Look, it may be the endorphin high talking, but Nine Sols is an absolute masterpiece – easily my favorite game of the year thus far. Sekiro meets Hollow Knight, it’s a tired description, sure, but gives a good idea of what type of experience this game is; if you enjoy either of those titles, Nine Sols is absolutely a must-play title. Personally, I was sold on that elevator pitch for the gameplay, but upon playing the title I was shocked at how I was so completely taken by the worldbuilding, characters, and narrative – a surprising feat within the Metroidvania genre.

The Sekiro DNA is clearly visible, Red Candle Games explicitly labels Nine Sols as Sekiro-inspired when it comes to the deflection gameplay. Imitation can only get you so far, we’ve seen that play out with the dozens of Souls imitators that have cropped over the years, there seems to be a certain secret sauce that FromSoft adds to their titles that so few can replicate. Nine Sols has that sauce. Nine Sols creates a basic gameplay loop, borrowing parries/perfect parries from Sekiro and morphing it into its own unique spin on the formula that they can continuously expand upon to create breathtaking sequences with all the spectacular bosses. There is a perfect escalation in the boss design, gameplay elements are introduced then the bosses will test you on that knowledge; this structure allows for a ramping difficulty that culminates in an intensely satisfying final boss, the perfect exit exam. I was so entranced by the flow state nature of the game that I took to recording my boss fights, a practice I never do, just so I could rewatch my gameplay and wonder at the result. There is a beautifully captivating dance-like quality to the fights, teetering on the edge, a hair’s breadth from both success and failure. Nine Sols’ combat captivated me in a way that so few games are able, I desperately need a boss rush mode in my life.

The other half of the gameplay formula—the surprising half—is the world and narrative of Nine Sols. From a gameplay perspective, Nine Sols is a standard Metroidvania, it has a varied map full of little secrets to uncover - maybe less exploration-rich than other titles in the genre. Honestly, I prefer this leaner style of Metroidvania, don’t get me wrong, I loved the secret-laden world of Hollow Knight, but it can be overwhelming and overly recursive at times. The real magic lies within the substance filled in around the Metroidvania skeleton structure, it’s a beautifully imaginative “Taopunk” world, the confluence of Taoist elements and cyberpunk. This unique aesthetic combined with the gorgeous hand-drawn art leaves Nine Sols as one of the best-looking Metroidvanias on the market. The Taoism isn’t just for the looks, it’s infused within the narrative and overall lore of the universe, from basic references to Taoist principles to characters and arcs paralleling classic Taoist stories. My knowledge on Taoism can be generously described as surface-level, but it’s compelling to see the overt inspirations, my favorite example being Lady Ethereal’s obvious allusion to the Zhuangzi parable The Butterfly Dream. I am certain there are many, many examples that went far over my head, but I was entertained by the references I could parse. At the forefront of Nine Sols is an unexpectedly prominent narrative that’s surprisingly emotional and gripping; it’s a story of ambition, loss, and redemption all interwoven with classic Taoist virtues and lessons. Throughout the game, you’re constantly visiting the hub area for this game, the Pavilion, which houses a small number of characters with interesting side quests, it’s a good case of quality over quantity for characters in Nine Sols, there’s only a few, but they’re all (mostly) phenomenal. In your repeat visits, you’ll gradually build rapport with your companions, and by the end of the game, I was heavily invested in all their fates. Nowhere is this more relevant than your main companion, Shuanshuan, a young human boy raised as livestock for the Solarians, the feline race that you play as – Shuanshuan is perfectly emblematic of Nine Sols as a whole, bursting at the seams full of heart, it’s impossible to not love the curious little guy. As the relationship with Shuanshuan deepens, I found myself motivated to explore and overcome the bosses, just so I could bring the little guy his next bauble, it’s great. The overall narrative of Nine Sols is a standard story of revenge but executes on that classic structure perfectly and connects you to characters with surprising depth, seriously, my grown ass shed tears at multiple points.

It's a crime that this game has been overlooked by many, if only the endless crowds clamoring for Silksong would give this one a go, I’m sure they’d be absolutely floored. An incredibly strong contender for my game of the year, an experience I surely won’t forget.

Visually stylish, sure, but completely vapid otherwise. The meat of this game is navigating menus—which themselves suck in terms of useability—and reading text; there is very, very little propping up this experience from a gameplay perspective. ZZZ feels like a massive step backwards; Mihoyo has an unlimited pool of cash, which is demonstrated in the visuals, but everything else feels like a considerable downgrade from their previous titles. My biggest question from what I've played so far, I honestly want to know who the fuck looked at the TV gameplay and approved it? The TV gameplay appears to be designed as some sort of sedative for digital administration, it completely obliterates the pacing and drags down an already gameplay-lite experience with even less gameplay. I'd be more hesitant to bash ZZZ if the combat picked up the slack, but unfortunately, it's just barely passable. Trite parry/dodge mechanics whilst spamming normal attacks on unreactive, dull enemies... bravo Mihoyo, how innovative. Look, if all you're here for is big-titty-goth-shark-maid-lady, go for it (I get it), but if you're playing ZZZ for fun, there's very little here, don't even give it a chance to grab you with its greasy, gacha-tainted fingers.

Given my love for the base game, the expansion felt like a foregone conclusion; to no one’s surprise, this expansion is terrific, but I really enjoyed the ways that Shadow of the Erdtree expanded and remixed the base game.

As far as expansions go, Shadow of the Erdtree is meaty, it's easily half the size of the base game - bigger doesn't always been better though. A large criticism of the base game is that a lot of the experience feels superfluous, unneeded fluff to pad the world; I disagree, but I understand the charge. Shadow of the Erdtree feels much more focused in its approach, gone away are all the minor dungeons, replaced by much more elaborate dungeons at the cost of frequency. The exploration loop feels similar but lacks the stops into those repeated crypt or cave dungeons, the result is a leaner experience, but the fat-cutting feels calculated and exact. Given this is an endgame expansion, it falls outside of the typical progression curve, a lot of players will already be full build with maxed out weapons. Incentivizing exploration by offering more robust locations that result in new, shiny weapons and spells is a great solution - and you’re given plenty of materials to upgrade those new toys. As a result, I found the exploration loop to be incredibly compelling, continuing the base game trend of rewarding thoroughness without inundating the experience.

Extrinsic rewards aside, I’d explore this expansion just for the beauty of it. The art direction is unparalleled, you get the sense that you’re constantly playing in a painting. From serene neon flower fields to otherworldly finger-filled craters, Shadow of the Erdtree is a constant feast for the eyes. This is nothing new of course, Elden Ring was absolutely jaw-dropping as well, but it’s worth mentioning that the expansion matches it in variety and direction. That feeling of descending into Siofra River for the first time? This expansion has that in several places, it’s fucking fantastic.

Difficulty, oh boy the difficulty. As with all conversations on difficulty in Souls games, it’s a contentious topic, but more so with this expansion. Shadow of the Erdtree is hard, like real fucking hard, and I reckon many will be put off by the noticeable spike in difficulty. I had just replayed some of the game in preparation for the expansion, so I was fairly warmed up, but I’d wager that there are many hopping back in and proceeding to get their teeth kicked in due to the combined effect of the increased difficulty and their own rustiness. There’s no handholding here, railroading you from fodder enemies up to late-game stuff, no, everything is tough as nails throughout the expansion (especially those fucking birds, fuck the birds). I’m a big fan of what Fromsoft did to solve the problem of varying player power levels with the Scadutree fragment system; it’s a great solution for standardizing difficulty and acts as a great incentive to explore the world. The system does feel absolutely necessary though, I could see a player neglecting this system and having a terrible experience as a result.

Nowhere else is the uptick in difficulty more noticeable than in the bosses, holy shit they’re not for the easily frustrated. Most major bosses, with a few exceptions, are more akin to Malenia than they are to, let’s say, Margit. These are proper endgame bosses with multiple phases and expansive move sets that have long, high damage combos. The margin of error with these encounters is razor thin, windows for attacks or recovery are much smaller, you absolutely need to be locked the fuck in… and I love it for that. Maybe I’m a masochist, but I’ve always loved the escalation with FromSoft expansions, and this just feels like the natural next step for Elden Ring. Nothing ever feels quite as bullshit as Malenia’s Waterfowl Dance, thankfully, but some attacks come damn close. I do want to talk about two standouts for me, both good and bad, so spoiler warning for the next two paragraphs.

First the good - Putrescent Knight, such a fun fight, absolutely loved it. It feels like a simple fight in comparison to some of the other major bosses, but I just found the move set incredibly satisfying to face. The dismount combo he has is just chef’s kiss and I enjoyed the large AOE flame attack that you had to jump over (I just find jump dodges underutilized and therefore interesting). I loved the visuals of the fight, evoking one of my Bloodborne favorites in Orphan of Kos, but on a slime horse, it’s just so fucking peak paired with the score for the fight. Loved it, loved it, loved it.

Now, maybe a hot take, I don’t know the consensus since many are still yet to get to this one, but I was very, very disappointed with the final boss, Radahn: The Squeakquel. I have no inherent problem with the reuse of Radahn, but as the swansong to Elden Ring as a whole… it’s lame as hell. Say what you want about Elden Beast (you can now ride Torrent in that fight btw), but I found the whole Radagon/Elden Beast to be the perfect capstone as an encounter; the crumbling god that we all expected and the truly alien god creature underneath. Radahn certainly feels somewhat unexpected, but not in a good way, I would’ve preferred they parallel the base game ending and end it with something a bit strange; I reckon some eldritch creature heavily inspired by angels would’ve absolutely banged. I have no problem including Radahn, but give him the Hoarah Loux treatment, put him as the appetizer to the final encounter. The fight itself is fine, he’s certainly difficult and feels like a proper final boss, but he is a bit spammy and lacked an attack I found satisfying to deal with. His real issue is visual clarity, there is so much going on it’s hard to keep track of attacks and causes significant performance drops during some of his flashier moves. Just very disappointed given the last two DLC final bosses FromSoft has given us, Orphan of Kos and Slave Knight Gael, were absolutely perfect. Also, the boss weapon from this encounter just being two alternate versions of an existing weapon is just so fucking lame.

That negativity aside, I enjoyed this expansion immensely, it was the perfect companion to Elden Ring, and I’d go as far as to say it’s the best expansion FromSoft has put out yet (that feels heretical to say given The Old Hunters, but hey, here we are). An absolute feast, perfectly complimenting and revising the base game - a truly special expansion to punctuate a truly special game.