Im having a hard time figuring out where to start in unpacking my thoughts on Nine Sols, their pullulation of which make them hard to grasp . Im going to try coming at this in a more procedural way, starting with more superficial things I could say and digging deeper from there. The most useless thing I could say about Nine Sols is: its one of the best games Ive ever played in an era of some of the best games ever made.

The next thing I want to say that is a little clumsy but I dont think I can leave out: Nine Sols is Hollow Knight if, instead of “Dark Souls meets Metroid”, it was 30% Metroid and 70% Sekiro. This isnt a shallow comparison, Nine Sols directly shares some conventions with Hollow Knight (map acquisition, charm analogue, pogo-style platforming) but with a reduction in the platforming and map complexity in favor of more dedicated combat systems. As a Metroidvania curmudgeon, this ratio of influences suits me so much more.

Heres the rub tho: very few games even begin to come close to Fromsofts level of quality and combat spectacle, especially Sekiros - so its in fact breathlessly exciting that Nine Sols, a game made by a dev who previously only made horror games, manages to stand shoulders with titans and deliver some of the most badass combat experiences in gaming to date. Part of what drives me the most in video games is “gamefeel”, a term used somewhat nebulously but which for me refers to the experience of moving around in the game world. Nine Sols has a sense of speed and momentum, youre zipping back and forth around your enemy leaving them pockeyed with explosions in your wake; youre leaping into the air to bounce and fling yourself between the deflections of your enemies attacks like some sort of lethal bird poised to swoop down and deliver a flurry of blows in every brief window you can find. To me this is like opium, the humming nirvanaous frequency my mind vibrates at while it processes the complex array of swords and knives being thrown my way is the closest thing to euphoria Ive ever experienced without a heavy prescription and I cannot overstate how much I fucking love that shit.

I feel like I need to expound on this. Theres just...... something about the sensation of being airborne in a video game. When its done right theres a mezmerizing and immensely satisfying rhythm to sustaining the lofting of your character. Its surprising then how rare this is, among action games, how terrified most games are to let you waft and fly around an arena. The crown is left uncontested for Nine Sols as it engineers moments of fluttering aerial jousting, swaying in elliptical lateraluses through your enemies with motions that feel vageuly Tai-Chi. "There is frankly not enough here" cries the man hopelessly addicted to the flow state.

But it wasnt good enough that Nine Sols could exceed my expectations just as an action game, no, Red Candle had to also somehow create a dense, expertly crafted, brilliantly laid-out taoist parable of ambition and suffering. The withholding, secretive style of narrative popularized by the Souls games is fashioned into a faceted character-driven drama in an unexpected and kinda visionary sort of way. Red Candle demonstrates an almost capricious amount of creative range, even somehow figuring out ways to infuse Nine Sols with moments of their horror pedigree. On a kickstarted budget of $420,000 Nine Sols eclipses the stories of AAA games working with 10x the financial backing, hands down, not even close. Who the hell let them cook??? For as excellent as Fromsofts work is, you wanna know one thing their games usually dont do? Make me mfing cry during the ending !! Shout it so people in the back can hear you: “Hurt People hurt people”.

this is gonna be one people debate endlessly about

is it better than 2016, is it the right direction for doom, is that really the ending they went with, all these questions that may never get answered except for that last one

as im sure you know by now, this is very different from 2016 which is the absolute best thing for it. going from a game about being the autarch of destruction to a first person shooter with immense depth in its mechanics is a uncharacteristically subtle change that makes a world of difference, which is exactly what a sequel needs

doom eternal is hard as shit but its tacticality in how you "rip" and "tear" as one might say makes every shootout engaging as hell. some fights are a bit reliant on having enemies with too much health or just spawning a bunch of them, but despite that minority of lame fights the combat itself is inherently extremely engaging.

theres a lot more to this game that i could get into, but the core loop itself is so great that you have to play this game simply for that.

In my humble opinion, this game is damn near perfection. You can tell the team at iD really learned how to spice things up from their last foray with the series. Everything feels like a major step up combat, traversal, and level design wise. The only gripes that I have with this game are the sound design and boss fights. The boss fights are a given, as they have always been the weakest part of this series. However, the sound design is inexcusable, mostly due to corporate sabotage from iD Software higher-ups to Mick Gordon and Chad Mossholder. Every gun sounds like a wet fart and the soundtrack transitions are jarring as hell. Yet if those are my only complaints about the game, then I would honestly say this game is worth it. The main Campaign and horde are just such a blast. The DLC is very take-it-or-leave-it though.