Nine Sols
Nine Sols is a lore rich, hand-drawn 2D action-platformer featuring Sekiro-inspired deflection focused combat. Embark on a journey of eastern fantasy, explore the land once home to an ancient alien race, and follow a vengeful hero’s quest to slay the 9 Sols, formidable rulers of this forsaken realm.
Nine Sols is a metroidvania, souls-like and action game
developed and published by RedCandleGames.
Released on May 28th 2024 is available on Windows and MacOS
in 14 languages: English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Russian, Ukrainian, Portuguese - Brazil, Spanish - Latin America, Italian, Spanish - Spain and Polish.
It has received 22,778 reviews of which 21,770 were positive and 1,008 were negative resulting in an impressive rating of 9.3 out of 10. 😍
The game is currently priced at 28.99€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Nine Sols into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Nine Sols through various videos and screenshots.
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 64bit
- Processor: AMD Athlon X4 | Intel Core i5 4460
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia GTX 950 | AMD R7 370
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 15 GB available space
MacOS
- OS: macOS 10.13
- Processor: M1 Air
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: M1
- Storage: 15 GB available space
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
I've no real way to put into words just how incredible this game is. Taken completely by surprise by the devs who previously made two horror games - Nine Sols is an absolutely stellar and masterpiece metroidvania that has genre-defying writing and some of the best boss fights I have ever seen in a 2d game, period. With games like this on the market, there is no justifying "waiting" for Silksong.
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Hollow Knight and Sekiro made love and this was the outcome. Definitely the best indie game of the year. If you enjoy metroidvanias, parry based combat, and difficulty this is the game you have been looking for. Lady Ethereal took me into deep waters and drowned me into submission.
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This game gets compared to Hollow Knight a lot, but I only find the comparison useful when it communicates one or both of these two points: [*] Nine Sols is a Metroidvania and is on the same "tier" as Hollow Knight in terms of quality [*] If you're a fan of Hollow Knight, you're likely to be a fan of this game Other than those two points, I hope that these comparisons slowly start to dwindle away, because I believe that Nine Sols is more than good enough to stand on its own, and does not deserve to live in another game's shadow. Now on to my review: Hollow Knight is my favorite game of all time, with Sekiro coming in at a close second. So when I first heard about Nine Sols, I was cautiously optimistic. The thought that your two favorite games can be amalgamated into one complete package is an exciting proposition, to be sure-- but it's also really hard to believe that a studio will be able to understand and tap into what made those games special on their first foray into a genre. But I'm happy to report that Red Candle Games blew my expectations out of the water and into the stratosphere. Nine Sols clearly understands what made these two games special; but rather than try to imitate them, it learns lessons from their successes to create a unique and beautiful work of art. Nine Sols introduces itself by showing off the two things that it does best: Story, and combat. (Intro Spoilers for the first ~10 minutes of the game): The story starts in the middle of the action, as your character Yi is betrayed by his master and left for dead. You are aided by some mysterious roots, and later again by a little boy named Shuanshuan, who you befriend off-screen. The game begins right before Shuanshuan is about to have his head voluntarily severed by a machine in a bizarre and shady religious ritual, but Yi intervenes, saving his life . You are then rushed by enemies and given a concise tutorial for the unique combat system. Here are the basics: Block an attack just as it's about to hit you to perform a perfect parry, which denies all damage. Imperfect parries deny some, but not all, damage. Successfully parrying (either perfect or imperfect) rewards you with a talisman-- an explosive xi (chi) card that you can place on an enemy as you dash past them for a burst of damage. You can also swing your sword in a 3-hit combo, with the third hit doing some extra damage. There is also a jump button, and a dash for a small speed boost and a few i-frames. There is also an "estus flask/bonfire" system that works as you'd expect, except you rest at a root node and smoke out of a pipe (so f****** cool) to heal. If you like a good combat system, then you're in for a treat-- This is just the beginning, as Nine Sols uses the metroidvania formula to add more and more abilities as you progress. Thanks to the well-balanced skill tree and shop systems, you have tons of autonomy to choose and perfect your own playstyle as you go. As you add, perfect, and combine these abilities throughout your playthrough, you will slowly unearth what I believe to be one of the best combat systems in all of gaming. *Note : I found normal difficulty to be perfectly tuned and quite forgiving as long as you're trying to parry and find healing windows. But if the game's difficulty is making you want to quit, don't; know that there's an easy mode that allows you to tweak damage done/received to any number you want. As far as story, Nine Sols tells a Kill Bill-esque tale of revenge, but also redemption. Themes include spirituality vs science, nature vs man (or should I say, cat), and justice vs forgiveness, just to name a few. These are all handled very maturely. There is also significant character progression for Yi and all of his friends-- not so much for the villains, but rest assured that each of their motivations/behaviors are compelling and believable. There is a normal ending, and a "true" ending. The true ending requires doing almost everything in the game, which leads to maximum main character progression-- this is worth it, as Yi's newfound maturity creates an incredibly beautiful and much more satisfying conclusion to the story. I also cannot end this review without highlighting the boss fights. It's easy to explain what separates a good boss fight from a bad one, but harder to explain what separates a good one from an amazing one. I'll try anyways-- Nine Sols bosses have an amazingly smooth (but not perfect) progressive difficulty curve. Meaning that the further you go, the harder the bosses get, but without ever creating so big of a bump that it makes you feel like you've hit a wall. On top of that, no two main bosses feel too similar to one another, with each having a unique identity that aligns with their respective stories/abilities. Almost every main boss fight, and even most of the mini-bosses require at least a few attempts to learn their patterns (except maybe two of em), giving you a flow feeling while you're fighting them and a euphoric feeling when you master them. There are two standouts that I want to shout-out just because I think they're near-perfect fights: [*] Lady Ethereal is the most emotional battle, and has the most beautiful level and music in the game. [*]The final boss of the game is a very complete and demanding test of your accumulated skills, while still allowing you to be quite expressive in your approach. These two seriously belong on the boss fight hall of fame. Here's a plain list of all the other stuff the game does well, to spare y'all the word count: Art style (holy crap), world design, platforming, movement, lore, and progression are all top-tier. Enemy variety, music, and navigation are also quite good. Some minor complaints are that hitboxes were a little bit too big for some attacks, and sometimes I found myself not knowing where to go next. In conclusion, if you like metroidvanias, tough-but-fair games, deep combat, boss fights, and/or meaningful, well-written narratives, Nine Sols is a masterpiece that might soon find a comfortable spot in your all-time list; it's certainly made it into mine. Please support this game and its studio.
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i was going to wait until i finished the whole game so i could make a more in depth review but there are just some annoying ass d*ck cheese fermenters that are leaving negative reviews for the most mundane and ridicule reasons I've ever seen. some of them having 1h of playtime and writing a bible long review saying the game is too hard thus making it objectively bad. To start off, this game is HARD. its not "unfair", it's just freaking hard. But from my experience, this game is freaking amazing and it has got to be some of the most unique games I've seen in a while. The art and music are MESMERISING. The art is just so unique and colourful, having this ancient chinese style to it that is just gorgeous to stare at. And the soundtrack has such an unique feel to it. They simply nailed every artistic aspect of this game. The story so far has been preeeeetty good. They were able to find really interesting and unique ways of telling you the main story and to tell the player aspects of the world itself. The main story is mostly told by in game dialogue between characters and sometimes memories from certain characters that expand not only the lore, but the world building as well. There are other 2 ways they chose to tell you the story and expand the depth of the world i really REALLY love. Mainly, the manga/comic format they chose to illustrate some of the most important parts of the lore. On some moments throughout the gameplay, the game will start rolling manga panels to help picture the story in a more immersive way. And GOD does it work. The second aspect i really appreciate on how they expand the world building is through gifts to certain character. Not only it allows them to deepen the relationship between Yi (our protagonist) and the NPC's but it also allows the game to tell you some aspects about the world that would, otherwise, not be explained. Now to the gameplay. I have yet to unlock a tenth of all the upgrades because this game has tons of them but so far this game has been really fun gameplay wise. As said previously, this game IS. FUCKING. HARD. You will die a lot. And you will die in 2 seconds if you jump straight at the enemies. The AI is pretty smart and some bosses will try to corner you to the best of their abilities. And it's great. The game doesn’t let you fight carelessly or erratically. At first, i was trying to fight some bosses like i did in Hollow Knight. Jump at them, slash them multiple times and hope they die before i do. But in this game, you just can't play as aggressively. You definitely can, but unless you pay really close attention to the enemy attacks (which is sometimes not possible due to so many things happening at once) you will be eradicated in less than 2 seconds. As i said previously, i've noticed the AI is quite smart in putting you in uncomfortable situations making you think before you act. You also don't get invincibility frames when you get hit so you will get comboed if you decide to jump into a pit of enemies. Now, how fast is the combat? At the start, the gameplay is pretty simple with only the core abilities, but still fun. As you progress though, you get some new abilities, but what really spices your gameplay is multiple upgrades you get for your already existing abilities. You get upgrades to your combat abilities, your movement, how many times you can use certain abilities and all kinds of stuff. You also have the Jade system that is basically the charm system in hollow knight. I hope i didn't miss any core aspect i should have covered in this review but i'm busy and i really wanted to shine positive light in such an amazing game. I will be playing this game as much as i can as i am LOVING it. I hope everyone is enjoying the game and that everyone that reads this and tries out this gem remembers that no game is perfect and even though the game might not be for you, for whatever reason, it can still be enjoyed and there is no need to hate on the game. The game is hard and has a style of gameplay that isn't for everyone but that doesn't mean the game is inherently bad. I may edit this review and add some things to it as i continue playing but for now this is my opinion on it and i don't think it will deviate a lot from where it currently stands. TLDR: this game is awesome
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There's a very thorough, well written, and highly upvoted negative review on here that almost convinced me not to buy this game. I'm leaving this positive review to cancel out that one. I'll be going through the negative review point by point, using its format. If you don't want to sit and read through all of that (a very good choice), here's the summary: 1. The first boss is called Yingzhao and you will not beat him on your first try. 2. Yes, the intro is slow, but the story is very, very big, and you're going to have a real hard time if you rush through it. 3. You can, within the review period, unlock Qi Balancing and Jade Tech and experience what the combat is actually like and why Sekiro is a good comparison, but you will be cutting it close. If you get that far and still aren't satisfied with the direction the game is going, no one could fault you for deciding that it isn't for you and refunding it. Now then, let's prevent anyone else from being swayed by a somewhat silly review written by someone who waited with great excitement for 2 full years, but couldn't give the game 2 full hours. A Bad Review Undone There is a lot of writing here, so I'll unfortunately have to pull in quotes to meet Steam's review length requirements. As with all quotes in life, any excerpts will sound far more blunt than they are. Don't forget to read the original before jumping to conclusions about the reviewer. I think they are mistaken, but I don't think they are a bad person. With that said: I have never felt more compelled to leave a review on a steam game to express my disappointment. This opening should already give you pause. I don't know how this person has avoided the AAA hellscape of modern gaming, and why on earth this extremely cared for, fairly inexpensive indie game deserves such a heavy insult. But all I can say is, I hope anyone who feels this way reconsiders. POSITIVES The ART ...the game is beautiful on the outside and hollow within. Whatever you saw in the first hour, let me assure you, the village and the first few rooms are nothing, I mean nothing, compared to what this game does just a little while after. I'm doing my best to stay spoiler free here, but all that background detail you gloss over as just the vibe in the beginning is both intentional and important. The MUSIC Solid OST, nothing extremely noteworthy nor iconic but it fit the setting of the world and served its purpose. This game is about Tao. I assume from your review that you don't live here in Asia, but it's obvious that the soundtrack has a meaning to convey. There is an invitation into some interesting culture and philosophy here that will enrich your experience if you decide to let it. I hope you didn't also think the little phrases that the characters are saying were in a made up language. That is all the positives I can say this game has going for it. And thus, I almost didn't buy it. Hopefully we can correct that for others. Few studios are doing what this one is doing, and I really want to see where they go from here. ------------------------------- NEGATIVES PRICE TAG $29.99 for a game with less content than its "competitors" (Hollow Knight is $15) I haven't completed the game, so this may be fair, but what other "competitors" are cheaper? Sekiro sure isn't. COMBAT (WORST PART) I cannot stress how dreadfully boring/simple the combat is in this game.... Big first issue I noticed is that you cant dash mid-air, only when you are on the floor. This is strikes me as strange, as air dashing isn't a common mechanic in gaming in general. For example, one of the ways people divide fighting games is based on which ones have air dashing and which only include jumping. Many very large adventure games don't have this mechanic. Many metroidvanias don't have this mechanic, either. Here's the ACTUAL combat: attack attack attack- dash, attack attack attack-dash (do not parry). Why is this a problem? because parrying is NOT even viable until you upgrade it a ton which takes quite a while. You parry in this game to put a talisman on an enemy after then hold down the talisman button to explode. Sounds great on paper until you realize that by just simply spamming attack you will have a higher DPS output and kill anything twice as fast without parrying at all. The first upgrade you get to your talisman gives it the ability to stun enemies that you stick it onto. I won't spoil anything, but there's a mechanical sacrifice for it. You then need to choose whether you want an easy to use talisman, or to keep the other thing. This is the first of many such branching choices in the talisman / parry system. To be fair, the reviewer says that they know this, but unfortunately they seem to assume no more complexity will come later. The choices become so complex, in fact, that switching out your talisman and parry builds are an important part of how you approach certain rooms, and especially bosses. This isn't even mentioning several other mechanics. Until you get Qi Balancing, I wouldn't say you've experienced combat. So the reality here is that the rooms mentioned in the review are "boring" because they are the tutorial rooms. The only mechanics they have are the default ones and the first two upgrades. This should be obvious, because there are still large signs floating around telling you what the controls are. DIFFICULTY (can you even call it that?) Apparently none of the enemies know what blocking is in this game oh and theres no contact damage so you dont take any damage when you walk face to face into enemies which means button mashing your main attack input trivializes almost every fight. After the tutorial, the next thing you face are shielded enemies, electrical enemies, and enemies that have mechanics that combine with one another, in addition to static defenses (sometimes unreachable without some clever thinking). My first death (and the two after it) were in a normal room that just had a couple regular enemies appear at once. STORY this might be more SUBjective than anything else I wrote, but the game constantly shoves the story in your face. No I am not exaggerating, in the hour i played there were more forced dialogue and cutscenes than ACTUAL GAMEPLAY. This is half true. In terms of story being unavoidable, that's correct. I'd even say this person didn't get to the game yet. It does chill out a bit after the first hour or two, but it's still on the heavy side. That said, there's so much more that requires a lot of attention. This person claims to have gotten to the "central hub", I can't help but wonder, did they notice who the statue on the right was? Did they realize why Heng talks to you that way? Did they figure out why Kuafa has the symbol he has? These are just introductory questions. It goes much further, and let me say, there is a lot more going on than you may realize. Don't let the amount of story you're seeing lull you into a fall sense of thinking you've had everything (or even anything) explained to you. CONCLUSION After 1 hour of mostly slow cutscenes, empty rooms, spamming 1 attack, hundreds of forced dialogue popups, defeating every enemy with ease on the hardest difficulty I regrettably refunded the game that I was looking forward to for years because its half-baked and had the potential to be so much greater than it currently is. In reality, after 1 hour of playing the (admittedly maybe too long) tutorial, this person left the game, and are telling others at great length to skip it. They did not face any of the actual enemies, and did not fight the first boss. My recommendation to you is that you don't make the same mistake. Go up to the refund point before making a decision. It's a slow burn, but it more than earns its comparisons to Katana Zero and Sekiro.
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 19 December 2024 00:48 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 20 January 2025 19:08 |
| Steam price | 22 January 2025 20:50 |
| Steam reviews | 21 January 2025 10:02 |
Online players
1,043
Developer
RedCandleGames
Publisher
RedCandleGames
Release
28 May 2024
Platforms