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”.

In all honesty, I shouldn't be giving this a 10/10. The gameplay was really fun throughout this campaign, and the narrative was surprisingly competent, making it a godsend among Destiny DLCs, but still just a "good at best" narrative and nothing spectacular compared to its peers. The Pale Heart is beautiful, and D2's skybox team outdid themselves once again, and I think is the part of this expansion that could be considered outstanding, even when compared to other great games. Even with all that, in no way should this be a 10/10.

But still, I can't help but cry seeing the end of this story that I've been following nearly since the beginning. This made up such a big chunk of my teenage years, and it's how I made bonds with people that I call very close friends to me nowadays. I'm glad Bungie pulled out and wrote an ending that did my time spent on this god-forsakened-game justice, and I can't help but feel such melancholy over it. Seeing the end to this saga is making me feel all these different emotions and honestly, most of them are good. Going forward, I don't think I'll be revisiting Destiny (after I beat the crazy ass new raid) now that the game I've been following for the past decade is technically over, and honestly, somehow Bungie's best work on Destiny is what gets me to quit the game, and I'm fine with dropping the game forever now.

Y'know, I never thought I'd ever say this, but...
I'm glad to have experienced Destiny.


(Additional Note: Don't buy this for full price as Triple A prices still suck and like unless you're someone who played Destiny for a decade like me, it's most likely not that good for you as it was for me. Wait for a sale, it's still a solid DLC and the raid is pretty damn cool with its 4th encounter.)

In the same time that a end of a cycle brings a feeling of insecurity for the future, it also gives a sense of pride, because everything ended after our many ups and downs, and the Final Shape ending is the exactly representation of that.

I'm impressed that even with the many flaws and problem Destiny has and had, they could bring a excellent closing for the Darkness and Light saga, something that many things couldn't get to do.

Now i'm here, feeling anxious of what will become of Destiny, but being curious of what the future reserves for this game.

A part of me was blown away from the expansive environments. The way the skyboxes just look otherworldly. How kinetic movement and combat feels. How engaging each exotic is and how they can drastically change your playstyle. The wonder of what the next game from the dudes that made Halo felt finally lived with this expansion. Bungie is at their best when they craft a semi-linear story experience. From the campaign, to watching the raid race, that led to this never before seen final event, like this was endgame or something was just cool as fuck.

Then another part of me remembers why I don't dedicate my entire life to this game like I thought I would when I was in 11th grade. The live service part of this. I always come back and play whatever the expansion is or at least check out every new season, but something about Destiny 2 doesn't slap as much as the first one. Even though abilities are way more impactful, and it truly feels like a RPG shooter that it was harped up to be back then. Especially with the new Prismatic class, which is what I've always wanted out of Destiny's power system since the start. I just can't truly dip all the way back in this game anymore.

There's a bigger story to tell that I decree on my soapbox for the eleventh time about MMOs and how that golden age of community will never exist again, but that's not what you're reading for. For the record, I genuinely tried to get back into Destiny 2 before Final Shape. I geared up, farmed some exotics, got some masterwork gear, got as much as I could from the thousands of legendary shards, stocked up bounties, did some raids, farmed dungeons for god rolls, joined LFGs and Sherpas on a nightly basis on anything anybody needed another body for.

I even did something taboo...put my headset on and talked with strangers on a regular basis. "You guys gotta mic?". Chilling I know...

But as I enjoyed my time playing the content and finally mastering the clusterfuck of a UI, I felt the looming elephant in the room. I just enjoyed playing with randoms, speculating on what the Final Shape raid is going to be, talking about what's going to happen with Destiny 3 or Marathon, reminiscing about doing Raids for the first time in Destiny 1 and the beta. Then I'd hear that one guy, "Bro what the hell is that roll on your Mousekatoole. Why are you even running that exotic bro what the hell that shit is D tier bro. Bro doesn't know the mechanics, oh my god"

I'm not one to usually have other people ruin my experience. This is coming from a guy that runs a War Rock deck in Yugioh. I'm just not a competitive player. Even when I do competitive things, I'll go off-meta or don't follow guides because I like discovering and theory crafting on my own. What's meta might not be my play style. I just do my own thing. So this is very off-putting for someone that's primary Destiny 1 group were the owns to sit down at the tower and talk about life, we would stop and smell the roses staring at Vex Architecture discussing what it all could mean. I was with the lore heads that loved to sit and talk about what's going on in the greater destiny mythos and how what we're doing correlated. I loved that because that's what I loved about Halo.

I was one of those kids that read the books. I sat with friends during sleepovers talking about what they'll adapt with the new Reach game while searching for out of bounds clips and secrets. Because I don't have a friend group that's down to jump into games like this, and the random match made player base won't be that way either, I'm just stuck in a limbo state. While I love collecting exotics and doing random missions, I don't like being rushed through it. Destiny 2 is a forever game, you're meant to be constantly doing something.

The treadmill is on like speed 7 with this game and as a filthy casual I can't keep up. I done broke my ankle falling off the ramp. Not to mention how obtuse the monetization has become, making it hard to get said friend group to even join to play with me through this experience, or else cough up like 90 bucks to start. I really did like Bungie ass Borderlands for what it did for real. I guess this is a more general review of Destiny as an entity, as this is the "finale" or whatever.

It sucks cause frfr if it really was just bungie ass borderlands, then this would be Destiny 3, and it would've hit like a bitch rn.

*Played as part of the Master Chief Collection

I think this might be the best Halo game?
It's just the perfect sequel and prequel to all that came before it, with a tight, harrowing story, told through great cinematics and pulse-pounding gameplay. They were seriously cooking with the story on this one, not only with the contents, but the actual cinematography used in the cutscenes is movie-level. It was a joy to watch. Unlike ODST, I actually felt emotionally connected to the characters of Noble Team as well.
Gameplay-wise, adding abilities like sprint and jetpack makes the player experience that much more fun and open to experimentation. Sure, we lost some features like dual-wielding and the Battle Rifle, but the game just feels so much more fast-paced and you feel like a total badass ditching empty guns mid-fight to keep fighting the overwhelming forces.
I don't think it's my favourite Halo game - Halo 2 still holds that title - but this is definitely a close second. It's also mechanically the superior entry, which is why I'm giving it a perfect score.