These negative reviews have plus 20 hours playtime, so they probably liked the game. It's like playing 50+ hours of CoD and then leaving negative reviews cuz an American game said "Russia bad". I'm eager to see what it is tho. I'm assuming the Solarians represent Maoists or something, and Mao in China is kinda like the founding fathers in the US.
Foekoe, I think you need to face the facts. Lots of dialogue isn't a bad thing, you just don't like lots of dialogue. I understand that large stretches of dialogue can be boring. But when I see you complain in your videos about dialogue, when this is the complaint that keeps consistently coming up in your videos about story based games. It feels like less like an issue with the game and more of a situation of personal preference.
I generally don't like a lot of dialogue in games. This game made me realize I just don't like game dialogue when it's bad. The characters and story in Nine Sols is great and well worth reading.
I agree, there definitely is a lot of dialogue, and you don’t need to read a lot of it to understand the main story. A lot of it does help build the world and understand the land you are in. I think why sometimes it feels like there’s a lot of dialogue because after your done with an area you probably have a lot stuff to give to shaunshaun and shennong
I do like the story, but the ending disappointed me. The true ending is basically just outright worse then the normal ending, but neither are super satisfying. It’s okay though, because the final boss was amazing.
@@goober3889 Have you seen a lore vid? The endings reflect a lot upon in-game theology and the peotagonist’s beliefs. If you didn’t get all the lore you will probably not be satisfied.
Whether or not you like the stretches of dialogue and character interactions in a game really depends on the type of player you are. For me, I genuinely really enjoyed the dialogue and character writing presented in Nine Sols, and I actually think it serves to elevate the game’s story to a higher level by making each character fleshed out and worthy of sympathy to their own degree. Some people may not be looking for that, and that’s ok, but Nine Sols wouldn’t be the same game without its focus on characters. I would personally recommend it, it’s genuinely an incredible metroidvania that does really unique things, and it’s an experience you won’t get from any other game.
I feel like youre really underselling the narrative here. Yes it is dialogue heavy and yes it does like to leave you in the dark. However the dialogue does a great job of giving the player insight on every character as well as strengthening the relations between them and allowing us to see how they grow. It makes sense to leave things as a mystery that you slowly start to unravel because Yi is aware of the bigger picture (aside from Eigong’s true intentions). The game treats Yi as a real person, he doesn’t need to explain why they’re on New Kunlun or what’s happening because he, as well as everybody else, already knows. I also will not take dialogue slander coupled with Lady Ethereal’s story because her’s is just Shakespearean levels of tragic and one that elevated the game from good to great for me. I would like to add that I really appreciate your review overall though. This game is amazing and I love seeing any praise of it ❤️
@@Mostly_Rockin_itSounds like somebody hasn't watched any of his content in a few years or is still coping with the fact that he isn't making PvZ content anymore. Oh wait he stopped making content as a whole I forgot about that.
2:44 Kinda important, If that is correct, traditional chinese is the writing used in Taiwan. Could be chinese plebs just using traditional to make it seem legit, but without further info I wouldn't be pointing fingers so quickly
I think he just made a mistake and thought traditional was used in mainland and simplified in taiwan, and claimed it was in traditional chinese as a result even if it was actually simplified.
I can confirm what's shown in 2:44 is simplified Chinese, which is used by people in China (I'm from Taiwan) I think he is just confused which country is using which language 😅
To my surprise many people take simplified Chinese as a language that Taiwan people use. Stand with FoeKoe, although he might just mistaken something. It’s fine, the history is complicated, we don’t expect every people on earth understand. Just here to clarify, the Chinese in the clip is simplified one.
I genuinely like the interactions and more direct worldbuilding in this game. While I do like the more passive world building in the Souls games, HK and Elden Ring, the fact that we have cutscenes, dialogue and a more overt story allows me to connect better with the characters and lore of the game’s world as the usual silent, voiceless protagonist of most games just have you as a self-insert than, say, an established character whose already their own person with their own motives and feelings about certain events and the world they live in, especially since I get more of an understanding of why the character and characters around them act the way they do. Plus, I’m all about rich dialogue and engagement in games, so perhaps it’s a personal preference of mine.
@@BonazaiGirl Thank you! Heads up: Very big comment incoming The games i want to recommend are Clash: Artifacts of Chaos, Soulstice, Cookie Cutter and No Straight Roads. - Clashs: AoC is a prequel to the Zeno Clash games, which are a very unique and bizarre world, almost prehistoric, with few humans and many sapient monsters, chimeras and freaks. The main character is a lonely, ugly martial arts hermit, who comes across an old man and his bird grandchild being harassed by a mercenary, leading to the accidental death of the grandfather. Pseudo, as the hermit is named, steps in to try and find a new safe place for the Boy, all the while surviving mercenaries, wildlife, maniacs and a theater-themed cult. Throughout the game, there will be moments of the two having talks with one another, like favourite foods, wondering what is across the sea, some teasing such as "Why don't you have feathers? You can sleep on them, like a pillow!" "I could pluck you and make a pillow" "Ah! Bad Pseudo!" "Heh heh heh" and genuinely fantastic music. To note: That last teasing conversation only happens late in the game. Early on, Pseudo is a pretty firm guy that doesn't go out of his way to emotionally attach himself to anyone, but he doesn't dismiss the child either. He's here to get stuff done, has some sass to him (pretty mercilessly against one character in particular), is alright with engaging in conversation, but there's also some melancholy to him. Not feeling like a complete person. The Boy himself can also offer some interesting things, like this following conversation: "I miss Grandpa sometimes." "You shouldn't. The dead are gone. They don't matter." "If they don't matter, why do they make us sad?" "*sighs*... I don't know." and one not long after that: "Pseudo... what happens to us when we die? Do we go somewhere?" "Where should we go? Zenozoik is all there is. Flesh to Dust, Breath to Wind. That's it." "Is that why the wind... sings?" *in a more intrigued, wondering tone* "I... don't know." For the game world itself, there is only one Law: Prior to a physical altercation, you can challenge an opponent to The Ritual, a short game of dice, where the winner gets to enforce a special condition on the battle. It's the closest semblance to any form of order and organization. - Cookie Cutter's about a planet known as the Megastructure that has a rather mystical energy source at its core. The main character is an android woman called Cherry, constructed by a scientist to save that world, who later become lovers She gets intensely, violently brutalized at the start of the game as the dystopian megacorp/government comes to take the scientist away. Cherry gets fixed up by an old friend of the scientist lady and is understandably much more bitter and angry, and is not here to make friends. Though neither is she here to be a deliberate jerk either, Cherry's just blunt and impatient. Many people haven't liked her for it, but all the characters react to her attitude in their own way. Some don't like it, some don't much care, some warrant a biting response back and some find it it refreshing. Cherry does have a separate A.I. companion named Regina who helps to balance out her rudeness and bluntness with a more educated view on things. Fair warning, the game itself can be quite irreverent and provocative. But it's not here to make fun of itself either. Cookie Cutter's quite a passion project of the lead dev, a kind of love letter to a LOT of media that has shaped his and later his team's tastes over the years. It makes no concessions on its weirdness and tone, fully knowing how divisive it can be, embraces clichés and isn't here to reinvent the wheel: but to have a story for the sake, value and worth of the world and story simply existing. - No Straight Roads is set in a city that is powered by music. The lead characters are an indie rock band of a pretty energetic and emotive guitarist (Mayday), and a more level-headed laid-back drummer (Zuke). During special auditions they get brushed off with unanimous negative votes by the jury, who consist of the main music artists that govern the different districts of Vinyl City. Yet the audience's reception seemed very loving. One scene later and Tatiana, the mayor/CEO bans *all* rock music from the city and heavily favours EDM. Meanwhile there's problems of various blackouts happening and most emergency power only gets directed to the main artists' venues. So, Mayday and Zuke seek to strike back. They fight the artists on their home turf, but they're not one-note simple bad guys. The entire game has a theme of music: Bosses don't just have different attacks in accordance with different parts of their themes, but also seem to represent different reasons why people make music, the effect that has on themselves and their audience, music as an industry, and the effect *that* has on artists and their people. From an astronomer DJ to a child prodigy on a piano, to a lady who looks like a living abstract or surrealist art mannequin piece and some others. Between bosses there's also some radio station interviews that the characters can have, discussing stuff like how Mayday and Zuke have their own disagreements-- like Zuke acknowledging that the antagonist company makes genuinely qualitive products, including drumsticks, and that Mayday got quite zealous and broke them. - Soulstice's main characters are technically one singular being. A big part of the game's lore and themes is about bonds and relationships with people, due to an ancient and common threat of extradimensional ghosts attacking a dark fantasy medieval world. This necessitated the birth of Chimeras: Creatures consisting of two souls bound into one body, with the secondary soul having the ability to tap into the intangible and ethereal to make the wraiths vulnerable to physical harm. Chimeras can only be born through two people having a very strong, intense bond. Briar and Lute, the two sisters, dearly love each other, with Briar being quite brash and having a chip on her shoulder about their current state of being, especially regarding Lute being a child and practically dead. Lute is a sweetheart, and is able to keep giving her sister hope, without being overbearing about it. Thing is, the game shows that the bond required to create a Chimera, doesn't necessarily have to be a positive one. And when a Chimera grows unstable, they risk Transcendence, a process of becoming a horrible, powerful monster, every one unique. There's also a snarky shopkeeper/overseernamed Layton who provides extra dialogue for those interested. It can tell more of the world or some insight in what the characters think. Like how Layton used to be part of the great monastery in the city where the game takes place, but always felt that the place was too opulent to really be built in honor of their gods. Too distracting, built more to impress than to revere. (Must admit, Soulstice isn't the easiest character action/hack-and-slash game to get into for reasons of the camera at times, dragging on in either the beginning or the middle depending on who you ask, and varous mechanics, but gameplay and story alike nevertheless have a lot of good stuff to offer and does feel good as well.) Very big comment, thank you for reading through all of this if you did so. I hope i've sparked your interest with these and wish you a lot of fun when you may get to them.
I'm a bit sad that he never mentioned that the dialogue is quite well written and feels like a real dialogue than just lore dump most the time. Ig that's the souls player ADHD for you.
@@jurtheorc8117 Thank you for the recommendations! Funny enough, I have played NSR and Cookie Cutter (both are great games with great dialogue and unique mechanics, although NSR is slightly janky), but haven’t played Soulstice or Clash. They do sound promising from the way you describe them in such great detail with super interesting synopsis. Might give check them out if they’re on Steam or Console.
I'd like to add to this that the taoist narratives in Nine Sols are phenomenal. I teach and give presentations about taoism and am planning on writing an analysis on how Nine Sols uses it, both in story and in gameplay.
Absolutely baffled to hear Nine Sols' dialogue described as a bombardment or compared, even jokingly, to a visual novel. In my opinion they were efficient at getting across what they needed to, and good about avoiding needless repetition or dragging conversations.
I think it's really funny how many gamers main complaint about nine sols is "Reading is HARD. Why are you asking me to pay attention instead of just twitching"
4:31 personally I don't have any problems with "long" dialogues in Nine Sols (cuz I don't really think they are long) and also, they are exciting to read and they are not boring (if you don't think so, you just haven't witnessed gacha games with shitton of boring dialogues, that are written by an AI)
Story wise, Hollow Knight is, as its Dark Souls progenitors, more of an archaeological adventure as you go full forensic trying to unravel what F-ed up Hallownest. To that end, its fragmented narrative and passive story telling fit perfectly. It's part of the thrill you get when you discover a new piece of the puzzle. Your job in Hallownest is to unearth its forgotten mysteries, often prying them from your defeated foes. And even Hornet you get to know her more from what you piece together out of patchwork records that mention her than what she herself is willing to say. Nine Sols' story, on the other hand, happens at the climax of the tragedy of its "Hallownest" (New Kunlun), when everything is about to break down. So, considering that the place is still 'alive' it stands to reason that you need more explanations, especially with the involved parties (Kuafu, Shuan Shuan, Shennong, Chiyou, Abacus, etc.). Plus, unlike the mostly zombiefied or plain comatose figures of Hallownest, the Sols are still very much alive and kicking, punching, throwing knives, meat puppets and whatnot at you. They are (allegedly) Functional individuals in a functional society, machine, city, whatever. So your job is figuring out the current problem and avoid (if possible) going full Radiance. And for that, you need more story exposition. Both are good, stellar games in their own right and style. Just my thoughts.
About the tweening animations used in the game - they are used exclusively for a class of enemies that are basically zombies, which makes me think it was a deliberate choice to make them seem creepy and offputting.
Having played the game myself, the story is not overwhelming, it's just... there. Usually i spent stretches of over an hour (minus 3 minute snarking contests between yi and the area boss) before anyone talked to me again, and even then it was, like, 10/20 minutes at most of dialogue? Most of it not even being story related, just... character interactions i enjoyed watching. Idk HOW you managed to get overwhelmed lol.
am I weird for feeling a pretty major wave of hesitation to keep playing this game? I'm literally only an hour in (stuck on the spear boss) and I'm starting to think its not for me Hollow knight gave you a bench right next to most bosses, Nine Sols makes you go through like, 5 enemies before reaching. Now I usually enjoy practicing bosses, but messing up ONCE gets me full-combo'd by this boss, as if there's no i-frames when getting hit. I cant necessarily practice the boss when I die within 2 seconds. Am I missing something?
If that's the spear guy on the bridge, with the lasers behind you, yoy are very underpowered at that point. I feel like the idea was to get the boss to charge into the lasers and kill himself. Fighting him fair is way more harder than anything up to or after that point, not counting some of the harder bosses.
@@azureth9544 yesn't. The lasers help a little, but the real reason that fucker is there is to teach you how to deal with spear guys- which, in my experience is STICK TO THEM LIKE A TICK ON CRACK. The biggest problem they have IS their multihits combined with their range, leaving them pretty safe. If you stick close enough, you can both make their long range advantage useless AND sometimes sneak behind the second and third hit of their moves.
By the way traditional Chinese is what Taiwanese use. Simplified Chinese is used by China. While it's true that there's some negative reviews in simplified Chinese, it seems like most of them were actually complaining about difficulty. So really it's just people who couldn't git gud.
Yeah it managed to pull me into its world and story in a way that neither hollow knight nor dark souls ever managed to. I think a big part of that is that the player character actually is someone, not just some random chosen undead or vessel, but their own character with a personality and place in the world.
To be honest I love the dialogs. They are great, and although there are many, they are always short. Thats the neat part, lore condensed in short conversations spaced throughout the game
I very much enjoyed the story and how it was presented. Not every Metroidvania needs to tell their story via item descriptions and not every one needs to tell it via cutscenes and dialog.
I've been scrolling through your gamelist on steam to find some games to play and found this one. Then, the same day like 4 hours later this video got posted. What a coincidence.
Coming from someone who just (almost) 100%'d the game (I wasnt heartless enough to break the pot or kill one of the Shanghai's), I don't think the narrative is a bad thing, I loved it. Granted idk how others feel besides Foekoe's, and I could be biased due to my love for good stories and characters, but I really really loved the character interactions, the fact you can just collect a bunch of gifts for Shuanshuan and strengthen your bond with him. I repeatedly checked back into the Pavilion to see if there was any other character event I missed. If you got the true ending, you'll know this game WANTS you to care about these characters. I don't think metroidvanias should be defined or restricted by needing very little story. Yes, it can be very cool to piece together a story by just exploring the world (which is still done well here I'd say), but a good narrative doesnt and shouldnt subtract from the game. Besides, a lot of the talking is optional, you can simply just not give shuanshuan gifts or converse with other characters. Its still "forced" on you sometimes with the bosses, yes, but I prefer that over them being blank slates with no personality or story. Tldr, I consider this game to be absolutely peak, because both the gameplay and the story is great Edit: browsed the comments a little, seems many agree the narrative is pretty good, so hmmm
Played Nice Sols, wondered why exactly I love the game, realized that the Solarians are canonically are mutates cats I knew exactly why (But no really, this game is absolutely fabulous and do what Foekoe is saying NOW)
@@Lacheln-YO Stay strong and don't give those people any more attention than needed. Easier said than done, but it's worth it to be able to appreciate things on their own, without the fear of others' perversions affecting our perception of those things.
Dude the story in Nine Sols is like half of it's appeal, I absolutely hate soulslike games and metroidvanias but the story was so compelling and the gameplay was fun enough for me to push through to the end. One of the greatest blends of gameplay and story I've played in a long time.
The moment I saw the MC's character design and animation I was immediately hooked and very much interested. Thanks Foekoe for bringing attention to this hidden gem!
@@JustAFishBeingAFish I have it in my library but didn’t play it for a month, then started playing another game, and then school started. Haven’t touched any game but the game is at the top of my backlog when I get back into it.
I honestly really like the character interactions. They help me get attached to these characters which by the end of the game I really am. The story to me never felt too much at all. The first time I played stuff like Dark Souls and Hollow Knight I legitimately lost interest and stopped playing because of the passive story telling. If you ask me, properly presenting a story is a good thing. The amazing story and message paired with the parry gameplay is why Nine Sols to me is probably my favourite metroidvania.
I agree. While I believe that environmental storytelling is more tasteful than lines of dialogue, I think it works well in this case due to the story being more focused on the characters, rather than the world building. I think it would've been great if there was more use of environmental storytelling when explaining the world, but honestly, I didn't really mind reading the lore.
Yes, agreed. The chat in this game made me very attached to characters, I loved every interaction with Shuanshuan and I even cried at the end of this game, which almost never happens in metroidvanias to me (except in Ori, I cried a lot in both Oris)
Strongly agreed. At first I wasn't really interested in Nine Sols, but the writing, in-world events and discussions and the character interactions made me much more interested. The stuff with finding gifts for Shuanshuan and poisons for Shennong, and from what i believe Kuafu having something new to say after every story milestone, just grabbed and kept my interest. There's other (fairly recent) games where that, having established characters and interesting interactions and development with one another, was exactly a big part of why i retained interested in a game's world. Those being - Clash: Artifacts of Chaos - Cookie Cutter - No Straight Roads - Soulstice Can recommend all of them, though be warned that Cookie Cutter has a very irreverent and at times weird, provocative tone, but like Nine Sols it's beautifully 2D hand-animated, with a colorful, interesting sci-fi/cyberpunk story with a striking style and world all its own (if not *quite* as complex, but still really lovingly made) - Soulstice is a game like Darksiders and DMC and isn't the simplest in the genre to get into for reasons of gameplay mechanics, camera and pacing. But the story of the two sister protagonists is very interesting and the sisters themselves elevate one another. Plus, every level has the snarky merchant who can supply optional conversations, that give more knowledge of the world or insight to the characters' line of thinking. (plus, gameplay in the moments does *feel* good and there's a lot of options you get throughout the game).- - No Straight Roads is simply short and sweet. Small rock band striking back against a full ban on rock music in a city that is powered by music, but all bosses (who play different genres of music) have more to them than simply being "part of the evil corporation". Including the CEO herself. Both main characters have good writing and chemistry. - And Clash: Artifacts of Chaos is a prequel to the Zeno Clash games, which is already a unique and bizarre, almost prehistoric world full of freaks and monsters, and is about a carrot-looking martial artist hermit trying to find a safe place for a recently orphaned boy. And throughout their journeys, both of them have more to tell and see than they first expected. Alongside Nine Sols, I hope that all these games get more known and appreciated. There's undeniable love for the worlds and characters in them and that shouldn't just be brushed aside
Yeah definatly! Also it makes so much more sense because you get parts of stories through other perspektives which is so helpful to fully understand the story and the motives of characters. Honestly, I think its the right amount of dialogue and, thats my opinion, it also makes it pretty realistic. The characters never interacted with another just because of simply "explaining lore". They all had their own reasons, thoughts etc. all the time which makes this all feel pretty alive
I wanted to save her so dang bad, give her a new body from the biofactory. But the devs say "no, let's leave her brain to rot and be there for you to see everytime you pass by"
Ultimately, I can see why you think there's a problem with the story presentation, but you have to remember that this game is described as Taopunk. It's essentially a xianxia novel in game form, and story is IMPORTANT AS FUCK for xianxia. So I ultimately heavily disagree with all your points about the side stories and character connections being "unnecessary."
I’ve only played like half of the game but holy god, it feels so nice to play this game. Its visuals and gameplay alone make me want to die and go to heaven. There were some minor criticisms I had with the game however, there were some parts where you could get stun-locked and just watch Yi get slapped up while you’re sitting there like a lemon unable to do anything. But I kind of just AVOID THAT AREA AT ALL COSTS when I play so I wouldn’t meet the same fate. BUT PLEASE, PLAY THIS GAME. I WANT TO SEE IT THRIVE AND PROSPER LIKE A BIG TREE. Thank you and have a great day!
DISCLAIMER: I haven't beaten the game, so I kinda skimmed this video to avoid spoilers. 99 percent of why this game interested me was the art style, since Hollow Knight, I've been a sucker for great and unique game art and this game is no exception. I definitely agree with the gameplay point, as someone who played and loved Sekiro, I was immediately intrigued when I heard it was a primary inspiration for the gameplay and the demo two years ago already convinced me. As for your point on the dialogue, I am not sure where I fall in. For example I didn't really appreciate the story and lore of hollow knight until I watched mossbag and VattiVydia for Dark Souls. To some, that might be bad thing, since a game alone should arguably let you understand whats happening. I think overall I appreciate the effort to make the narrative more active rather than the passive style of HK and DS. But at the same time I do like to figure it out by myself a little bit. Weirdly enough, Sekiro which you didn't play, strikes this balance perfectly for me as you have a voiced protagonist. I personally don't find the dialogue to be exhausting, and I actually kinda like Yi's pragmatic personality, and how it develops to a warmer side with Shuanshuan.
May I give some other recommendations for games with really great art styles? I'll give you a freebie beforehand with Clash: Artifacts of Chaos. Game's 3D and has crosshatching shaders, plus the general design of that world's inhabitants gets quite wild. One of the most notable ones for me is a three-legged dark teal-colored moose man with a three-eyed face that looks like it was compressed sideways into his torso.
i agree on the dialogue point!! i think he kind of grossly overexaggerated how much dialogue there is, and most of it is really good. after beating the game yi has become one of my favorite protagonists ever. and to that end there is still a lot "figuring out the story", its told in a very nonlinear fashion and if you're like me you still will wind up putting a lot of the pieces together on your own through uncovering the database logs hidden across the world
I'm mainland Chinese and I absolutely LOVED this game. It's easily the top 5 of all games I've played. I do want to point out that in 2:38, almost all negative reviews are *not* political, they are mainly about the difficulty & level designs (which honestly I love both). The very few that are political are also mocked heavily both by people from Taiwan and China. The positive Chinese comments outnumber negative ones by a lot. I feel compelled to mention this since I feel average Chinese players do not deserve to be dragged into political sh*t all the time.
Bullshit tho. Most simplfied chinese nagtive reviews are somewhat about game itself at the surface but really utterly nonsense or nitpicking at best. They're just disguising their hate as logical reviews.
@@stonks8849 So you are gonna focus only on the negative Chinese reviews over the majority of positive ones? Also who's your position to judge how "nonsense" people's opinions are, maybe you can go over all other languages and see how "reasonable" their negative reviews are?
It’s up there for sure, idk about being better but it’s growing on me. One thing I like is that it has an actual developing story and characters instead of just a bunch of l o r e to sift through in item descriptions and signs.
Tbh i like the dialogue and i think it is needed in my first playthrough of the game cus it is where red candles truly shine on (the story). It made me understand the lore of the game. But after all, it becomes a hassle since u know everything about it after all. I don’t except it to have like few dialogue on each npc since it is actually a story game (but in a MV way) imo. And i welcomed it since the story is made by red candles. I know they can cook up a good story (which they did imo). I am not an empathetic person but the game really hooked me up the emotion. I feel a bit sad when hearing the credit song (same name as the game). So yea, play rainworld
Nope... Nine sols is not bad, but it's miles away from Hollow Knight in terms of exploration, lvl/world design, gameplay (and, tbh, general quality). I don't think Red candle even presented it as a "metroivania" (which is a type of game putting emphasis on exploration).
@@laurentoutan5133 1. It's a joke 2. I know, I'm a hollow knight fan with a little over 100 hours in the game. 3. I also happen to be a Sekiro fan with about 170 hours in Sekiro. So it's less about which is better, but more about how Nine Sols better caters to me in both theming and gameplay :)
@@vladi3862Yeah instead pretend to be a homeless person and harass random people (preferably autistic ones) to get money from them. That's much more morally correct.
1:29 As an educated Taiwanese person, I can confirm that this is correct. For the following reasons: We also refer to our motherland as Ilha Formosa, And the places the arrows are pointing to on the map, everyone knows what Ilha Formosa means (which means "beautiful island" in English). The people who live in the places the arrows are pointing to are Taiwanese people. Therefore, It's Taiwan. I have proven this, perfect syllogism, 100% true. QED
As the comments have pointed out. 1:29 that is portugal. For those of you still wondering where Taiwan is, but are unwilling to google it, find China. See how there are two red islands off the southeast coast? The one furthest east is Taiwan, slightly higher up than the other red island. For your trivia/general gist about Taiwan, they're currently in a frustrating feud with China, and have been for a while. China is insistent that Taiwan is a part of China, while Taiwan is arguing that they are very much their own thing. It's like winning a civil war by saying "nuh uh". For those of you wondering why Taiwan is struggling so much to succeed when us PROUD REVOLUTIONARY AMERICANS did just fine succeeding from England... look at Taiwan on that map. itty bitty lil' island. Now look at China. Worlds largest population per country and collector of fine nukes. A civil war would end in obliteration. I've seen a couple Taiwanese people in this comment section, if I did a bad job explaining the gist, or was straight up wrong about anything, let me know and I'll edit it. 👍
You're doing well😊😊 If some people still can't understand the issues between China and Taiwan, you can understand them as the relationship between South Korea and North Korea. After the end of World War II, the Japanese colonists withdrew from Taiwan, and the Chinese Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party were engaged in a civil war. Later, the Chinese Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan, and the two regimes have been in confrontation to this day. In theory, the civil war was not over yet. But as Taiwan becomes a democratic society, the people have had enough of all this, and even though our passports say "Republic of China", more and more Taiwanese do not consider themselves Chinese.
hey, i just wonna say, the fact that Laika was mentioned right at the beginning makes me really happy. Its a game that i personally love and i feel like missed out on all the attention it so clearly deserved. So, thanks for that. Happy to know that im not seemingly the only person on earth who has played it, because no one i know has even heard of it
dude i saw 1 minute of this bought nine sols, got both endings, forgot this video, saw foekoe made a video on nine sols, and then remembered this was the video that made me get it. 10/10
Of the chinese negative reviews its like 70-30 simplified-traditional. I really only found a couple that had snide remarks about the devlopers/taiwan. Almost all of them are complaints about the difficulty, usually around the 20-25 hour mark when the difficulty really spikes.
Cave Story's Metroidvanianess is up for debate. If anything, the big indie Metroidvania is Aquaria. Also, the bosses are protecting their seal. Also the game is called nine SOLS because your character Yi is based on the Chinese hero Hou Yi who shot 9 sols from the sky to keep just 1 sun standing.
Just finished it after getting my ass kicked by the true final boss for about 4 hours. What a great game, the story was way better (and darker) than i expected. It really deserves a spot right next to Hollow Knight, it's not "quite" on the same level for me but still very very close.
I played Nine Sols for about 90m today for the first time and I can confirm that it is well worth it. It isn’t (yet) quite at the same level as my first HK play through, but it is really fun and definitely scratches that HK/Silksong itch.
1:29 I CANT BE THE ONLY ASIAN WHO LITTERALY JUST BANGED THEIR ARMS AGAINST THEIR ARM REST AND YELLED "NO NO NO!" WHEN HE POINTED TO WHERE TAIWAN WAS :sob: Great vid btw and hello from Singapore
"beat you to a pulp" Meanwhile me playing on Casual/Easy mode bc i only wanna experince the story "force you to go thru the story" Someone doesnt play story focused games.... like ever
Ok so just clear some things up: the negative comments from around 2:43 - 2:52 mostly only criticize the content of the game, mostly complain of the game being too hard, no i-frames, etc. There was only one comment I saw which was purely review bombing but most of them were genuinely just stating things they thought were unpolished in the game currently. Please do some translation on these comments before sharing them, I get that it's public stereotype but still, show some love to Chinese gamers
2:46 these negative comments are mostly simplified Chinese which is used in China communist and countries like Malaysia And traditional Chinese are mostly used in Taiwan and Hongkong
you're right, it's not sitting next to Hollow Knight, it's sitting above it. 4:29 It's like people don't know what story driven games are lol 5:43 I completely disagree. You're playing a, STORY DRIVEN metroidvania...you seem to forget that. This isn't dark souls, this isn't Hollow Knight and I'd appreciate if people stop trying to make all games like those games. Just because something is inspired by something, doesn't make it that thing. 7:08 BAM! it's just a Hollow Knight Charm system, which was taken from the PAPER MARIO badge system... This is your channel and your opinion, but I definitely think people need to understand the game their playing instead of trying to change it to their mold....The whole point of the story being confusing is that you're picking up the pieces and putting them together while progressing through the game. If you didn't put those pieces together at the end, that sounds like a you problem lol.
I agree with all of this except nine sols being “above” HK. I feel like Hollow Knights sheer amount of content makes it really hard to be beat out by anything imo
I find myself in agreement with this comment, though not with Nine Sols alone. I've seen it happen with genuinely awesome and interesting games like Clash: Artifacts of Chaos, where a guy played a game for about fifteen to twenty minutes, kept wondering "What is going on" "why does he look like that?", skipped cutscenes and then he and his chat said that things were missing or not well explained, that it felt more like a disjointed group project with no central vision. Granted, he did say he was interested in playing more and the "checking out fifteen/twenty minutes of a game" was the format he works with to explore more games, so the skipping of cutscenes was to experience the most of the gameplay. (then at least be aware how much that format truncates the full understanding of a game. Especially ones that are not easily defined.) But even outside of that: the point stands that worlds in games do not owe the players a full explanation from the get-go. The world does not owe us an understanding of how it functions. Things happen, have happened, people develop their own understanding of how the world works while developing themselves, and we can never fully understand how someone else understands the world. Circumstance, likewise, does not owe us explanation. But we can learn, seek out, think and learn and discuss and disagree to form our understanding of a bigger picture. And to do that, we simply need to use our eyes, ears, and the grey mass between them.
@@personexisting123 Well at least we found a lot of common ground :D See for me, it's because of that story element, that intimacy in the game that makes Nine Sols a cut above it, that and the combat is just SO DAMN SATISFYING. I have gone from Crowsworn, to Nine Sols to Hollow Knight and I can tell you that Nine Sols has definitely given Hollow Knight a run for its money. I mean, there were just so many interesting things in Nine Sols, the dreamscape with lady ethereal, the torture part with Jiequan, the ability to poison him before the fight. The super parry, freakin Eigong man. It was SO good. I've spent 500 hours in Hollow Knight and I don't deny how good Hollow Knight is, however Nine Sols, was able to touch me in a place that Hollow Knight couldn't, and that was within the story and the interactions of the characters. I am curious though, what is it about Hollow Knight that makes it better than Nine Sols for you? Where does Nine Sols fail to surpass Hollow Knight?
@@jurtheorc8117 a very well articulated comment. Personally, for me, I think it has to do with all normies overrunning the gaming market...You either hear them praising a game that's more like a movie, or you have people that just want to play the game...both sides don't seem to understand the potential that interactive stories give. I don't read books, watch movies or series, I play games to get my stories because I like the interactivity. I like games that have good story, that incorporates it into the very game. While the game play is definitely important, the story is more so, at least upon first playthrough. The game play is just icing on the cake. It is not until I decide to play the game again (if I decide to do that) where the game play becomes more important to me. I also liked that I was able to do everything in this game without having to look anything at all. I despise it when a game puts something in it where you can't figure it out within the game itself. Like seriously, there were some pretty cool things in Hollow Knight, but some of those things, you wouldn't have known about, like the dung defender for instance. That was such a cheap move that Team Cherry did... I don't really like dark souls if I'm being honest, I just like the ideas and mechanics behind those games, like corpse runs and asthetics, and that's it. The way the story is told, is really not my thing and I HATE seeing it tried to be pushed on other games.
