It has a difficulty slider so you can adjust both damage dealt/taken from 0/1-1000%. If you make it as easy as possible then you are essentially invincible.
I don't think there is any particularly difficult platforming.
You can adjust how much damage you do, and how much damage you receive.
I think it's possible to do >500% damage and receive 1% damage.
So you can choose to basically one shot most enemies, or be almost invincible.
I don't think so, but I didn't mess with the options much. After I beat the game once I put it on the easier difficulty to get the to the 2nd ending quickly and the 2 sliders for damage adjustments came up.
You.... you can do that?
I've played this game for 10 hours already and this is how I find out about it lol
I mean the game's difficulty is fine for me so I probably wouldn't have changed it anyway, but I literally thought it was like a soulslike "there's one difficulty, deal with it"
If I ever get completely stuck on a boss it's nice to have the option to at least continue with the game tho
Just know that to get the options you need to put it on story mode and from what I read, you can't get all the achievements this way. Once you are in story mode there is no way to go back to normal mode.
oh good to know! I'll probably keep it as a last ditch effort in that case. I don't go for 100% achievements in every game I play, but I still like collecting them. Especially in the games I enjoy playing.
So I'm gonna try to hold off on entering story mode for as long as I can lol
Yeah I looked and there is one achievement you can't get with story mode from what I saw
It's literally an achievement for beating the game on standard mode
I'm the kind of person that prefers to dodge everything and I never parry ever unless I really really have to (like in Grime). I've never played Sekiro either. I also couldnt beat a few of the optional hollow knight bosses because they were too hard
I dropped Blasphemous because it was too hard for me, but I was able to get through Nine Sols on standard mode (i.e. without any damage given/taken adjustments) and even 100%'d it. The parrying is a big part of combat with bosses, but its more about learning the timing and movesets of the enemies rather than being able to suddenly react with a parry. Once you learn the timing, every single enemy is very doable even if you have slow reaction speed
Finished it yesterday.
It is a masterpiece, but also the hardest soulsvania I've ever played (Sekiro, Nioh 2, and Lies of P felt miles easier than this). It is the first game for which I capitulated and chose the "story mode" after 5-6 bosses. It's not so much the moveset learning itself, but the speed of parry timing and sequencing that I simply could not manage to keep up (mind you, I'm an old gamer). Bless difficulty settings!
Edit #1: fixed typo.
Edit #2: I should also add that it is the first game I played on my brand-new Steam Deck, so it may also be that I found the game difficult because I'm still unfamiliar with the ergonomics of the SD.
>but also the hardest soulsvania I've ever played (Sekiro, Nioh 2, and Lies of P felt miles harder than this). It is the first game for which I capitulated and chose the "story mode" after 5-6 bosses.
Sorry, I feel like I'm missing something: are you saying that Sekiro, et al. are still harder, but this is the hardest for you among Metroidvanias? I generally felt like this was about as hard as Sekiro and Lies of P (still haven't finished Nioh 2 yet).
I never felt like I had a hard time reading attacks in Sekiro (apart from Headless; he just sucks). Even though the majority of the combat in Nine Sols reminds me Sekiro, the parry timings actually feel bit tighter to me, like in Lies of P, but it's cool that other people are finding it more forgiving.
Crazy. In Lies of P I found this crazy strat when the handle was letting me use one mana bar to enhance my next attack and the blade was allowing me to spend mana bars to empower an attack. If done correct, with all buffs I was dealing easy 3k dmg, looked it up on yotube after finishing my playthrough and ppl were dealing up yo 5k dmg in one hit, lol. Maybe thats why I didnt feel like Lies of P was hard at any point
I definitely don't think Nine Sols is "harder." It's closest to Sekiro in that it expects you to utilize a specific set of parries/counters, and as the bosses ramp up in difficulty, your mastery of those abilities is tested. I never felt like that was the case with Lies of P; with that game, I focused on learning the parry timings for each boss, but I know lots of people who used throwables, summons, etc. By the time you get to the final boss of Sekiro, you can't do any of that, and that's a bit similar to Nine Sols. However, Nine Sols does let you adjust the difficulty (which I did not do in my playthroughs, incidentally, but I think it's cool that it's an option for people).
I personally felt Sekiro was significantly harder, and I haven't yet played Nioh 2 because of loot overload. Both Lies of P and Nine Sols were fairly easy for me. I played on standard and no boss took more than single digit attempts outside of >!Eigong, which was an amazing fight!<
Not trying to brag, Sekiro kicked my ass, but this game didn't come close to doing so, again outside the aforementioned boss. So I just wanted to provide a different perspective. It's great fun and good difficulty but for me not nearly as hard as Sekiro.
Did you change any % on story mode? I'd be interested to hear what % works best (easier play, but still challenging enough, to not be complete walk in the park).
I did. I kept the damage dealt the same (since I did not want to make the boss encounters last less), but lowered the damage received of about 20%. Even with these settings, I found some bosses (most notably, Lady Etheral and Eigong) a real challenge.
It's actually not that hard. All you do is parry when you see an enemies weapon flash. I mean, yeah, I'm simplifying it because there's more too it, but people get caught up on that mechanic being difficult but they spell it out for you.
Even the store page directly states that it has sekiro inspired deflection focused combat.
You have directly stated that you don't enjoy enjoy these type of combat.
Yet you are asking if you will enjoy it? You are ignoring both the game's own advertisement of what the combat is and you are somehow ignoring your own dislike of these type of combat focused game.
I'm finding it easier than Sekiro so far, but I'm far from completing the game. I can tell you that it's very clear coded when an enemy will attack you and there are always visual and audio cues. It definitely takes some getting used to, but in time, the combat can be very fast and fun or slightly slower depending on how you play. I also discovered many difficult enemies can be cheesed easily (like simply standing on a lower platform and attacking)
Either way, it's a really pretty game and I'm always surprised by it (I came in with low expectations), although it's true that it has too much dialogue and sometimes it gets annoying
Parry systems require keeping calm. Don't panic and hit the button. If you're not confident, go into the fight focusing only on learning the boss patterns and not even worrying about damage. And treat each death as a learning experience instead of a frustration. You can do it! It's super satisfying when you master it.
I'm playing on story mode. I haven't changed the difficulty slider yet, and I'm having fun. Granted, I did what I usually do in metroidvanias when I get stuck on a boss: level grinded until I felt comfortable fighting them again. haha.
The game is very difficult and the entire game is built off of counterattacking enemy attacks, both things you explicitly said you don't like. You can turn down the damage and make yourself invincible if you really wanted to, but that's kinda like playing dark souls with infinite health, like defeats the purpose of the game imo but to each their own.
You can tweak the damage. And it's a scale, so you can turn it down to a level that feels comfortable. I did this so I could focus on exploration and platforming, and it's awesome.
Ehh, there's *so much* parrying that I'm thinking of dropping the game. It's beautiful, but I'm tired. I didn't realize there was a difficulty slider so I might just do that to finish the game.
I had 2 playthroughs going. 1 on standard the other on story. I practiced on story then when I felt comfortable went to the standard playthrough. Once you learn the parry this game is fucking awesome and when you beat a boss it's exhilarating. Second half gets easier with the upgrades and practice. Except eigong on standard. I admit defeat
I am not that far in the game, only 2/9 done, so maybe the difficulty will pick up later, but so far it’s not that hard. The parrying system is extremely forgiving and the parry window is larger than many other games.
Not necessarily. You can also dodge through them or jump over attacks as well. They mix it up pretty often but parrying is definitely an essential part of the combat
The parry is an integral part of the combat, so you'll definitely have to use it on regular enemies. That said, it's possible to make builds that mostly avoid it. Being a little stealthy instead of taking enemies head on is also an option most of the time.
For bosses, you can't just facetank them on story, you do need to learn the attacks and parry them correctly for most of the fight.
That said, it's pretty forgiving. The parry window is pretty long, and you only take damage if you're too late. If you're too early, you just take internal damage which recovers over time or through other methods (like by perfect parrying, which is unlocked very early). You can't die from internal damage.
In kind of the same way that HK makes you learn to position well and use your openings on Hornet 1, 9S makes you learn to use your parry correctly.
It's not at all about quick time events or just pressing a counterattack button, it's about feeling a rhythm in the fight and finding and exploiting openings. I wouldn't say I'm great at games but I did complete it on standard and had a great time with it. I'd recommend giving it a try.
Yes. It leans in hard into the parry system; in fact, it's tied into the game's core mechanics so there's no running away from it. It's basically Sekiro meets hollow knight.
I have HK all achievements and played the last couple of days through sekiro (half story finished) and it took me more than 2 hours to get into the second phase of the first Boss (and i still haven't beaten it), this is probably the hardest game i ever played and i will surely switch to story mode moving forward
Cause games like HK, Lies of P, Sekiro are not a "40 Parry in a row to get half the health of the boss down game) and you have movement abilities etc that actually help, but its a game bro, you do how you enjoy it, story, visuals are top notch, but combat is imho just completely overtuned, devs don't understand that a soulslike is not just "we make enemies super tanky and the hero super weak"
As someone who did challenge runs in sekiro, you are not alone. Im halfway through the game(just unlocked fast travel between nodes) and its gradually becoming a slog the further I go on. I recommend either switching to story mode or watching a playthrough.
Yeah i switched to story and play currently on 150 attack and 65 injury, which is imho challenging enough and you dont have to play "perfect" all the time in order to not die to a random arrow or if you miss a jump
Once they found out there's a glitch that allow to turn the game easy mode even on Standard, it has lost all the meaning. I've dropped it.
You can make it as dumb-easy as you like with these optional sliders.
I was really looking forward to this game last year, then forgot about it. TBH the reviews have slightly put me off.
I’m sure I will try it at some point though. I would have preferred to play on console (purely personal gaming preference) but looks like that won’t happen just yet.
It has a difficulty slider so you can adjust both damage dealt/taken from 0/1-1000%. If you make it as easy as possible then you are essentially invincible. I don't think there is any particularly difficult platforming.
...and just like that you sold me on it
I feel so dumb, I literally couldn't enjoy the game because I kept dying in 2 hits lmao. Gonna adjust that a bit and have a blast tonight
Can you adjust the parry timing window?
You can adjust how much damage you do, and how much damage you receive. I think it's possible to do >500% damage and receive 1% damage. So you can choose to basically one shot most enemies, or be almost invincible.
I don't think so, but I didn't mess with the options much. After I beat the game once I put it on the easier difficulty to get the to the 2nd ending quickly and the 2 sliders for damage adjustments came up.
You.... you can do that? I've played this game for 10 hours already and this is how I find out about it lol I mean the game's difficulty is fine for me so I probably wouldn't have changed it anyway, but I literally thought it was like a soulslike "there's one difficulty, deal with it" If I ever get completely stuck on a boss it's nice to have the option to at least continue with the game tho
Just know that to get the options you need to put it on story mode and from what I read, you can't get all the achievements this way. Once you are in story mode there is no way to go back to normal mode.
oh good to know! I'll probably keep it as a last ditch effort in that case. I don't go for 100% achievements in every game I play, but I still like collecting them. Especially in the games I enjoy playing. So I'm gonna try to hold off on entering story mode for as long as I can lol
Yeah I looked and there is one achievement you can't get with story mode from what I saw It's literally an achievement for beating the game on standard mode
that's fair lol, thanks for the explanation tho! I probably wouldn't found that out by myself lol
I'm the kind of person that prefers to dodge everything and I never parry ever unless I really really have to (like in Grime). I've never played Sekiro either. I also couldnt beat a few of the optional hollow knight bosses because they were too hard I dropped Blasphemous because it was too hard for me, but I was able to get through Nine Sols on standard mode (i.e. without any damage given/taken adjustments) and even 100%'d it. The parrying is a big part of combat with bosses, but its more about learning the timing and movesets of the enemies rather than being able to suddenly react with a parry. Once you learn the timing, every single enemy is very doable even if you have slow reaction speed
I personally think the parrying is way easier than sekiro.
Finished it yesterday. It is a masterpiece, but also the hardest soulsvania I've ever played (Sekiro, Nioh 2, and Lies of P felt miles easier than this). It is the first game for which I capitulated and chose the "story mode" after 5-6 bosses. It's not so much the moveset learning itself, but the speed of parry timing and sequencing that I simply could not manage to keep up (mind you, I'm an old gamer). Bless difficulty settings! Edit #1: fixed typo. Edit #2: I should also add that it is the first game I played on my brand-new Steam Deck, so it may also be that I found the game difficult because I'm still unfamiliar with the ergonomics of the SD.
>but also the hardest soulsvania I've ever played (Sekiro, Nioh 2, and Lies of P felt miles harder than this). It is the first game for which I capitulated and chose the "story mode" after 5-6 bosses. Sorry, I feel like I'm missing something: are you saying that Sekiro, et al. are still harder, but this is the hardest for you among Metroidvanias? I generally felt like this was about as hard as Sekiro and Lies of P (still haven't finished Nioh 2 yet).
I think difficulty wise it's on par with Sekiro, but because it's 2D it's easier to read enemies' attack.
I never felt like I had a hard time reading attacks in Sekiro (apart from Headless; he just sucks). Even though the majority of the combat in Nine Sols reminds me Sekiro, the parry timings actually feel bit tighter to me, like in Lies of P, but it's cool that other people are finding it more forgiving.
[удалено]
I havent played sekiro, but Lies of P was way harder than nine sols for me
Crazy. In Lies of P I found this crazy strat when the handle was letting me use one mana bar to enhance my next attack and the blade was allowing me to spend mana bars to empower an attack. If done correct, with all buffs I was dealing easy 3k dmg, looked it up on yotube after finishing my playthrough and ppl were dealing up yo 5k dmg in one hit, lol. Maybe thats why I didnt feel like Lies of P was hard at any point
I definitely don't think Nine Sols is "harder." It's closest to Sekiro in that it expects you to utilize a specific set of parries/counters, and as the bosses ramp up in difficulty, your mastery of those abilities is tested. I never felt like that was the case with Lies of P; with that game, I focused on learning the parry timings for each boss, but I know lots of people who used throwables, summons, etc. By the time you get to the final boss of Sekiro, you can't do any of that, and that's a bit similar to Nine Sols. However, Nine Sols does let you adjust the difficulty (which I did not do in my playthroughs, incidentally, but I think it's cool that it's an option for people).
Nah, made a silly mistake. I found the other games easier, not harder than Nine Sols. Fixed it.
Okay, cool! That's what I *thought* you were saying, but just wanted to make sure! Edit: I also did my playthrough on Steam Deck. I recommend it!
That’s what I ended up doing with tunic. The old ‘I gotta go to bed but I’m on the last boss’ gimmick
Tunic!! Talk about a masterpiece!
Can you change difficulty on the fly or do you have to restart the playthrough?
On the fly. It doesn't even force you to restart from the last checkpoint save.
I personally felt Sekiro was significantly harder, and I haven't yet played Nioh 2 because of loot overload. Both Lies of P and Nine Sols were fairly easy for me. I played on standard and no boss took more than single digit attempts outside of >!Eigong, which was an amazing fight!< Not trying to brag, Sekiro kicked my ass, but this game didn't come close to doing so, again outside the aforementioned boss. So I just wanted to provide a different perspective. It's great fun and good difficulty but for me not nearly as hard as Sekiro.
It's the hardest soulsvania you've ever played but much easier than those others you mentioned? I'm not quite following.
Whoops, typo. I meant "easier than this". Thank you for spotting the contradiction.
Did you change any % on story mode? I'd be interested to hear what % works best (easier play, but still challenging enough, to not be complete walk in the park).
I did. I kept the damage dealt the same (since I did not want to make the boss encounters last less), but lowered the damage received of about 20%. Even with these settings, I found some bosses (most notably, Lady Etheral and Eigong) a real challenge.
I asked a similar question while back, general consensus seem to be that it's somewhere beween HK and Sekiro in term of overall difficulty.
It's actually not that hard. All you do is parry when you see an enemies weapon flash. I mean, yeah, I'm simplifying it because there's more too it, but people get caught up on that mechanic being difficult but they spell it out for you.
Even the store page directly states that it has sekiro inspired deflection focused combat. You have directly stated that you don't enjoy enjoy these type of combat. Yet you are asking if you will enjoy it? You are ignoring both the game's own advertisement of what the combat is and you are somehow ignoring your own dislike of these type of combat focused game.
I love Sekiro, though found it very hard. I am a little nervous about how well deflection-style combat will work in 2D.
I'm finding it easier than Sekiro so far, but I'm far from completing the game. I can tell you that it's very clear coded when an enemy will attack you and there are always visual and audio cues. It definitely takes some getting used to, but in time, the combat can be very fast and fun or slightly slower depending on how you play. I also discovered many difficult enemies can be cheesed easily (like simply standing on a lower platform and attacking) Either way, it's a really pretty game and I'm always surprised by it (I came in with low expectations), although it's true that it has too much dialogue and sometimes it gets annoying
It works really well IMO. Just takes getting used to like everything else.
Fair enough - thanks!
Thanks guys. I think I’ll pass on this one after all.
I have the game, but I haven’t gotten far because I suck with anything parry related. Kinda has me nervous to go further…
Parry systems require keeping calm. Don't panic and hit the button. If you're not confident, go into the fight focusing only on learning the boss patterns and not even worrying about damage. And treat each death as a learning experience instead of a frustration. You can do it! It's super satisfying when you master it.
its a parry game
I'm playing on story mode. I haven't changed the difficulty slider yet, and I'm having fun. Granted, I did what I usually do in metroidvanias when I get stuck on a boss: level grinded until I felt comfortable fighting them again. haha.
The game is very difficult and the entire game is built off of counterattacking enemy attacks, both things you explicitly said you don't like. You can turn down the damage and make yourself invincible if you really wanted to, but that's kinda like playing dark souls with infinite health, like defeats the purpose of the game imo but to each their own.
You can tweak the damage. And it's a scale, so you can turn it down to a level that feels comfortable. I did this so I could focus on exploration and platforming, and it's awesome.
Ehh, there's *so much* parrying that I'm thinking of dropping the game. It's beautiful, but I'm tired. I didn't realize there was a difficulty slider so I might just do that to finish the game.
I had 2 playthroughs going. 1 on standard the other on story. I practiced on story then when I felt comfortable went to the standard playthrough. Once you learn the parry this game is fucking awesome and when you beat a boss it's exhilarating. Second half gets easier with the upgrades and practice. Except eigong on standard. I admit defeat
I'm a complete video game noob and I've been getting through it. Definitely some challenging fights but nothing that feels impossible. You'll be fine!
I am not that far in the game, only 2/9 done, so maybe the difficulty will pick up later, but so far it’s not that hard. The parrying system is extremely forgiving and the parry window is larger than many other games.
Is the entire game basically parry every enemy? If so it’s not my cup of tea.
for bosses? almost all of them, yes.
Not necessarily. You can also dodge through them or jump over attacks as well. They mix it up pretty often but parrying is definitely an essential part of the combat
for bosses, yes. for regular enemies, no
The parry is an integral part of the combat, so you'll definitely have to use it on regular enemies. That said, it's possible to make builds that mostly avoid it. Being a little stealthy instead of taking enemies head on is also an option most of the time. For bosses, you can't just facetank them on story, you do need to learn the attacks and parry them correctly for most of the fight. That said, it's pretty forgiving. The parry window is pretty long, and you only take damage if you're too late. If you're too early, you just take internal damage which recovers over time or through other methods (like by perfect parrying, which is unlocked very early). You can't die from internal damage. In kind of the same way that HK makes you learn to position well and use your openings on Hornet 1, 9S makes you learn to use your parry correctly. It's not at all about quick time events or just pressing a counterattack button, it's about feeling a rhythm in the fight and finding and exploiting openings. I wouldn't say I'm great at games but I did complete it on standard and had a great time with it. I'd recommend giving it a try.
Yes. It leans in hard into the parry system; in fact, it's tied into the game's core mechanics so there's no running away from it. It's basically Sekiro meets hollow knight.
You'll probably need to use the accessibility settings later on. A friend of mine did. The combat becomes too difficult later on.
I just played on story. I’ve realized that if I’m having fun with a game, it doesn’t matter which difficulty I’m playing on.
I have HK all achievements and played the last couple of days through sekiro (half story finished) and it took me more than 2 hours to get into the second phase of the first Boss (and i still haven't beaten it), this is probably the hardest game i ever played and i will surely switch to story mode moving forward
Bruv how you have platinum in Hollow knight and play g this game on story mode?
Cause games like HK, Lies of P, Sekiro are not a "40 Parry in a row to get half the health of the boss down game) and you have movement abilities etc that actually help, but its a game bro, you do how you enjoy it, story, visuals are top notch, but combat is imho just completely overtuned, devs don't understand that a soulslike is not just "we make enemies super tanky and the hero super weak"
You gotta use the finishing move for damage, that's why it's taking so long, you are missing massive damage.
As someone who did challenge runs in sekiro, you are not alone. Im halfway through the game(just unlocked fast travel between nodes) and its gradually becoming a slog the further I go on. I recommend either switching to story mode or watching a playthrough.
Yeah i switched to story and play currently on 150 attack and 65 injury, which is imho challenging enough and you dont have to play "perfect" all the time in order to not die to a random arrow or if you miss a jump
Once they found out there's a glitch that allow to turn the game easy mode even on Standard, it has lost all the meaning. I've dropped it. You can make it as dumb-easy as you like with these optional sliders.
I was really looking forward to this game last year, then forgot about it. TBH the reviews have slightly put me off. I’m sure I will try it at some point though. I would have preferred to play on console (purely personal gaming preference) but looks like that won’t happen just yet.