Nine Sols

The 2D Sekiro pitch sounds risky, and somehow RedCandleGames actually pulled it off

Nine Sols is one of those games where the simple pitch is almost too clean: what if you took Sekiro-style deflection combat, shoved it into a hand-drawn 2D action-platformer, then wrapped the whole thing in Eastern sci-fi, Taoist philosophy, and a revenge story that gets way sadder than you expect? That sounds like a gimmick. It isn’t. This is the real deal.

The big win is the combat loop. You’re not just dodging and chipping away at health bars. You’re standing your ground, reading attacks, deflecting, building Qi, and cashing that pressure in with talismans. When it clicks, it feels vicious. Boss fights turn into these tight little duels where one panic jump can get you wiped out, but one clean parry string makes you feel untouchable. Sekiro is still the sharper 3D duel game, sure. But Nine Sols has its own thing going on. The talisman and skill options give you more room to shape how you fight, and the 2D view means you’re not wrestling the camera while a boss tries to erase you.

And honestly, the fact that this came from RedCandleGames is wild. This is the studio known for horror, and now they’ve made a polished, demanding, emotionally loaded action game that can sit in the same conversation as the genre’s big names. That’s not a cute little side-step. That’s a full-on transformation. The hand-drawn art is gorgeous, the Taopunk world has a real identity, and the music mixing erhu, guzheng, and electronics gives the whole thing this strange, mournful pulse. It doesn’t feel like Hollow Knight with a new coat of paint. It feels like Nine Sols.

The hype isn’t just noise: 94% on Steam, 86 on OpenCritic, and over 800,000 sold

Look, numbers don’t make a game good by themselves, but they do tell you when a lot of people are feeling the same thing. Nine Sols has a 94% Very Positive rating on Steam from 37,191 reviews. IGDB has it at 88.2 from 4 outlets. Metacritic sits at 84, and OpenCritic has it at 86 with 98% of critics recommending it, plus that “Mighty” label. Then you add sales passing 800,000, and yeah, this is not some tiny cult whisper anymore. This is a game that found its people.

The funniest part is that its TGA 2024 snub kind of made the conversation louder. A lot of players looked at the awards list, looked back at Nine Sols, and went, “Wait, how did this miss?” And I get it. Awards are awards. They’re not holy law. But when a game gets left out and the community response is basically, “No, you need to play this,” that says something. The reputation didn’t come from one flashy trailer. It came from players getting folded by bosses, pushing through, and then telling everyone else, “Trust me, it’s worth it.”

That said, this is an 8.5 out of 10 game for me, not a perfect one. The highs are incredible, but the friction is real. The parry windows are strict, bosses are fast, and some fights can delete you in two or three hits. Late-game cleanup can also get annoying because there’s no waypoint-style navigation holding your hand through every collectible. And once you’ve finished the story, it’s mostly a one-and-done single-player run unless you’re coming back for the combat itself.

Play it if you want pain with meaning; skip it if you just want a smooth weekend

Here’s who Nine Sols is for: if you like Sekiro because every boss feels like a test of nerve, and you like Hollow Knight because exploration can feel lonely, dangerous, and rewarding, this should be on your list. If you care about Eastern aesthetics, heavy lore, and a story that actually lands instead of just dumping proper nouns on you, even better. This game has a tragic, self-sacrificing edge that gives the fighting more weight than “go kill the next big guy.”

But if you hate high difficulty, don’t buy this just because it looks pretty. Seriously. The art may be beautiful, but the game is not soft. Optional platforming challenges can be nasty, bosses demand timing, and button-mashing will get you cooked. If you’re willing to use assist difficulty, great, there’s a way in. If you refuse that on principle and also don’t enjoy getting destroyed while learning patterns, then don’t act surprised when Nine Sols turns into a wall.

As for where to play it, I’d lean toward the version where you’re most comfortable with precise inputs. This is a timing game. Low input lag matters. A good controller or keyboard setup matters. On PC, the Steam version is the easiest recommendation simply because we can actually see the huge player response there: 94% positive from tens of thousands of reviews. If you’re choosing another platform, the real advice is simple: don’t play it in a compromised setup. This is not the game for a mushy screen, a bad controller, or distracted handheld half-attention.

So overall, Nine Sols is brutal, beautiful, and way more emotionally sharp than I expected. It’s not for everyone. But for the exact player it’s targeting, it’s one of the strongest action games of 2024.