9 Years Of Shadows Review

This is one of those games I kind of started playing on a whim. The box art caught my eye and I probably saw a screen shot of the game and thought it looked neat. I’m shallow, what can I say.

But, much to my pleasant surprise, there’s a good deal of substance behind this very pretty exterior here.

The game is your standard action-adventure game. You go from place to place, take care of the problems that arise while you’re there, talk to people, get new abilities, go to new places, lather, rinse, repeat. Pretty standard formula for this day in age. The characters you meet nearly all have some sort of task they need you to accomplish and they reward you with materials for upgrades. You’ll fight some bosses and, often, after said boss you’ll get some plot and usually a new ability to get you more places to do more stuff.

The story in this game chronicles Europa and her attempts to rid the world of a curse. The curse is draining all the color in the world leaving it a cold and lifeless place. Not “dead”, per say, but lifeless. You know what I’m saying.

The curse all began in Talos castle and it’s there we meet Europa and the demon that seems to be the cause of it all. But things don’t work out, as is often the case. After getting wrecked by the demon, Belial, a little ghost Teddy Bear names Apino shows up, gives us a hug, and we’re once again fighting fit.

We get snippets of the story in cut scenes and loading screen in elevators so it’s a fairly smooth experience. Europa it seems has had a pretty tough life and while she isn’t exactly excited to talk to others about it, she does open up to a few people every now and then and we learn more about her past. We also, eventually, learn more about our little ghost buddy Apino and the spirit that seems to live inside the castle. Talos, the castle, also has a back story. It seems that at one time Talos was a living entity and through carvings we find in the game Talos itself tells us about the different groups of people that came to live within it’s walls.

It’s all done very well.

Through the castle we will stumble upon lost musicians. They came here who knows how long ago to have a concert to try and drive by the curse a bit and they’ve all been separated. We find them and they go back to the stage where we can talk to them, learn a bit, and get some errands to do for them. This is important. Don’t forget to do this. It matters.

This game has a little different combat system than you might expect. First are the elemental armors. Europa will uncover 3 different armors throughout the game, each with an elemental attribute. She begins with lighting and adds water, earth, and fire. Most enemies will have an elemental attribute to them and matching the right pair together really makes your life easier. You’ll deal more damage, basically. But you also need those armors to traverse the castle. The water armor lets Europa take on a mermaid form and swim, earth lets her burrow underground, fire protects her from heat and let’s her “fly” by riding up drafts. It’s a neat little system. Swapping is done automatically or manually and it’s a very quick and easy “press of a button” process.

As for damage. Europa has a couple of, I call them, life gems. When they all break, it’s lights out. But before one of those gems breaks, she has a light gauge that has to go down first. That gauge is, essentially, a shield. When your shield is gone you take health damage. To replenish your shield you need to attack enemies. You can also get a hug from Apino when your gauge is empty and it will refill most of the way. This is how healing works in this game. There are no consumables. No flasks, no tea, no soul, just hugs. Managing your light gauge is very important because it is not only your shield, it’s ammunition. Apino is a “light” element and is the only way to damage “dark” element enemies and activate “dark” element switches. If you have no light you can’t attack the dark. But you grab a quick hug and you’re good to go.

It can be hectic. Combat on it’s own isn’t all that bad but some of the boss battles can be very frantic and you’ll need to find you a moment to grab a hug or two to keep yourself upright and mobile. But if you’ve played Hollow Knight, Bo, or any of those other types of games you’ll get the jist of the healing pretty quick.

The graphics, I just so happen to think, are lovely. The colors are bold and have a great deal of contrast. Backgrounds are detailed and interesting, enemy design is great though the variety does leave a little to be desired. Each enemy, for the most part, has an elemental type. You determine what element they are by their outline. So imagine a goomba. Now imagine one with a green glow. That’s how it works in this game. The bestiary is big and each entry is unique but the design of most of the enemies are reused fairly often. Not a problem here though.

It’s a pixel style game and I think that lends itself very well to what they were going for here. Details, while abundant, matter less than vibes. The vibes are all given through color. And everything has very vivid color.

Character design and portraits are really good. The portraits for Europa, Apino, the musicians and some of the bosses are really quite nice.

The game, on a whole, is very pleasing to the eyes.

It’s also very pleasing to the ears. The soundtrack is fantastic. And it should be, two of Konami’s finest worked on it. Michiru Yamane from Castlevania and ​Norihiko Hibino of a little game called Metal Gear Solid did some damned fine work. Hibino actually is a character in the game and he happens to have my favorite theme. Music ranges from quiet and introspective to trance like, there’s some upbeat driving music for battles… it’s just all really good. Totally a soundtrack with buying to go along with the game. You can put it on in the background for just about anything and have a good time.

I’m glad I played this game. It was an absolute pleasure. At times a frustrating pleasure, but a pleasure none the less. It’s easy on the ears, the eyes, and the heart. Well, maybe not totally easy on the heart…