly all of these are enjoyable and while rather simple, still very unique! There's even a chess boss that you need to defeat all pieces before you can kill the king. With each piece having a unique attack and movement that goes with it. . These bosses range from on the easy side to pretty challenging in my opinion. The final boss especially took a few tries but in the end all of them are very doable when you learn the mechanics. In fact i think this game had a perfect difficulty! Tough but fair bosses, and regular enemies that serve as a fun distraction without being frustrating. What also helps reduce frustration is that in most cases, the save point is right next to the boss room. No annoying runbacks that are for some reason popular? 9 years of shadow uses an old school save system though where dying literally sends you back to the last save state, losing all progress. Beware of this after you killed a boss or you'll have to fight them again, learned that the hard way haha! I'm generally not a fan of this system, but since saves were right by the boss, and regular enemies were a breeze, i found this system to be quite leanient. What then remains to be discussed is the music, story and technicallity. In regards to music i wasn't the biggest fan, although it did fit and gave the game a bit of an old school castlevania vibe (the backdash as well). Story then was in my opinion rather well executed. I really liked the premise, overal story and the main character. During loading screens, which take place on elevators, the heroine took some time to ponder in an attempt to not lose courage. These moments added a LOT to the character in my opinion, and made the rather long load screens not as annoying. Still though the loading screens are relatively long and once you've exhausted all the dialogue you'll just have to sit and wait. What annoyed me more than this was the fact that boss intro cutscenes were unskippable so doing them again took you a few seconds extra because of this. Other than load times though i had no major tech issues, no lag or bugs. I did however encounter one crash right at the end during a cutscene after i had beaten the final boss. I had to force quit and thus didn't get the achievement. Luckily i had the boss down to a T so i quickly beat them again. A tip to avoid this is to not spam the next button during cutscenes or dialogues. In the end 9 years of shadows really impressed me with it's gorgeous art, fun & unique movement, varied & challenging bosses and engaging story. The soundtrack fit the game well and the technicalities worked good enough not to hinder my enjoyment. I think the quality on display here is certainly worth the asking price and worth it for any metroidvania fan. This is a rather accesible one that despite the jump at the end remains fair. The pseudo linearity could also be good for newcomers to the genre who are afraid of getting lost otherwise. The mapping system also works very well for this so in general there's no real excuse to mis out on this one. Just one of the many amazing metroidvania's that 2023 blessed us with.
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 07 December 2024 00:44 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 22 December 2024 21:25 |
| Steam price | 23 December 2024 20:38 |
| Steam reviews | 22 December 2024 10:06 |
Online players
12
Developer
Halberd Studios
Publisher
indie.io
Release
27 Mar 2023
Platforms
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