Everything wrong with Nine Sols (An analysis)

If you want to try Nine Sols until SilkSong comes out, you need to WATCH THIS VIDEO.
Nine Sols is the latest game by Red Candle Studio that got Hollow Knight fans' attention. The latest Metroidvania is so similar to Team Cherry's beloved Platformer: Hollow Knight and made news with its amazing quality.
Let's put Nine Sols to the test, and look for all the problems in the world of New Kunlun.
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Soundtracks used in this video:
Smile at my Cursed dream (Lady Ethereal theme)
Nine Sols - Main Theme
Nine Sols - The Lone Sole
Jiequan Theme - Ballad of Warriors

Video chapters:
Intro: 0:00
First Chapter: 0:58
Second Chapter: 3:37
Is it worth buying?: 5:55

[MaluCristallord]

My two counter points:

1:39 "That's not true at all, because stuff like this happens, it's just bad design"
Maybe elaborate? We don't have an universal design philosophy for action games like this to always include i-frames after getting hit. Enemies knock you back even if you parried the attacks, AND you can dodge after you get hit in a fairly short time, both of which let you maintain a safe distance. Which means the game was designed around not having i-frames. Another example of how another game being designed with no i-frame in mind is NieR: Automata where the player doesn't get i-frames after getting hit by default, instead there are plug-in chips that provide i-frames. In conclusion, how the game was designed with no i-frames is the topic that should be discussed here, not the lack of i-frames itself.

4:52 "And of course it's wrong to put big chunks of text in a videogame."
God of War 2018 and Ragnarök have something to say right here. Again, we don't have an universal design philosophy for games to always not put big chunks of texts in it. It's a design choice which you can disagree or not, but saying it's "of course wrong" is a bit too much of an extent.

I appreciate the video though, there are valid points like enemy variety problem mentioned.

[Jockolantern]

The only thing wrong with Nine Sols is that it ends. God damn, what a fantastic game.

[NiNjaDoh]

My only problem with this game is that it's over now. I beat it and I can't take that back.

[sgtSerGUNt]

If we have to compare every metroidvania with Hollow Knight, I'll say this: I don't remember shit about Hollow Knight's story or lore after I beat the game, but I completely understood the story and the lore of Nine Sols after one playthrough without even watching a 40 min video explaining it. It was tedious to read sometimes, not gonna lie, but I appreciated the story at the end.

You can have an argument that when you get knocked down, it's often followed by several consecutive hits, and it's frustrating, I agree, but Hollow Knight's temperal invincibility after being hit that came from the 90's is not an answer, and it wouldn't suit the Sekiro-like gameplay.

And I don't get what's so good about dozens of different enemies and bosses in Hollow Knight when they have one or two attacks. I prefer quality over quantity.

[deriveepoch]

About I-frames: I think devs didn't add them because they don't mesh well with combos bosses like to make. You just take one hit from barrage of attacks that could be parried, and just ignore the rest of them to deal more damage to the boss. And damage is not fixed hard either, as well as healing. Though, maybe, it's just the matter of longevity of the I-frames, and if you make them relatively short, you may achieve good balance. But that's not certain.

[oliviergagnon]

4:14 this charm is one the best charm in the game and change the gameplay considerably. Like hollow knight…

[mechanicalspecter]

Honestly, I think I had pretty mutch the opposite experinence, playing the game. I respectfully disagree.

[PintheElfKingdom]

Disagreed on the iframe. I personally don't have a problem without it. Just had to learn how to position better.

[sargonblade]

1. You dont get i frames because the game is parry based, hollow knight isnt, so you need to get punished for missing parries on attack chains, also you get a wake up dash skill

2. Jades are not as diverse as charms because the games combat is more complex that hollow knights one, so every small change from the jade can foment a different playstile on your end

The game is not perfect, no game is, but its a masterpice and those are not valid complains

[chicken]

Regarding i-frames, there's a skill called "Swift Rise" that you can use. If you dash at the right moment during a combo, the lack of i-frames doesn't really matter. You can also avoid attacks by timing your parries correctly, so I think it's not a big issue. Additionally, combining "Harness Force Jade" with "Focus Jade" can be quite interesting. You should try it.

As for narrative techniques, despite being a Souls-like game, they attempted to use a linear storytelling approach. I believe everyone has different views on fragmented storytelling versus linear storytelling, so I don't dismiss your perspective on their narrative style. However, I think the game's narrative doesn't significantly impact the gameplay experience. The developers have concentrated the narrative elements in one place, called the "Four Seasons Pavilion, " to avoid interruptions during combat, so you won't suddenly have to read text in the middle of a fight. For someone like me who doesn't have much time to decipher fragmented storytelling, I really appreciate this narrative approach.

[joppetto]

I agree with a bunch of points. Once you get hit with one attack from an enemy's combo, you may as well give up, because you can't avoid the consecutive attacks.

The standard enemies become tedious to keep fighting because they are an effort. The game doesn't really allow you to have a whack, kill them and move on. The enemies slow the flow, so I just started running past them.

None of the Jade's have been appealing. They don't seem to do enough, or rather, you can only use 1 of them for a big chunk of the start of the game. Can't add more for ages

[АнненковАртемий]

I agree with most of the takes. I wouldn't really call them flaws, just inconveniences.
But I don't agree about a Jade system.
1. Charged attack after a parry costs 1 slot (which is a huge pro), while giving you a charged attack immediately after an enemy combo. By itself it at least gives you more damage for the first attack, while also synergizing with all the charged strike jades. And with some of the late bosses giving you timings for only one attack it essentially doubles your damage if you can get it consistently for 1 jade slot
2. While not being as diverse conceptually as charms in hk, they're a lot more balanced around each other. I had fun being hk trying various builds, it became apparent that the more you progress just building into nail with minor situational tweaks becomes more and more effective among all others. But in nine sols I've seen myself and the other players beating the final boss in several distinct ways, moving and acting differently while having roughly the same overall dps.

[coralreef]

The only thing wrong about Nine Sols, is that there isn't enough Heng to go around :(

[willayala]

I don’t have any issues with reading in game descriptions. In my opinion it’s great world building. When used with visual narrative building moments. In my opinion what I don’t like about this game is the difficulty, and the tedious amounts of platforming areas. It gets frustrating when you have to redo something over and over. What is frustrating about the difficulty is the fact that your basic attack feels so weak and even the talismans don’t feel like they do much compared to how quickly you can die to a boss in like three hits or less. It’s a great game but I had to switch to story mode once I got to lady ethereal. It’s a great was just really frustrating. And I have played all dark souls, hollow knight, Elden ring, bloodborne etc. To me this game is trying to be difficult for the sake of being difficult. And when you do defeat the boss it just doesn’t feel as rewarding. The sols add nothing to your characters performance. And there are no jades to add to your strength or health resistance. In my opinion that’s the whole point of powering up but when I’ve maxed out my level and still I don’t feel any better than when I started the game.

[randylazaro]

theres a skill in nine sols where you can recover, not to mention this game isnt hollow knight, which is why theres the parry mechanic, its a very punishing heavy game and if you dont parry or try to play the game like hollow knight youll erm kinda get eaten alive, thats why theres different types of parrying as u progress frfr, i didnt really have an issue w iframes i had lots of fun w them

[verxw]

I dont agree with alot of the points made. The story being told with so much dialogue is a bit of an issue, but the story was captivating enough to ignore it. For only 30 bucks, you get a solid 25 hours of a great story and gameplay. The setting is amazing, and i think this will stick with me for a while. The bosses were just amazing, and it has made me want to play more metroidvanias.

[ahmadalghamdi]

Honestly i think letting HK or soulslike/metroidvania standards cloud your judgement is stupid in general, I enjoyed hollow knight and enjoyed sekiro and enjoyed nine sols, not because i believed it was a mix of these two I enjoyed but because this game had much great stuff to offer simply

[dmnoodle]

I agree on the storytelling, there's so much dialogue/descriptions that just says nothing or goes nowhere. The story as a whole was very weak in this game with only Heng and the wandering robot being interesting characters

[TrixyTrixter]

I have not watched yet. My only problems with the game...

Iframes

Goumang being left with the mind collar after the fight and never having anything more. (To me feels like they set up something since she was not killed so its immensely unsatisfying.)

Last boss being way harder than anything before it to a ridiculous degree. Just left me feeling "Finally its fing done..." rather than satisfaction.

[HurricaneKXZ]

It’s better jades are more reserved than charms, in Hollow Knight the entire gameplay variation depends on charms and how you decide to play. For Nine Sols you have 3 different talisman attacks, 3 different arrows, jades and the talisman transmutations (not viable for bosses)