9 Years of Shadows (2023)

Sadly, I gave up on this game right before the final boss. I was going for 100%, which involves completing the bestiary. Unfortunately if you kill a boss using the projectile attack you are given, it doesn't count it in th bestiary... I had two of these and the bosses do not respawn.

That coupled with a VERY strange decision in the third act to completely change the healing system and remove your projectile attack meant that I just gave up on finishing out of frustration.

Positives are the simply amazing pixel art and character art, wow. This game is beautiful. I am sad I won't be finishing it.

This game is… alright. It has some stuff going for it - beautiful pixel art (similar quality as Blasphemous), interesting combat mechanic, smooth controls. Some really fun boss battles.

But there’s just not much beneath the surface. The level design feels very repetitive. Exploration and room designs rarely feel unique. I couldn’t stand the lore or the story as a whole. And same with the art direction - great execution though.

I’m sure many will like it, but it’s one I know for sure I won’t play again. By the end I just was ready to move on.

This mexican game is a classical style metroidvania with fun combat, tight controls and colorful pixel art. It owes a lot of its style to Symphony of the Night, but it has a personality of its own and no RPG mechanics to muddle things. It also has a very clear anime inspiration.

I have a nice time with it, but it has a lot of problems. I found a lot of bugs and crashes (I really hope those are patched in the release version), the music was just ok and the plot is a mess. The exploration is also very light, with the secrets very easily found.

You can read my full review in spanish in GamerFocus: https://www.gamerfocus.co/juegos/9-years-of-shadows-resena-critica-analisis-opinion-metroidvania-mexico/

As I said in the review, is not an amazing game, but it is good enough to have a nice time. It can help you scratch the metroidvania itch while Silksong finally arrives.

Checked out the demo for this, it's a Symphony of the Night clone with colorful art direction and some Mega Man X influence. The upgrades on offer were incredibly rote (double jump, charged attack), and a number of visual and input bugs made the demo feel quite unfinished, but I did really enjoy jump cancelling the traditional Alucard backdash to zoom backwards across rooms at nonsense speed.

Me 20 seconds into the trailer: Oh 🤩, nice anime opening, kind of Saint Seiya meets Sailor Moon, I'm intrigued.
Me 35 seconds into the trails: Oh 😕, a 2D metroidvania with retro pixel art graphics..

I hate when games do this...

BTW, something I noticed about myself is that I a sucker for a good "magical girl" transformation sequence. That was a big part of why I liked Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth (known in Latinamerica as "Las guerreras mágicas"), Cyber Team in Akihabara, and my favourite part of Senran Kagura :P