‘9 Years of Shadows’ Review: A Stunning Metroidvania

Upon stepping into a painting, the castle chandeliers and splintered walls from years of dereliction vanished, replaced by structures awash with restless currents. Fierce typhoons coiled on the dark ocean in the background — zestful synth drums starting to rap between my headphones.

I was still early into my review of 9 Years of Shadows, but already, this environmental setpiece and others imprinted their beauty on me. Its visuals harken back to old-school Metroid and Castlevania games with a modernized hand-crafted twist via animation, lighting, and detail. Clearly, months were spent to nail the art style of 9 Years of Shadows.

The same applies to its dynamic elemental gameplay, giving players different armor sets to venture through hazardous areas and retread old ground with new powers to unlock secrets.

Gameplay beats from iconic titles like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and the more recent Metroid Dread peek their heads with refreshing twists in 9 Years of Shadows. However, its gameplay does suffer from performance issues and grueling difficulty spikes that erode its thrilling foundation. Here are our thoughts:

Mexico-based video game indie Halbred Studios are the masterminds behind 9 Years of Shadows, described as a melodic side-scrolling Metroidvania with a radiant pixel art form. It was released for PC on March 28 and will arrive on Nintendo Switch in Q3 2023.

Players will step into a world inflicted for nine years by a color-sucking curse as the hopeful warrior Europa, who dares to venture inside the Castle Talos labyrinth to find the source of the malison. Shortly within its abandoned walls, she encounters Apino, a cute ghost teddy bear that players can utilize to shoot projectiles.

Their meeting triggers a phenomenon that brings color back to the castle. Together, they’ll discover lively NPCs pushing the plot forward, battling formidable bosses, and each acquiring abilities to upgrade their arsenal.

The soundtrack injects personality and bellies story connotations to juice up gameplay scenarios.

A jazzy saxophone makes a lone hearth feel warmer; NES-era-styled beats give boss fights a frisky twist; soft tappings from piano keys echo off the halls of a forsaken orphanage.

9 Years of Shadows is also surprisingly rich with narrative. Europa’s internal monologues paint a desperate history as she battles deranged humans turned monstrous for selfish reasons, illustrating the effects of the people’s long suffering under the maddening curse.

Europa is a warrior with a sick golden halberd that I grew to adore from her drive and upstanding morals as she dealt with her past trauma.

Gameplay-wise, 9 Years of Shadows pulled me closer to her through the four distinct elemental armors she obtains throughout, requiring me to understand the length of her basic attacks and movements as her powers widened.

I could seamlessly shapeshift into a mermaid to flip between waterfalls and zip down conduits with these armors.

Wearing the colorful equipment to attack enemies with identical hues increased the damage of my light and heavy attacks — Apino’s projectiles being the Achilles heel for some opponents.

With the various powers and armors at my fingertips, stringing together moves and spraying projectiles kept the game snappy.

Unfortunately, the spontaneous performance dips during battles and exploration can turn 9 Years of Shadows into a jerky spectacle.

Then there’s the occasional game crash amid animation sequences for new armor and visually busy areas. The issues were disruptive, especially when I had to retrace my steps because the game gave me a black screen partway through a zone.

Once those problems disappeared, going against the masked gigantic bird and underwater serpent bosses rekindled its exciting gameplay. Many of those fights required quick inputs on tight screens, forcing me to adapt to their bullet-hell mechanics during the rush of changing armors.

Although, a few had jarring difficulty spikes that required almost near-perfect gameplay. These bosses had multiple phases and hit like a truck, heavily damaging the lightbar, a barrier protecting Europa’s life points and resource for Apino to fire projectiles.

Once the bar’s empty, Europa could only take a few hits before dying, so I had to stop moving for a few seconds during fights and heal the meter by hugging Apino. While cute, it became aggravating since enemies were always nearby.

A timing mechanic that allowed me to heal the entire lightbar once depleted came in handy. By mastering the skill, I bulldozed through battles as long as I anticipated the timing, but missing the input could mean death.

This is a fascinating feature that players will often miss, making the clunky slow healing the primary method in the face of aggressive enemies.

Since its launch, Halberd Studios have implemented hotfixes to resolve technical issues, including a memory leak causing crashes. The devs will continue patching the game, so it’s safe to try 9 Years of Shadows while the team makes the gameplay experience smoother.

Of course, 9 Years of Shadows will still have some awkward design choices and performance caveats until all is fixed, but it’s still a pretty enjoyable game once you get settled. It’s a gorgeous love letter to the retro legends that fans of the genre can lose time to and absorb everything it offers.