After watching a quick video or two of Nine Parchments I instantly grabbed the review copy for some single player action on the Switch that I was desperately looking for. Coming in later, the multiplayer action was more fun than I could of hoped for. Spending at least a good 20 hours of playing the game in single player and roughly the same in multiplayer, there was more than enough time to experiment with the unique items and spells trying to figure out which would suit my tastes. Taking my time exploring through the beautiful scenery I am happy to share my thoughts on this co-op twin-stick magic based shooter. So here is my Nine Parchments review on the Nintendo Switch from Frozenbyte.
This game takes place in the world of the Trine series, it tells us a story of a group of failure students of the Astral Academy who, as a final chance to bring up their grades, set out on a quest to retrieve the nine pages of a powerful spell book that was scattered all over the land. With all sorts of useful and intricate magic's "wit" and customizable characters each with their own personalized list of spells we are thrown into a new world on an adventure into dangerous wilds. The game world itself carries many of the beautiful colors and design that made the Trine series so amazing and it works well here in this setting as well, offering a beautiful and interesting experience for all players either alone or with up to three additional people.
The Combat is like all twin-stick shooters. The Single player combat feels smooth and seamless; there is nothing preventing you from dodging out of the incoming Armageddon of doom while throwing your own spells and explosions that take up half the screen. Multiplayer adds a much more frustrating experience as your spells can and will hurt/kill/stun lock your friends if miss fired or simply bounce off of targets into your direction.
This was painfully challenging when first playing with my lightning happy brother, communication got us through the rough times. But there's only so much someone can do when lightning would ricochet across the map and kill me without warning. The screen is shared between all players meaning that if 2 people are in opposite corners it limits the amount of room in the player field to avoid incoming attacks. Eventually we managed to somewhat work as a team and learn to avoid each other's bouncing attacks.
Something amazingly well done is the difference between the single player and multiplayer experience. Single player was a great, I enjoyed a lot, it was me against them and I have to make sure I had all types of magic's to counter the enemies being thrown at me will all types of resistances and immunities. But alone the game became to feel a bit repetitive. However, when my brother and I played together caution and wits went out the window and random doom rained across the battle field making your instincts to dodge work over time adding a new and interesting challenge to the game. Also specializing in few types of magic and grabbing several of the same was not the worst idea as long as both players didn't always grab the same types. There is also the ability to chain multiple beams from several players and enemies into 1 bigger beam to annihilate all the enemies.
Storyline in Nine Parchments is pretty straightforward, each level offering experience points to be spent on a passive skill tree as you level up, with the ability to unlock different skill routes as you further play the game and do its achievements. As you progress through the levels you will be rewarded with scrolls that allow you to learn new spells (up to 8 total) that is added to your active spells list. New characters are through extra accomplishment or trials in game, challenging achievements to unlock extra costumes and colors for each character also give you replay value and multiplayer value, as some quests can only be done with the help of others.
Nine Parchments is great twin-stick, Action RPG with amazing multiplayer. As a single player title, it feels lacking after several levels due to repetitive value but that feeling instantly disappears with a bit of multiplayer spiciness. As a switch title, this one out performed my expectations for the price listed and, definitely worth giving it a shot.
Game Information
Nintendo Switch
Developer(s):
Frozenbyte
Publisher(s):
Frozenbyte
Genre(s):
Action
Adventure
Mode(s):
Single Player
Multiplayer
Other Platform(s):
Sony PlayStation 4
Microsoft Xbox One
PC
Source:
Provided by Publisher
Article by Marc L.
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