One of my favorite times of the year is E3, or the period of time that used to include E3, This year at the Summer of Gaming event 9 Years of Shadows showed off a beautiful trailer mixing together cutscenes reminiscent of 80s cartoons with high-quality pixel art and smooth animations.
Last week I had a chance to talk with Bryan, Director of Marketing at publisher Freedom Games to get a better look at what 9 Years of Shadows has to offer.
In 9 Years of Shadows, the world has been met with a horrible curse that has drained the color from the world. This curse originated from an abandoned orphanage named Talos Castle. You'll adventure through the Talos Castle as Europa. Armed with only your halberd it's your duty to navigate the mysterious halls of the orphanage, defeat enemies along the way, and end the curse once and for all.
Bryan took me through a number of sequences in the early game of 9 Years of Shadows. When you start the game Europa and the world around her will be in complete greyscale, this is just a taste of the curse that the world has been suffering from for 9 Years. Early into her adventure through the castle, Europa will be attacked by different batlike monsters and a large shadowy figure. This seems to be one of the root causes of the curse emanating from the orphanage.
Between the battle and the next scene, there was a short skip and suddenly the world was technicolor. Seeing the trailer from Summer of Gaming I already had my own thoughts about how beautiful the game looked, but seeing the quick transition between the greyscale cursed world and a rich environment filled with golds, purples, and blues it really shows off how vibrant the world is.
When you're not exploring the castle and platforming to reach new locations you'll be taking on enemies with your halberd, and shooting them from afar with the help of Alpino, a magical bear that fires out spiritual bolts. One of the greatest features I learned about during this demo is that when you're out of spiritual ammo you can replenish it by having Europa hug Alpino.
Getting deeper into the mechanics of the game you'll start with three full multi-segment health jewels but by using different collectibles you'll locate around the castle you can improve your health and spiritual capacity. It was teased that there will be a number of other collectibles through the game so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for any cracked walls or suspicious items.
While there was a lot that I was able to be shown some of the finer details on what boss fights might look like, the accessibility settings of 9 Years of Shadows, and what other collectibles you might want to be keeping an eye out for were not able to be revealed. 9 Years of Shadows will release on PC via Steam on October 10th, 2022. The Nintendo Switch release is currently set for Q1 2023, but for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One players will have to keep waiting with anticipation.
