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.
I didn't really compare them. Except for: 1.Enemies which I accept it was my fault, I could mention other games and my point would still remain. 2. Jades which I had to, because it was actually inspired by Charms. The narrative is a matter of different opinions, so we have to agree to disagree. Thanks for watching and sharing your opinion.
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.
You can say the same thing for every game. The problem is, even in those games, you can't ignore the rest of the attacks and start pushing blindly, because although you're invincible for now, the boss will corner you and won't let you breath. But I get why other people might like it. To each their own. Thanks for watching and sharing your opinion.
@@OldSoulGames the game's combat is designed around parrying, having no iFrames is not a fault or a flaw its intentionally designed, there is knockback attacks that give you s but if the attack doesnt do it its intentional, i think putting a personal preference about not liking a mechanic of a game as a "flaw" is misleading and you should label it as "what i dont like in nine sols"
I respect your opinion about i-frames, but about the second part of your comment... Everything in the world is a personal preference. There isn't a sole correct view that can be counted as standard and professional. There are many standards to do art and people choose one as the one true path based on their own mindset and taste, measuring everything with it. You can't talk about something without having an opinion on it.
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.
Sorry for taking too long to answer. 1. I did elaborate, before reaching that sentence. That's what I was doing by explaining why i-frame is necessary in a game. Yes, there isn't a universal code, but some things are basic foundations of a game. It's not law, it's being fair to the player. For instance, imagine you're designing a game in which the boss fight does 100 damage with each hit. Then you decide to put another attack that does 10000 damage, and there's no way to prevent it, or defend against it. This attack will definitely land every time and the player is always helpless against it. They can't do anything about it. There's no rule against something like this. You can say this is my game and that's how I do things here. But it definitely is bad design, for making something the player can never learn or master. In Nine Sols, sometimes the i-frame situation can be prevented by acting quickly, but sometimes it's literally impossible. Let me give you an example. Eigong's crimson attack would set the floor (and you) on fire. If you're using the revival jade and her crimson attack kills you, you'd revive again for half a second. But you're burning now and since there's no i-frame to keep you alive for a moment until the bonus health is regenerated in the health bar, you'll immediately die again without even taking any hit, making that jade useless. (Remember. All of this happens in half a second. You'll die twice without even noticing it.) 2. I actually agree with you on this. I shouldn't have generalized it. It's only my opinion. Sorry about that. Thanks for watching and reading all this.
“In Nine Sols, sometimes the i-frame situation can be prevented by acting quickly, but sometimes it’s literally impossible.” Brother THAT’S THE POINT, that’s how counter works in games. Taking your example of Eigong’s crimson attacks. Her crimson attacks are more telegraphed than the normal attacks, so they balanced the attacks by making the crimson attacks more punishing. Which they do so by ramping up the damage and the additional lingering fire, which counters the side dash and the revival effect. This isn’t unfair, you’re meant to take the L if you can’t evade or counter the attacks. And that’s how Nine Sols work. It’s supposed to be punishing on normal difficulty. If you have trouble surviving then play in story mode or git gud and stop whining.
You still don't know what i-frame is, do you? *sigh* For real? Are you seriously explaining to me what counter is? I didn't say the attack is impossible to parry or counter. I'm talking about what happens AFTER you've been hit. Did you even read my reply? YOU'LL DIE AND REVIVE AND DIE AGAIN IN HALF OF A SECOND. The revival jade is there to prevent you from dying, but since i-frame is too short, you'll die before the jade even triggers. I'd be happy to send you a clip of it on another social media platform if you still don't understand what I mean.
@@OldSoulGames So after my rebuttal to your claim about crimson attacks you decided to question my knowledge of i-frame and assumed me not reading your replies. Then say the same words again as you claimed earlier as your defense? You know what? This is wasting my time. I expected a better response like how you did in the first reply. But now I expect no more than you being blocked by me.
I answered your comment with respect, and then you decided to make me look illiterate by explaining what counter is and making cheap jokes about it. And when I acted like you did, you got hurt? You're right. This is a waste of time. Have a nice day.
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
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
Would disagree with pretty much every point. Some are simply wrong or are no longer current long before the video appears. For example, performance problems or serious bugs are virtually non-existent in the current version. Putting Hollow Knight's charms, most of which are super situational to gimmicky or completely overpowered, over the very balanced and well thought-out Jade system, which allows numerous viable builds, also speaks more for the fact that you haven't experimented much with them you didn't understand design either. The I-frames are the only point of contention. The game punishes you for being completely unresponsive - after all, if you make a bad parry, you'll stay on your feet and get internal damage instead. That is also absolutely fair. From my point of view, the I-frames are not needed... but the video of you is even less necessary. Sometimes the information is simply wrong or you don't know enough about the topic to make a judgment. Anyone who criticizes the fact that a small handful of items are "only" rewarded with more dialogue and story in a game that places a lot of focus on the story has definitely not understood a lot. PS: It was very funny to see how, after receiving negative feedback in the subreddit, you ran straight to a TH-cam subreddit and complained about how the evil community would bombard your oh-so-balanced video with negative reviews. x] Oof.
Well I'm flattered you put so much effort to find my video, even though both of those Reddit posts were deleted 5 days ago. You have gone into a lot of trouble for it, so it must've offended you too much. I'm sorry for that. I wanted to read the points you made, like how I read and answered other comments, but your P.S. was enough to change my mind. I didn't complain about any community. I was just wondering if dislikes have a negative effect on my video, which I've found out it's quite the opposite, so I have to thank you for helping my video reach 2k views. Btw, evil community? Where did I say anything about being evil? If you weren't so fanatic, you'd see I talked about you lot with much respect on that post. (To quote myself, I said "I posted a video and they didn't like it") Of course you bombarded my video. I'd be glad to send you a photo in another platform of the dislike graph and how most of the dislikes were submitted in a matter of few minutes, and then they suddenly stopped. but as I said, it helped my video gain interaction. So it's ok. Thanks for watching.
I also strongly disagree with most of the video, but why are you getting this pressed it's just a game 😭 It's not like you're being the pinnacle of objectivity yourself, calling Hollow Knight's almost universally lauded charms "gimmicky and overpowered", which similar to Nine Sols's lack of i-frames is entirely intentional and simply how it is designed. It's your opinion, much like how everything in the video was the poster's opinion. Clearly you like Nine Sols which is obviously perfectly fine, but it's ridiculous to, in response to this guy sharing his opinion in a rather strong and falsely objective manner, share your opinion on his video in a harsher and even more falsely objective manner. Even if only because you're being rude to an actual person and not a game.
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.
About the charged strike Jade, I mean how often does it happen that you're in the middle of charging a strike, while parrying an attack? You have to remember that even without that jade, you can still keep charging your strike in the middle of parrying. Most of the times, each enemy attack is succeeded with a couple others. So when you can't use the charged strike after the enemy is finished with their attacks, why does it matter for the strike to be charged sooner? Thanks for watching and sharing your opinion. Appreciate it.
@@OldSoulGames at least on Fuxi I could do 3 charged strikes within his slow 3 hit combo. On Eigong I was too concentrated to even think about that jade, there I agree, it may sometimes be hard to keep in mind, but not useless at all
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.
Well I can accept your take on story-telling, but not on i-frame. What you call "Swift Rise" is practically the lack of cool down for using parries. That causes its own problems. If you keep hitting the parry button nonstop, you don't need to learn any timing and most of the attacks will be parried or countered. This is just solving a problem with another problem.
Oh, sorry I didn't mean it that way. The skill called 'Swift Rise' is an ability that requires 1(or 2) skill point to learn. It allows you to use a dash to recover when knocked down or launched. This can help you avoid follow-up attacks if you dash at the right moment, instead of being comboed to death.
Just realized what you mean. I'm an idiot🤦♂️ Yeah, I unlocked all the skills (except for the 5 Qi blast) but I think it has little effect on i-frame. Sometimes you get hit in the air too many times, like that laser beam in Yanlao fight that you can see in the video. But I can see now that it's a matter of different tastes, so let's agree to disagree.
Exactly. It’s Bring Your Own I-Frames. I’m a fan of getting a breather as well, the bosses can be relentless in this game, but that’s one of the biggest things that makes it a unique MV. I-Frames, while nice, don’t actually make any sense outside of a game context. Why shouldn’t the bosses be able to combo as well? Nier Automata let you add chips, the newer Final Fantasies gave you dodges and accessories, and this game does the same. We take damage boosting for granted, but it’s essentially cheesing that we just do on instinct and have done so for years. Breaking that “rule” is the kind of innovation that makes games stand out and feel different. There’s not another Metroidvania that feels this way. As for the second point, you’re exactly right there too. The little dialogue is world building. It’s not meant to be earth-shattering reveal after earth-shattering reveal, it’s meant to get you invested in the characters and their world. Sanabi does a great job of this as well. Asian developers often seem to have a better appreciation for the slice-of-life moments in between the action that makes the characters feel more alive. There’s nothing wrong with that. Also, yeah, reading text or listening for important dialogue during battle, especially fast paced battle, always annoys the shit out of me. I’ve seen it in Soulslike MVs like The Last Faith and even shmups, and while it can make the battle more dramatic, it just means I hate to do a “get beat up” run for the story before I actually fight the boss seriously and win. It’s infuriating. Especially with a game this focus-heavy and fast paced. Having the story not interrupt combat is a WELCOME decision for me.
Game does not give you inevitability frames after hit, so you can't spam bosses and use infinite healing pipes. Game's fighting balanced perfectly. You can heal easily with several first bosses, but then you should forget about healing ability and learn parry. At the end of the game, you have like ~8 pipes, which could make the game hilariously easy, but it actually gives you pipes to explore locations wit less stress and stupid dying, unlike fighting with bosses. + hollow knight does NOT have many game changing charms. Further hit, moving while healing, no knockback, fast attack, fast walking and this is all. Other charms just help you a little with bonus damage and surviving.
Disagree. The length of the narration and the "irrelevant" dialogues are there to give you a glimpse of the characters' lives outside the game. As for the i-frames - the claim is simply irrelevant, since this is exactly how the mechanics of the game has been set up. Consider Sekiro - very same approach. Poorly done, D-.
I have to disagree on Sekiro. Sekiro's i-frame wasn't this short. On the other hand, they both have a very short cool down for parrying, so there's that. It probably balances the i-frame situation.
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 s i had lots of fun w them
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
I don’t care about the I frame thing because it was the same with sekiro anyway, makes sense. Completely disagree with the dialogue section this story was much more interesting and compelling than hollow knights. I have like 400 hours in hk and still have no clue what the story is. Enemy wise they didn’t feel repetitive at all imo even if they did sekiros enemies are much more repetitive anyway. Imo this game is a lot better than base than hollow knight as a huge hk fan
Most points seem either nitpicky (claim that jades are useless or animations are bad, but a single example for each was provided, because it is THE ONLY example in the game) or "Hollow Knight did this aspect this way, this game didn't, hence this game is bad" (storytelling, charms), which is just bad approach, as this game does what it does really well. Also, for pretty much a set of nitpicks, the title "EVERYTHING wrong with Nine Sols" is misleading and on the verge of clickbait.
A little bit more in details: * I-frames. Bad design is including in your game a mechanic that will not mesh with (or even undermine) other mechanics. Which I-frames would be here. You are given a lot of tools to counter enemies. You can parry pretty much in any state (except when you get knocked down by heavy attacks, which are rather rare, and this can also be circumvented). If you miss first hit of the combo, you can still parry following attacks (you even showcase such animation, but you just decide not to block any of the attacks, apparently). I struggle to see why why failing at the game mechanic and being punished for it is considered a bad game design. * Technical issues. I haven't encountered a single one. I will omit the question of optimization, but apparently most bugs are eliminated already. * Optional stuff. Yeah, learning about characters, world, in story-heavy game is definitely a bad thing. /s If you learn a thing or two about game design, you can find out that rewards are not just mechanical thing. Some people would enjoy even the fact that those items actually change your hub location visually. And yes, there are actual rewards for some of those. * Bad animations. Ok, the animation of falling is pretty bad, I agree. Any other examples? You wouldn't say "some animations in the game are bad" based on a single example, would you? * Jades system. Why exactly combat system of this game should be like Hollow Knight? It is Nine Sols, not Hollow Knight. And for its combat, jades provide enough customization to set your focus (survivability, offence, resource management). And unlike Hollow Knight, there are also other systems that allow you to customize your gameplay (skills, talisman styles, transmutation, arrows). For your example of bad jade, see the point about animation. About duplicated jades and "they just gave up", are lifeblood and long nail charms also an instance of Team Cherry giving up and duplicating charms? * Dialogs, storytelling and worldbuilding. Again, just an instance "it is not done like in Hollow Knight, it means it is bad". This game has chosen to convey its story and lore in clear way. How in hell having coherent story is a bad thing?
@@lentinant A couple notes I'd like to add from my personal experience playing the game: - I played the full game for the first time this and last week, and did encounter performance problems despite running it on a high-end laptop. Jietong was the most egregious example by far, the game practically running on 0.75x speed, and I had to drop my graphics for the fight. However, whether it was the result of a patch, me fiddling with the settings, or just the rest of the game being better optimized, I played the entire rest of the game on max settings and it ran perfectly, so uh 🤷♂️ - The jade he mentioned isn't even bad, in my opinion. I think it's really cool, and synergizes well with the one that boosts the charge attack at the cost of a qi charge. It can get a lot of use if the player can learn to play around it, though admittedly Nine Sols doesn't reward or give you the time for experimentation quite like Hollow Knight does.
I’ve played through Nine Sols twice myself, my first playthrough right at launch, and you’ve captured the majority of my problems with this game extremely well. 1. I frames are definitely a problem with nine sols, as damage over time or multi-hits can deal absurd damage. I don’t think too many would need to be added, just enough to not get combo’d into instant death. 2. I didn’t have any issues running the game, but that may just be by chance, however I did run into quite a decent bit of bugs in the game, so that stayed consistent. 3. I honestly really enjoyed whenever I would get an item to give to ShuanShuan. While they didn’t inherently give me anything to progress the story or help in combat, it made me care for ShuanShuan as a character much more. In many games, I tend to disregard NPCs in base areas, since I never know if they’ll have new dialogue and I’m too lazy to check for the 50th time. With this item system, not only does it make me connect more with ShuanShuan, it also makes me care more about Yi, as it shows off his personality, first being quite cold to ShuanShuan and the others, but beginning to become more appreciative and caring of them as the game progresses. Not to mention many of the items have a cutscene that go along with them, which I can really appreciate the effort going into them. 4. The animations is definitely hit or miss in this game, especially with some enemies getting custom sprites for attacking while others just have the preexisting sprites move around a bit. 5. The jade system is a part that I’d have to disagree with for the most part. While the game definitely doesn’t have as flashy of charms as hollow knight, which definitely has some very engaging and fun systems, and is also my favorite game of all time, this game’s jades still have some amazing creativity. I went through the game with multiple types of builds, ranging from making your foo charms extremely strong, to parrying becoming the main form of damage, to stealing the life from your enemies, there are multiple fun and exciting systems that come from these jades. Granted, there are some that don’t stand out, like the usual increase of money/exp, but Hollow Knight has those systems as well, even more so with charms that are basic health, damage, and geo increases. And of course, hollow knight has its fair share of goofy and really not that usual charms, like steady body, heavy blow, and glowing womb. They still have their uses, but are pretty niche. 6. The dialogue definitely stretched on for too long, and much more environmental storytelling would have been helpful to truly capture this world and the identities of each of its residents. 7. There isn’t a big variety of enemies, however I feel like there’s enough to fill out the world lore-wise. While there are some that appear in different areas, it makes sense with the world constructed, with everything happening under one government’s rule. I would love to see more enemy variety though, as it seemed the focus for the game was making the bosses the forefront of combat, making many of the forced enemy encounters quite boring. I think this is a very great review, but when recommending if the game is good/bad to the viewer, I would definitely like to highlight some of the positive aspects, including the great boss fights, music, and the combat systems utilized by Yi. Overall, great video!
Oh, thanks for this thorough comment. About the optimization, it seems like the problem is only with some specific graphics cards, and not general. About interactions with ShaunShaun, I get it. It's a matter of taste. He really never grew on me. Actually I think the every antagonist of this game were written very well, but the good guys (except Yi of course) didn't have that much depth in them. About the Jades, my only problem is that I couldn't feel anything change with most of them. They weren't as vital as I expected them to be. I don't know, maybe it's just me. I mostly agree with other points you made. And about the problem with my video, I acted stupidly by separating the pros and cons of the game into two different videos and it backfired beautifully, as that video made another group angry for "overpraising the game". Learned my lesson. Thanks for watching and reading.
I'm going to start yapping (feel free to read them if you want to :D ) tbh, I think comparing nine sols with hollow knight is so unfair. People from the HK community buying the game hoping that it could bring back the feeling they had when playing HK for the first time and realizing that the game is not even as good as HK, therefore being disappointed and dissatisfied with the game. nine sols is an awesome game and I had a lot of fun playing it (I even completed all of the achievements), but with the heavy focus in dialogues and unable to skip them made the game from a 10/10 to a 9/10. (of course there's alot of bugs and problems in the game but I give it the benefit of the doubt since the game is still new and the devs are constantly doing bug fixes)
Sorry for taking too long to answer your comment. Comparing it with Hollow Knight was purely unintentional. It's just because Hollow Knight changed the reality of Metroidvania and became the norm or standard, so I didn't notice I keep coming back to HK in my video, instead of sticking to Nine Sols. I completely agree about Nine Sols being a great game, or I wouldn't make multiple videos about it. I wanted to do even more, but I decided against it because apparently this game's fandom hates my guts.😂
Nine Sols for me is a bad metroidvania game, and a bad souls like game, and too much texts, every time a new dialogue and blablabla , I agree with your video. Also, I'm tired of motroidvanias with souls mechanics, just give me a pure metroid-like game, exploration and backtracking.
I hesitated to buy the game, nice thing the gouvernement sees everything and chose to put this video in my recommendation lol I hope that the devs sees this video!
Haha, that's one way to put it. BTW, the title of "worth buying" was a little misguiding so I changed it. Because I really think it's an amazing game, but with some problems that are not discussed that much. Thanks for watching.
This is one of the lamest MV’s I’ve ever played: I’m sorry but as someone who mains MV’s I find the “difficulty” of this game utterly cheap and completely overtuned.
Metroidvania addict here, i agree combat in this game is so unfavorable for you that it's not fun. I had a lot more fun in blasphemous, the last faith and deaths gambit
Who cares if it’s a metroidvania anyways or soulslike ? It’s its own thing and should be judged individually, i mean that’s just skill issue, if you’re bad at the game just say i don’t like harder games and stop blaming it on the game
The only thing wrong with Nine Sols is that it ends. God damn, what a fantastic game.
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.
I didn't really compare them. Except for:
1.Enemies which I accept it was my fault, I could mention other games and my point would still remain.
2. Jades which I had to, because it was actually inspired by Charms.
The narrative is a matter of different opinions, so we have to agree to disagree. Thanks for watching and sharing your opinion.
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.
You can say the same thing for every game. The problem is, even in those games, you can't ignore the rest of the attacks and start pushing blindly, because although you're invincible for now, the boss will corner you and won't let you breath. But I get why other people might like it. To each their own. Thanks for watching and sharing your opinion.
@@OldSoulGames the game's combat is designed around parrying, having no iFrames is not a fault or a flaw its intentionally designed, there is knockback attacks that give you s but if the attack doesnt do it its intentional, i think putting a personal preference about not liking a mechanic of a game as a "flaw" is misleading and you should label it as "what i dont like in nine sols"
I respect your opinion about i-frames, but about the second part of your comment... Everything in the world is a personal preference. There isn't a sole correct view that can be counted as standard and professional. There are many standards to do art and people choose one as the one true path based on their own mindset and taste, measuring everything with it. You can't talk about something without having an opinion on it.
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.
Sorry for taking too long to answer.
1. I did elaborate, before reaching that sentence. That's what I was doing by explaining why i-frame is necessary in a game. Yes, there isn't a universal code, but some things are basic foundations of a game. It's not law, it's being fair to the player. For instance, imagine you're designing a game in which the boss fight does 100 damage with each hit. Then you decide to put another attack that does 10000 damage, and there's no way to prevent it, or defend against it. This attack will definitely land every time and the player is always helpless against it. They can't do anything about it.
There's no rule against something like this. You can say this is my game and that's how I do things here. But it definitely is bad design, for making something the player can never learn or master.
In Nine Sols, sometimes the i-frame situation can be prevented by acting quickly, but sometimes it's literally impossible. Let me give you an example. Eigong's crimson attack would set the floor (and you) on fire. If you're using the revival jade and her crimson attack kills you, you'd revive again for half a second. But you're burning now and since there's no i-frame to keep you alive for a moment until the bonus health is regenerated in the health bar, you'll immediately die again without even taking any hit, making that jade useless. (Remember. All of this happens in half a second. You'll die twice without even noticing it.)
2. I actually agree with you on this. I shouldn't have generalized it. It's only my opinion. Sorry about that.
Thanks for watching and reading all this.
“In Nine Sols, sometimes the i-frame situation can be prevented by acting quickly, but sometimes it’s literally impossible.” Brother THAT’S THE POINT, that’s how counter works in games.
Taking your example of Eigong’s crimson attacks. Her crimson attacks are more telegraphed than the normal attacks, so they balanced the attacks by making the crimson attacks more punishing. Which they do so by ramping up the damage and the additional lingering fire, which counters the side dash and the revival effect.
This isn’t unfair, you’re meant to take the L if you can’t evade or counter the attacks. And that’s how Nine Sols work. It’s supposed to be punishing on normal difficulty. If you have trouble surviving then play in story mode or git gud and stop whining.
You still don't know what i-frame is, do you?
*sigh* For real? Are you seriously explaining to me what counter is? I didn't say the attack is impossible to parry or counter. I'm talking about what happens AFTER you've been hit. Did you even read my reply?
YOU'LL DIE AND REVIVE AND DIE AGAIN IN HALF OF A SECOND.
The revival jade is there to prevent you from dying, but since i-frame is too short, you'll die before the jade even triggers. I'd be happy to send you a clip of it on another social media platform if you still don't understand what I mean.
@@OldSoulGames So after my rebuttal to your claim about crimson attacks you decided to question my knowledge of i-frame and assumed me not reading your replies. Then say the same words again as you claimed earlier as your defense?
You know what? This is wasting my time.
I expected a better response like how you did in the first reply. But now I expect no more than you being blocked by me.
I answered your comment with respect, and then you decided to make me look illiterate by explaining what counter is and making cheap jokes about it. And when I acted like you did, you got hurt?
You're right. This is a waste of time. Have a nice day.
My only problem with this game is that it's over now. I beat it and I can't take that back.
Same. I really loved the game, but it still has some problems
Disagreed on the . I personally don't have a problem without it. Just had to learn how to position better.
That's great. It's really a matter of different opinions.
Also you can usually instantly parry or dodge after getting hit once 👀
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
Honestly, I think I had pretty mutch the opposite experinence, playing the game. I respectfully disagree.
That's great, I'm happy for you. Thanks for watching and sharing your opinion.
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
Would disagree with pretty much every point.
Some are simply wrong or are no longer current long before the video appears. For example, performance problems or serious bugs are virtually non-existent in the current version.
Putting Hollow Knight's charms, most of which are super situational to gimmicky or completely overpowered, over the very balanced and well thought-out Jade system, which allows numerous viable builds, also speaks more for the fact that you haven't experimented much with them you didn't understand design either.
The I-frames are the only point of contention. The game punishes you for being completely unresponsive - after all, if you make a bad parry, you'll stay on your feet and get internal damage instead. That is also absolutely fair. From my point of view, the I-frames are not needed... but the video of you is even less necessary. Sometimes the information is simply wrong or you don't know enough about the topic to make a judgment.
Anyone who criticizes the fact that a small handful of items are "only" rewarded with more dialogue and story in a game that places a lot of focus on the story has definitely not understood a lot.
PS: It was very funny to see how, after receiving negative feedback in the subreddit, you ran straight to a TH-cam subreddit and complained about how the evil community would bombard your oh-so-balanced video with negative reviews. x] Oof.
Well I'm flattered you put so much effort to find my video, even though both of those Reddit posts were deleted 5 days ago. You have gone into a lot of trouble for it, so it must've offended you too much. I'm sorry for that.
I wanted to read the points you made, like how I read and answered other comments, but your P.S. was enough to change my mind. I didn't complain about any community. I was just wondering if dislikes have a negative effect on my video, which I've found out it's quite the opposite, so I have to thank you for helping my video reach 2k views.
Btw, evil community? Where did I say anything about being evil? If you weren't so fanatic, you'd see I talked about you lot with much respect on that post. (To quote myself, I said "I posted a video and they didn't like it")
Of course you bombarded my video. I'd be glad to send you a photo in another platform of the dislike graph and how most of the dislikes were submitted in a matter of few minutes, and then they suddenly stopped. but as I said, it helped my video gain interaction. So it's ok. Thanks for watching.
I also strongly disagree with most of the video, but why are you getting this pressed it's just a game 😭
It's not like you're being the pinnacle of objectivity yourself, calling Hollow Knight's almost universally lauded charms "gimmicky and overpowered", which similar to Nine Sols's lack of i-frames is entirely intentional and simply how it is designed. It's your opinion, much like how everything in the video was the poster's opinion.
Clearly you like Nine Sols which is obviously perfectly fine, but it's ridiculous to, in response to this guy sharing his opinion in a rather strong and falsely objective manner, share your opinion on his video in a harsher and even more falsely objective manner. Even if only because you're being rude to an actual person and not a game.
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.
About the charged strike Jade, I mean how often does it happen that you're in the middle of charging a strike, while parrying an attack? You have to remember that even without that jade, you can still keep charging your strike in the middle of parrying. Most of the times, each enemy attack is succeeded with a couple others. So when you can't use the charged strike after the enemy is finished with their attacks, why does it matter for the strike to be charged sooner?
Thanks for watching and sharing your opinion. Appreciate it.
@@OldSoulGames at least on Fuxi I could do 3 charged strikes within his slow 3 hit combo. On Eigong I was too concentrated to even think about that jade, there I agree, it may sometimes be hard to keep in mind, but not useless at all
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.
Well I can accept your take on story-telling, but not on i-frame. What you call "Swift Rise" is practically the lack of cool down for using parries. That causes its own problems. If you keep hitting the parry button nonstop, you don't need to learn any timing and most of the attacks will be parried or countered. This is just solving a problem with another problem.
Oh, sorry I didn't mean it that way. The skill called 'Swift Rise' is an ability that requires 1(or 2) skill point to learn. It allows you to use a dash to recover when knocked down or launched.
This can help you avoid follow-up attacks if you dash at the right moment, instead of being comboed to death.
So I don’t think it’s a big problem that there are no i-frames; it just requires players to seriously master the timing of the enemy's attacks.
Just realized what you mean. I'm an idiot🤦♂️
Yeah, I unlocked all the skills (except for the 5 Qi blast) but I think it has little effect on i-frame. Sometimes you get hit in the air too many times, like that laser beam in Yanlao fight that you can see in the video. But I can see now that it's a matter of different tastes, so let's agree to disagree.
Exactly. It’s Bring Your Own I-Frames. I’m a fan of getting a breather as well, the bosses can be relentless in this game, but that’s one of the biggest things that makes it a unique MV. I-Frames, while nice, don’t actually make any sense outside of a game context. Why shouldn’t the bosses be able to combo as well? Nier Automata let you add chips, the newer Final Fantasies gave you dodges and accessories, and this game does the same. We take damage boosting for granted, but it’s essentially cheesing that we just do on instinct and have done so for years. Breaking that “rule” is the kind of innovation that makes games stand out and feel different. There’s not another Metroidvania that feels this way.
As for the second point, you’re exactly right there too. The little dialogue is world building. It’s not meant to be earth-shattering reveal after earth-shattering reveal, it’s meant to get you invested in the characters and their world. Sanabi does a great job of this as well. Asian developers often seem to have a better appreciation for the slice-of-life moments in between the action that makes the characters feel more alive. There’s nothing wrong with that. Also, yeah, reading text or listening for important dialogue during battle, especially fast paced battle, always annoys the shit out of me. I’ve seen it in Soulslike MVs like The Last Faith and even shmups, and while it can make the battle more dramatic, it just means I hate to do a “get beat up” run for the story before I actually fight the boss seriously and win. It’s infuriating. Especially with a game this focus-heavy and fast paced. Having the story not interrupt combat is a WELCOME decision for me.
4:34 im a gen z with the attention span of a gold fish and i only skipped like 5 text bubbles (all on accident)
Game does not give you inevitability frames after hit, so you can't spam bosses and use infinite healing pipes. Game's fighting balanced perfectly. You can heal easily with several first bosses, but then you should forget about healing ability and learn parry. At the end of the game, you have like ~8 pipes, which could make the game hilariously easy, but it actually gives you pipes to explore locations wit less stress and stupid dying, unlike fighting with bosses.
+ hollow knight does NOT have many game changing charms. Further hit, moving while healing, no knockback, fast attack, fast walking and this is all. Other charms just help you a little with bonus damage and surviving.
Disagree.
The length of the narration and the "irrelevant" dialogues are there to give you a glimpse of the characters' lives outside the game.
As for the i-frames - the claim is simply irrelevant, since this is exactly how the mechanics of the game has been set up. Consider Sekiro - very same approach.
Poorly done, D-.
I have to disagree on Sekiro. Sekiro's i-frame wasn't this short. On the other hand, they both have a very short cool down for parrying, so there's that. It probably balances the i-frame situation.
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 s i had lots of fun w them
I'm completely in disagreement with your opinion, but glad to hear a different point of view. Interesting video.
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
If you think this games story is weak, then never play a story game again.
I don’t care about the I frame thing because it was the same with sekiro anyway, makes sense. Completely disagree with the dialogue section this story was much more interesting and compelling than hollow knights. I have like 400 hours in hk and still have no clue what the story is. Enemy wise they didn’t feel repetitive at all imo even if they did sekiros enemies are much more repetitive anyway. Imo this game is a lot better than base than hollow knight as a huge hk fan
Most points seem either nitpicky (claim that jades are useless or animations are bad, but a single example for each was provided, because it is THE ONLY example in the game) or "Hollow Knight did this aspect this way, this game didn't, hence this game is bad" (storytelling, charms), which is just bad approach, as this game does what it does really well. Also, for pretty much a set of nitpicks, the title "EVERYTHING wrong with Nine Sols" is misleading and on the verge of clickbait.
A little bit more in details:
* I-frames. Bad design is including in your game a mechanic that will not mesh with (or even undermine) other mechanics. Which I-frames would be here. You are given a lot of tools to counter enemies. You can parry pretty much in any state (except when you get knocked down by heavy attacks, which are rather rare, and this can also be circumvented). If you miss first hit of the combo, you can still parry following attacks (you even showcase such animation, but you just decide not to block any of the attacks, apparently). I struggle to see why why failing at the game mechanic and being punished for it is considered a bad game design.
* Technical issues. I haven't encountered a single one. I will omit the question of optimization, but apparently most bugs are eliminated already.
* Optional stuff. Yeah, learning about characters, world, in story-heavy game is definitely a bad thing. /s If you learn a thing or two about game design, you can find out that rewards are not just mechanical thing. Some people would enjoy even the fact that those items actually change your hub location visually. And yes, there are actual rewards for some of those.
* Bad animations. Ok, the animation of falling is pretty bad, I agree. Any other examples? You wouldn't say "some animations in the game are bad" based on a single example, would you?
* Jades system. Why exactly combat system of this game should be like Hollow Knight? It is Nine Sols, not Hollow Knight. And for its combat, jades provide enough customization to set your focus (survivability, offence, resource management). And unlike Hollow Knight, there are also other systems that allow you to customize your gameplay (skills, talisman styles, transmutation, arrows). For your example of bad jade, see the point about animation. About duplicated jades and "they just gave up", are lifeblood and long nail charms also an instance of Team Cherry giving up and duplicating charms?
* Dialogs, storytelling and worldbuilding. Again, just an instance "it is not done like in Hollow Knight, it means it is bad". This game has chosen to convey its story and lore in clear way. How in hell having coherent story is a bad thing?
@@lentinant
A couple notes I'd like to add from my personal experience playing the game:
- I played the full game for the first time this and last week, and did encounter performance problems despite running it on a high-end laptop. Jietong was the most egregious example by far, the game practically running on 0.75x speed, and I had to drop my graphics for the fight. However, whether it was the result of a patch, me fiddling with the settings, or just the rest of the game being better optimized, I played the entire rest of the game on max settings and it ran perfectly, so uh 🤷♂️
- The jade he mentioned isn't even bad, in my opinion. I think it's really cool, and synergizes well with the one that boosts the charge attack at the cost of a qi charge. It can get a lot of use if the player can learn to play around it, though admittedly Nine Sols doesn't reward or give you the time for experimentation quite like Hollow Knight does.
I’ve played through Nine Sols twice myself, my first playthrough right at launch, and you’ve captured the majority of my problems with this game extremely well.
1. I frames are definitely a problem with nine sols, as damage over time or multi-hits can deal absurd damage. I don’t think too many would need to be added, just enough to not get combo’d into instant death.
2. I didn’t have any issues running the game, but that may just be by chance, however I did run into quite a decent bit of bugs in the game, so that stayed consistent.
3. I honestly really enjoyed whenever I would get an item to give to ShuanShuan. While they didn’t inherently give me anything to progress the story or help in combat, it made me care for ShuanShuan as a character much more. In many games, I tend to disregard NPCs in base areas, since I never know if they’ll have new dialogue and I’m too lazy to check for the 50th time. With this item system, not only does it make me connect more with ShuanShuan, it also makes me care more about Yi, as it shows off his personality, first being quite cold to ShuanShuan and the others, but beginning to become more appreciative and caring of them as the game progresses. Not to mention many of the items have a cutscene that go along with them, which I can really appreciate the effort going into them.
4. The animations is definitely hit or miss in this game, especially with some enemies getting custom sprites for attacking while others just have the preexisting sprites move around a bit.
5. The jade system is a part that I’d have to disagree with for the most part. While the game definitely doesn’t have as flashy of charms as hollow knight, which definitely has some very engaging and fun systems, and is also my favorite game of all time, this game’s jades still have some amazing creativity. I went through the game with multiple types of builds, ranging from making your foo charms extremely strong, to parrying becoming the main form of damage, to stealing the life from your enemies, there are multiple fun and exciting systems that come from these jades. Granted, there are some that don’t stand out, like the usual increase of money/exp, but Hollow Knight has those systems as well, even more so with charms that are basic health, damage, and geo increases. And of course, hollow knight has its fair share of goofy and really not that usual charms, like steady body, heavy blow, and glowing womb. They still have their uses, but are pretty niche.
6. The dialogue definitely stretched on for too long, and much more environmental storytelling would have been helpful to truly capture this world and the identities of each of its residents.
7. There isn’t a big variety of enemies, however I feel like there’s enough to fill out the world lore-wise. While there are some that appear in different areas, it makes sense with the world constructed, with everything happening under one government’s rule. I would love to see more enemy variety though, as it seemed the focus for the game was making the bosses the forefront of combat, making many of the forced enemy encounters quite boring.
I think this is a very great review, but when recommending if the game is good/bad to the viewer, I would definitely like to highlight some of the positive aspects, including the great boss fights, music, and the combat systems utilized by Yi. Overall, great video!
Oh, thanks for this thorough comment.
About the optimization, it seems like the problem is only with some specific graphics cards, and not general.
About interactions with ShaunShaun, I get it. It's a matter of taste. He really never grew on me. Actually I think the every antagonist of this game were written very well, but the good guys (except Yi of course) didn't have that much depth in them.
About the Jades, my only problem is that I couldn't feel anything change with most of them. They weren't as vital as I expected them to be. I don't know, maybe it's just me.
I mostly agree with other points you made. And about the problem with my video, I acted stupidly by separating the pros and cons of the game into two different videos and it backfired beautifully, as that video made another group angry for "overpraising the game". Learned my lesson.
Thanks for watching and reading.
I’m really hate that I always get lost in nine sold xd
That's great. Thanks for watching
I think the main thing wrong with it is that it isn't Hollow Knight.
Not gonna lie, this one was brutal😂
Well done.
I'm going to start yapping
(feel free to read them if you want to :D )
tbh, I think comparing nine sols with hollow knight is so unfair. People from the HK community buying the game hoping that it could bring back the feeling they had when playing HK for the first time and realizing that the game is not even as good as HK, therefore being disappointed and dissatisfied with the game. nine sols is an awesome game and I had a lot of fun playing it (I even completed all of the achievements), but with the heavy focus in dialogues and unable to skip them made the game from a 10/10 to a 9/10. (of course there's alot of bugs and problems in the game but I give it the benefit of the doubt since the game is still new and the devs are constantly doing bug fixes)
some people would argue the game is a 8/10, but im a really big fan of the combat and main boss fights so its a 9/10 for me
Sorry for taking too long to answer your comment. Comparing it with Hollow Knight was purely unintentional. It's just because Hollow Knight changed the reality of Metroidvania and became the norm or standard, so I didn't notice I keep coming back to HK in my video, instead of sticking to Nine Sols.
I completely agree about Nine Sols being a great game, or I wouldn't make multiple videos about it. I wanted to do even more, but I decided against it because apparently this game's fandom hates my guts.😂
@@OldSoulGames I get you now man, no worries just keep making gud vids
Thanks. i appreciate it.
Nine Sols for me is a bad metroidvania game, and a bad souls like game, and too much texts, every time a new dialogue and blablabla , I agree with your video. Also, I'm tired of motroidvanias with souls mechanics, just give me a pure metroid-like game, exploration and backtracking.
Very thorough analysis
Thanks. I appreciate it
I hesitated to buy the game, nice thing the gouvernement sees everything and chose to put this video in my recommendation lol
I hope that the devs sees this video!
Haha, that's one way to put it.
BTW, the title of "worth buying" was a little misguiding so I changed it. Because I really think it's an amazing game, but with some problems that are not discussed that much. Thanks for watching.
This is one of the lamest MV’s I’ve ever played: I’m sorry but as someone who mains MV’s I find the “difficulty” of this game utterly cheap and completely overtuned.
Metroidvania addict here, i agree combat in this game is so unfavorable for you that it's not fun. I had a lot more fun in blasphemous, the last faith and deaths gambit
Who cares if it’s a metroidvania anyways or soulslike ? It’s its own thing and should be judged individually, i mean that’s just skill issue, if you’re bad at the game just say i don’t like harder games and stop blaming it on the game
finally someone not blinded by OH LOOK ITS SILKSONG BEFORE THE HOUR
Haha, no it's not Silksong. But it's really good actually, even with all the things I said. Thanks for watching.