DLCNine Sols SoundtrackLoading store offers
Nine Sols
Nine Sols pairs deflection-focused combat with a hand-drawn 2D world, so its appeal rests on learning enemy rhythms and exploring connected regions. At ≈ $16.18 from 
Kinguin, weigh that solo action-platforming against the price shown for Steam. The Steam player snapshot is 94%% positive across 40,767 reviews; those figures offer context rather than a promise of fit. If the game suits your plans, that combination of combat, exploration and story gives the purchase a specific reason beyond its genre label. Steam currently lists the game at $29.99; the comparable offer is ≈ $13.81 lower.
All-time low ~ $11.99across Steam & third-party stores
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Price History
Past 36 months · Updated dailyHistorical Low~ $11.992026-05Current Low Across Stores~ $29.99Steamvs. Historical Low+150%
Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.
01About Nine Sols
In Nine Sols, Yi crosses New Kunlun on a revenge quest against its nine rulers. This hand-drawn 2D action-platformer pairs deflection-focused combat and platforming with an interconnected world, boss fights, inhabitants who offer upgrades and abilities, and a story rooted in Taoist and science-fiction themes. Steam players: 94%% positive from 40,767 reviews. Steam PC supports Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Russian, Ukrainian, Portuguese-Brazil, Spanish-Latin America, Italian, Spanish, and Polish as interface languages.
Credits
Developer
RedCandleGames
Publisher
RedCandleGames
Lowest recorded in 36 months
$11.992026-05-11 · SteamBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.Language support
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | Yes | Yes | — |
| Traditional Chinese | Yes | Yes | — |
| English | Yes | Yes | — |
Show 11 more languages
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Japanese | Yes | Yes | — |
| Korean | Yes | Yes | — |
| French | Yes | Yes | — |
| German | Yes | Yes | — |
| Russian | Yes | Yes | — |
| Ukrainian | Yes | Yes | — |
| Portuguese-Brazil | Yes | Yes | — |
| Spanish-Latin America | Yes | Yes | — |
| Italian | Yes | Yes | — |
| Spanish | Yes | Yes | — |
| Polish | Yes | Yes | — |
Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-18
02Before you buy
Combat and exploration
Combat centers on attacking, deflecting and using Taoist talismans, alongside platforming. New Kunlun’s connected regions hold secrets, and inhabitants can provide upgrades and abilities.
Language and controller
Steam PC lists English, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese interface text, with subtitles and no full audio in those languages. Full controller support is listed.
03Frequently asked questions
What is Nine Sols about?
Yi awakens in New Kunlun and sets out to defeat the nine rulers. The story draws on Taoist ideas, Eastern mythology and science-fiction elements.
What does exploration involve?
Players travel through interconnected regions, discover secrets and meet inhabitants. Interactions can yield upgrades, abilities and useful technology.
What kind of fights does it feature?
Combat emphasizes attacking and deflecting, with talismans and a bow among Yi’s tools. The game also features boss fights and platforming.
8.5
Overall Score
Graphics9
Audio9.5
Gameplay9
Story8.5
Content6.5
“If you can stomach Sekiro-style parry duels, Nine Sols rewards your persistence with top-tier combat, art, and music, plus an eastern sci-fi tragedy that lingers for days. Push through the difficulty; it pays off.”
Our Verdict
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.
Popular Steam reviews
Native-language selection · 10 reviewsSelected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.
RecommendedSteam player
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.Show moreShow less
2.9 hours at review1,109 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I have tried to give this game a shot but it just isn't for me. Which is a huge shame. The game is so pretty. The soundtrack and atmosphere are amazing. I wish I could like this game but the game play and mechanics are just too infuriating for me. Some people like bullet hells but I'm not one of them and if I knew that going into the game I wouldn't have bought it. The enemies in this game are beyond frustrating. Most of the mini bosses are harder than the actual bosses. They spam crimson attacks and (at the point where I'm at) some of them summon clones of themselves and get you in a crimson attack lock. Where they hit you over and over again with very little time to react or counter and then I'm dead. A lot of the bosses attack you relentlessly with very little room to attack back. There's just too many elements during combat that you have to keep track of and it's frustrating. "Dash through that crimson. Jump and press L1. Parry 3 times then 2 times. He's dash attacking press L1. Jump and dash through that attack. Parry 2 times this time. Brief pause, then parry 3 times. Hold L1 then release." I just find the combat to be extremely frustrating and way to fast paced for me. To each their own of course, but there are just too many things that you have to react to and counter/dodge perfectly that it becomes not fun for me. Not even a compelling story and world atmosphere can keep me enthralled if the combat makes me rage at almost every enemy encounter. I saw people say that normal is actually really hard and I have to agree. I picked normal because I always pick normal but if I would've known the game would be this punishing I would have chosen the easier difficulty. As far as a metroidvania goes this is hardly one. I feel like the rewards you find are lackluster. I've upgraded my health substantially and yet every enemy encounter can kill me in 3-4 hits. I've upgraded my attack strength substantially as well but I don't feel any stronger. It's like you take 3 steps forward but the enemies take 2 steps forward with you. You're only slightly stronger after several minutes/hours of work. People keep comparing this game to Hollow Knight and I can see why. This game hates you and wants you to die at every opportunity. Just like Hollow Knight (Which I also didn't really enjoy). TLDR: This game had promise for me but this isn't the type of game that I enjoy. If the combat wasn't as infuriating then I would've loved to play this game, but I can't even fight a mini boss without losing my mind so I'm going to choose to walk away and never touch this game again. That being said, I don't hate the game. It's just not for me.Show moreShow less
22.1 hours at review83 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☑ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☑ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Game Size }--- ☐ Floppy Disk ☐ Old Fashioned ☑ Workable ☐ Big ☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive ☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it ☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☐ Easy ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☑ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☐ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☑ Isn't necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☐ Average ☐ Good ☐ Lovely ☑ It'll replace your life ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☐ Average ☑ Long ☐ To infinity and beyond ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☐ Worth the price ☐ If it's on sale ☑ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ Bugs }--- ☑ Never heard of ☐ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☐ 8 ☑ 9 ☐ 10Show moreShow less
36.1 hours at review573 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I want to temper the overwhelming praise that Nine Sols is getting, because I don't think the game deserves it. I think it's pretty decent but a little middling, and if you go in expecting that, you'll probably get more out of it. I personally played it because of all of the effusive praise, but I wish I had had more tempered expectations going in. I hope this review helps you with that. The combat is challenging and parry-heavy, which is a fun form of combat. And I like that you can regain some lost health, as it encourages a balance of carefulness and aggression. But for a game about parrying, I thought it was a strange choice to telegraph nearly ever enemy attack with a white flash right before you're supposed parry, which makes a lot of the parries easy to time. It really diminishes the challenge of learning enemy attack patterns. The most notable exception to this is the final boss, whose moves you have to learn without white flashes. Because most of the rest of the game operates differently, for some this might be a big learning curve, and it was for me too. But that was a fun fight, and the highlight of the game for me. The upgrade system is pretty flat. When it comes down to it, most of the upgrade tree is just +1 to something, with not a lot changing over the course of the game: not enough differentiation, and not enough addition to your skill set. The game did feel a lot more fun once you are able to dash mid-air, so it's a bummer that that it takes so long to get it. And the complete move set is fun, but overall it was a pretty shallow progression. Although others praise the story, just know that most of it has an anime-level depth, feeling overly sentimental, and with side characters who are flat tropes; towards the end I started skipping/skimming a lot of the dialogue with these characters. The Sols have more interesting things going on, and that part of the story has some strength. I wish the game focused more on that. There's also this bafflingly designed sequence near the end of the game where, for cinematic reasons, the game hides your health bar and ammo/heal count to zoom in on the action for several minutes as you fight your way through a seemingly endless hallway of enemies -- but you still have limited health, ammo, and heals; you just don't know what they are anymore! It was maddening and really spoiled the fun of that sequence and nearly made me quit for good. For those folks familiar with this type of sequence in games, you know that the more typical design is to hide your health/ammo, but then make it unlimited so that you can focus on the drama. There's a reason for that, and Nine Sols missed that reason, resulting in, frankly, a bad design. Overall, I think Nine Sols does some things pretty well, and I think it's worth giving a shot if you like this kind of game. But when examined closer up, it shows its flaws. (For reference, I love Hollow Knight and metroidvanias, and really enjoyed Bloodborne, Elden Ring, and Sekiro.)Show moreShow less
25.9 hours at review64 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
The biggest snub in Indie Game of the Year. One of the best games OVERALL for 2024. The fact it wasn't Indie GOTY or GOTY is disrespectful. 10/10, one of the most beautiful games I have ever played.Show moreShow less
25.3 hours at review478 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
First off i do like this game, the combat, love the art style, the story so far... but the balancing is terrible; The hit-reg box on some of the basic enemy and boss enemy attacks are way too wide / unprecise, to the point I'm being hit by thin air. The cool down on some enemy attacks is way too short, in particular the Centaur General whos charge attack stagger locks me every-other attempt killing me without giving me time to react, i even tried spamming parry while stagger locked and there literally isn't a window to even parry, jumping wont help cause the hit-reg is too big, and this isnt the only attack pattern that does this. Now it could be a 'skill issue' but he is probably the first major boss and i cant even get him to a quarter health, i die within generally 10 seconds of entering. Also just a quality of life thing, when entering a boss arena, can we have the option to skip or turn off the bosses starting animation because it makes the fight so much more tedious. The games level design and exposition needs work also unfortunately. There are a lot of empty rooms with hardly any secrets or diverting paths making the game feel very linear and a little uninspiring. Speaking of which, the exposition is very show AND tell rather than show and do not tell. Meaning the game explains basically everything to the player before or after it happens leaving little wonder and constantly dumps tones of text on you. Which leaves me conflicted as i do enjoy the game but with the price tag and it numerous problems leaves it difficult to recommend. As of writing this i haven't refunded the game but am considering doing so. Its a tricky one to answer, most will be fixable with updates but I feel the game should have launched with some of this corrected. I kinda wish there was a neutral rating on steam, as I cannot decide whether I do or don't recommend the game...Show moreShow less
2.6 hours at review64 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Stop waiting for Hollow Knight Silksong and play this!Show moreShow less
3.2 hours at review463 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
In order to force players into parrying rather than dodging attacks (especially late-game), the devs decided to give most attacks (especially boss attacks) absolutely HUGE hitboxes that do not correspond to the attack animation. This is on top of the already extreme tracking with enemies sliding around the screen toward your position with each attack. If you try to dodge, you will frequently get hit with a sword slash that is animated as being in front of the enemy when you are BEHIND the enemy. If the devs want to make a difficult game, that's fine! But they actively make it harder to learn attacks with bad animations that do not accurately convey the dangerous parts of the screen.Show moreShow less
20.6 hours at review55 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
I'm seeing a lot of unfair negative reviews about this game, which bothers me because Nine Sols deserves a bigger audience. Make no mistake, this is a difficult game. Parry mechanics aren't for everyone, and that's totally fair, but so many of these complaints about feeling weak are solved with a couple points in the skill tree, or just some basic game progression. People who haven't gotten past the second area are complaining about a lack of features the game hasn't introduced yet. Players stuck at early bosses are calling the combat unresponsive. 'Git gud' is a really obnoxious sentiment to hear during gruelling boss fights, no doubt, but I really encourage people to give this game a chance, take it slow, and push through some of the difficult opening hours. If it still feels really unforgiving, then play on story mode. You can adjust damage values in the settings mid-game. Yes, you won't get that achievement, but who cares? This is a singleplayer game, play how you want. Every boss, miniboss, and tough enemy that kicks your ass initially will eventually become second nature, especially as the difficulty curve flattens out, you get more upgrades, and most importantly, you learn the game more. Explore every corner, and don't hoard your money. Remember spots on the map to come back to later. Switch your Jades out for different situations. During new encounters, just play passive and learn the moveset. The talisman mechanic is very important, and finding moments to slap paper on enemies will pay off, doubly so if you use it to reposition. A Jade you get early that makes talismans stun enemies will help you get used it, but learn to keep a mental tab on how many you have as you deflect attacks and gain more charges. Experiment with the different types you get later, and find one that suits your playstyle. Every boss makes use of the parry mechanic, so if that's not your cup of tea, I wouldn't recommend the game to you, but if you've played Sekiro, you'll feel right at home here. The final boss of a game hasn't made me feel like such a baller since The Glock Saint himself. It's cocaine. That other Steam review is right - it's cocaine. The bosses in this game are tightly designed, with the great animation work showing off their tells before each attack. It's cocaine. You'll find yourself getting into a flow state where you're picking up patterns and learning how to counter each and every move. It's cocaine. Don't get discouraged from dying - it's part of the game, and you're expected to. But with a bit of patience and some quick reactions, this game CAN be mastered. It's cocaine. The visuals are just stunning. I haven't played a metroidvania this pretty since the Ori games, and both the Taopunk aesthetic and manga panels during key moments really give it a sense of style that adds to the already engaging story. The chilling opening sequence hooked me and made me want to discover what was going on in the massive facility you find yourself in. Fair warning to people drawn in by the charming character designs - the game has some dramatic tone shifts, and you will go from picking up bubble tea rations to exposed intestines in the span of a room. The atmosphere is also very eerie as you blitz through cyborg guards and mutated freaks to an absolute banger of a soundtrack full of chimes and distorted wailing. I personally could not get enough of it. I harpooned the backs of dragons and hid in storage containers filled with human meat and marvelled at the creative choices on display here. Did I mention the lovingly hand-drawn animations? It's all gorgeous. The game has built a rich world, with a lot of history before the time you start the game, and many characters are absolutely ancient. Each Sol (boss) runs a sector of the facility, and part of the fun as you go throughout their level is finding out how they've adapted (or contributed) to the crisis going on at the moment as your angry little rationalist hamster clashes philosophies with them and generally talks some mad Taoist ♥♥♥♥. Some of my favorite bits in this game come from when a Sol decided to introduce a new gameplay mechanic in their level - or completely switch genres in one case. The strongest of these segments come in the first two thirds of the game, but each level has a unique twist that makes for some interesting platforming. If you're a lore enjoyer like me, there's a lot to dig into here. You'll find loads of entries detailing the facility's many ethically questionable processes. You'll learn about dynasties, families and religious groups in power who had a hand in shaping the current world. You'll stumble on recorded hologram meetings that help put a timeline on the web of events that went on before the game's story. That's without even mentioning all the Taiwanese myths and symbolism inspiring this game that I'm too culturally stupid to catch. -- Some issues that could be fixed with a patch or two: Item Tracking: The true ending for this game requires picking up a loooot of collectibles, most of which you will find just by exploring and playing the game naturally. But if you missed one or two, scouring the map for them near the end of the game is a pain in the ass, which isn't helped by the barebones map markers. I think a simple "X artifacts/health upgrades left" for each area would help the pace of the game near the end if you're going for the 100%. Progression Guide: Similarly, your AI computer and a few other characters in the game will point you in a direction for the main story or a sidequest, and then never speak of it again. This was fine for me, as I played the game in big sessions, but I can easily see someone picking up this game after a busy week and getting lost or completely missing a sidequest location because it's mentioned in one dialogue box. Obviously, exploration should still be a priority for minor upgrades, but there should be one of those permanent orange markers whenever an important character offhandedly tells you to check a broom closet across the map. Arrow Switching: I'm not sure if this was a problem for anyone else, but the game would constantly switch around my arrow types throughout the game, even mid-fight. Maybe there was some quick-switch button combo I missed, but I lost many a boss run because I was expecting to stun a boss out of an attack with a laser arrow, and the game decided to randomly switch to another arrow type despite me never touching the menu since the fight started. -- These are nitpicks though, and the game is overall very well designed. I think Nine Sols may be the best metroidvania I've played in a long time, and I can't give it enough praise. I'm not sure why there was absolutely zero marketing for this game, but it's really sad that the Elden Ring DLC is right around the corner, because between that and the challenging gameplay, I'm not sure how much attention Nine Sols will get. Maybe some big name youtubers or streamers will pick it up and there can be a much needed spotlight for it. There is so much love put into this game, and I'd hate to see it fade into obscurity, especially with the popularity of Sekiro and Hollow Knight, which it borrows a ton from. Hopefully this review convinces at least a few people to try it out. Thanks Red Candle, I really hope you guys get the recognition you deserve. -- Overall: You chief a hit of that squong to heal. You get glad. You parkour into the exact same electric wall 14 times in a row and lose all your money. You get mad. You talk to any character in the game. You get sad. Red Candle, make a boss rush mode that pays for Shuanshuan's university tuition if you beat it. Or make a dating sim. I see some of those character designs, you ain't slick. The furries will go nuts. You'll make bank. Everyone wins. That idea's for free because this game is such a 10. I'm still annoyed I had to waste a third of this review telling people to play it. Buy Nine Sols. It's cocaine.Show moreShow less
27.4 hours at review462 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
My feelings on this game changed a lot during my playthrough of it, but now after having completed it, my conclusion is that I can not recommend it. It's a game with some really good aspects, but many more bad ones, and in the end the total amount of frustration I felt outweighed the positive experiences. A lot has been said about the game's difficulty, and the game is pretty difficult, although I wouldn't say extremely. I don't think any boss took me more than an hour or so in total (it has to be said I didn't get the true ending, which would probably have taken more). But even though the game wasn't super hard overall, the WAY in which it was hard was very often frustrating to me. Almost every boss has multiple phases, with each phase getting harder, and this gets increasingly annoying as the game progresses as you have to get used to learning each boss one phase at a time. The process is basically: use some attempts to finally get through the first phase, and then die quickly to the new attack in the second. Have to do the first phase again and again and again while learning second phase. Finally complete the second phase. Maybe get instakilled by the super-attack at the start of the third phase. Do first and second phase again and again. And so on. That isn't interesting difficulty to me, and I was really getting sick of it near the end. Most of the bosses would have been a lot better and a lot more fun to fight if the entire fight consisted of only their final phase. Aside from bosses, I found regular enemies challenging as well, but really only because I found their attacks extremely hard to read. The game is designed with this wonderful parry mechanic, and then they make enemies with such awkward animations and nonsensical hitboxes that there is never any flow to it. It never stopped being frustrating to me how difficult attacks were to judge, even for enemies I had fought lots of times. And finally, I found the overall design of the world itself and the progression of it to be a chore. The game is not really a metroidvania in the way I would use the word. It has a somewhat open world, but the progression is very linear. You pretty much do one area+boss at a time, until you are done. But the platforming and area traversal is sooo boring, there is so much waiting on platforms to appear or move, or hazards to disappear, and so on, and some of the areas are huge. The game also has multiple sections that are gimmick sections that drag on for way too long, like a stealth section, and some others that I can't really explain without spoiling. I hated all of these sections, and every time I was just relieved to be done. Especially the last hour or so of the game was terrible. And so this leads me to my conclusion: I would never consider playing through this game again. It was a chore to get through the first time. While bosses were sometimes fun, it would mean having to play through the rest of the game too, and I never want to do that. The combat is sometimes really good, but just as often really annoying, and doesn't make up for the frustration in the rest of the game. And that is in the end why I say that I can not recommend it.Show moreShow less
20.7 hours at review51 people found this helpful
Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.