9 Years Of Shadow [Review]

By: Mithrandiel

We received a complimentary review code for this title in exchange for our honest review.

I love me a good metroidvania title - tight combat/controls with a mysterious environment to explore, varied enemies that reward patience and strategy, and ingenious boss fights that have you blending all of your hard-earned skills to finally achieve victory…it’s the best!

It’s a model that game developers know can be a hit with gamers, and as a result, a search for metroidvania titles on Steam will bury you in hundreds of titles that begin to run together - so how can a new title stand out in this space?

After spending a few hours with Halberd Studios’ 9 Years of Shadow - I think they’re onto something.

9 Years of Shadow has you play the role of Europa - a fierce, red-haired warrior who explains that a curse of shadow robbed her world of all color 9 years prior. In the monochrome world that remained, she lost her parents, and strove to discover the source of the curse, which leads her to a looming tower that many adventurers have entered before, but none have lived to tell the tale of what lies inside.

After a brief foray into the castle, Europa is confronted with a terrifying demon of tremendous power. Hopeless to prevail against it, she is killed - only to be revived in the same tower - flush with color - by a sentient floating teddy bear named Apino.

What follows is Europa’s journey to recover powerful relics in the hope that they will give her the strength she needs to defeat the demon and restore color and peace to her world.

Outside of the emphasis on color, music is a central theme of this game: as you continue in your adventure, you will encounter numerous musicians and composers that play a central role in Europa’s ability to grow stronger. By collecting certain musical notes throughout the tower, you can trade them in to increase your vitality, or your “light”, which serves as both a shield of sorts as well as “ammo” for a secondary attack from Apino.

The soundtrack itself is phenomenal. As you journey through the various biomes and levels of the tower, it evokes memories of Castlevania and early Ys titles. Aiding in the creation of this superb soundtrack is 9 Years of Shadows guest composers Norihiko Hibino (of Metal Gear Solid and Zone of the Enders fame) and Michiro Yamane, who worked on a little something called Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

These composers’ expertise shine through as you guide Europa through the tower.

Aesthetically, leading Europa through the tower is reminiscent of some of the great metroidvania titles of yesteryear - a 16 bit love letter that offers modern improvements hidden away in the details: the splash of water after making a heavy attack in your Poseidon armor, for example.

Rich sprites offer detail you couldn’t hope to get when firing up your Genesis or Super Nintendo in the early 90s, with some eye popping visuals carrying on in the background as you navigate the tower.

Combat is simple, but effective. Europa has a light and heavy attack, with Apino offering backup in the form of a projectile that you can both target and fire as needed. Relics that you discover as the game progresses unlock additional attacks and specials, and of course provide more mobility in the form of a secondary jump, mobility in water, and other abilities to allow you to access previously unreachable portions of the tower.

While these nuggets of “I should take note of that to come back to later” are fewer and farther between than in other metroidvania titles, I don’t consider the lack of backtracking a weakness. Rather it helps to accentuate the new skills you are picking up closer to real-time.

Finally, there’s the playtime. While recent trends would have you believe that a game needs to deliver 30+ hours of game time to be “worthy”, I think there’s plenty of value in a game that knows what it’s about, and is able to execute on it - whether that’s done in 10 hours or 100.

In the case of 9 Years of Shadow you’ll probably end up with ~8-12 hours of playtime to completion. There have been requests for a “hard mode”, and time will tell if that gets rolled out to add to the replayability.

Regardless, at $20, it’s a fantastically fun game with stellar music, tight combat and an alluring world to explore.