It’s a long time to have shadows, but a short time to fall in love with this game
9 Years of Shadows, from Halberd Studios, is a pixel glorious Metroidvania. The world is devoid of color, and a hero needs to find out why. Luckily, we’re that hero.
The game is a 2D platformer that unabashedly takes elements from genre games and puts them together — the main character even moves like a Belmont. But the game uses those similarities not to just pay homage, but to also do some unique things. Thematically, the use of color and music work together, and costume-swapping allows us to match with our environments and enemies to do things like turn into a mermaid and defeat them. There are a lot of great details in the game, but it excels in some of the amazing boss battles and level design.
9 Years of Shadows surprises me as much as it satisfies me, and brings a good, quality experience to the genre.
This review is based on a Steam code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. It originally appeared on the April 19th, 2023 episode of The SideQuest. All images and video courtesy Halberd Studios.
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