Games

This is purely conspiratorial but I think given the studio’s notable previous controversy, they probably excluded it because Wukong has such a prominent presence this year.

Other than that, yeah it just doesn’t make sense to me. Nine sols has better sales and reviews than other games being honored

For a differing opinion, the artwork is great, but as a metroidvania it's below rate for my taste. I went four hours with the game and didn't see any new enemies and virtually the same environments. In this genre, that's a long time to go without seeing something new.

Maybe I went in with the wrong expectations and should have looked at this as a platformer/2D action game. The combat is certainly the centerpiece of the game, but that wasn't enough for me.

Oh, the mechanics are superb. I also didn’t see it from the trailer, and originally got the game based on the art alone lol.

But the gameplay feels absurdly good. The main hook I would say is the talisman system. When you parry attacks, you build up charges of what is essentially an explosive that you can then use an another offensive option. Not only that, but it’s applied via a dash, which is a movement option (and can be used to do some cheeky sequence breaking outside of combat, if you’re into that sort of thing in these games). There’s an upgrade tree with several options for it that affect gameplay in a huge way as well.

Other than that I mean, I just like everything about the game. The story was well constructed and emotional. The characters are well designed, especially the bosses who are not just enemies but important characters in the story. The boss fights themselves as I mentioned. Music got me going. Environments are jaw dropping.

To give voice to the other commenter who bounced off the game after 4 hours, it has overwhelmingly positive reviews on steam but even among the good reviews a common complaint is that the game takes a fairly long time to spin up. There’s a lengthy linear section before you get some more freedom of exploration, and even then it never becomes the game’s strongest point. It also takes a long time to get certain essential upgrades. I think this is a good thing in terms of boss design, but can feel like somewhat of a slog if you’re experienced with metroidvanias and really just want your basic dash and double jump etc.

It’s a long game, took me around 40 hours. But I enjoyed it very much in the beginning, and continued to enjoy it more as I progressed and unlocked things. I went in with no expectations however, and was surprised as the game organically developed from “cool little project I’m supporting because I like the genre and the cat is cute”, to “possibly my favorite action game since sekiro”. I hope I’m not doing a disservice by setting expectations too high! But in the end, yes I was left feeling like it was that good