Nine Parchments is the latest title from Frozenbyte, the developer of games such as the Trine series and, more recently on Switch, Has-Been Heroes. Just as the Trine series did before it, this game places a heavy focus on co-operative play with up to four players able to team up and enjoy the adventure together. You can play alone if you like but, for reasons we’ll explore a little later on, you’ll want to make sure you have a group of friends available for this one.
After a mysterious explosion hits their academy, a team of slightly reckless students (one of which, Cornelius, somehow manages to sound like an even whinier version of Frodo Baggins) embark on a quest to return nine magical parchments that blew away. To do this, you’ll be exploring various levels and using magic abilities to defeat monsters along the way, all while keeping on top of upgrades, new abilities, and new characters. While the classic RPG elements of skill trees and a levelling-up system are present here, it never feels complex or like there is too much to understand; it is an RPG in perhaps its simplest form.
The levels themselves are very similar; you’ll begin at one end, run through until you reach the other end, and simply try to survive the enemy attacks as you explore. To break up the repetition a little you’ll come across boss battles every now and then - these act as milestones within the game and you’ll collect one of the missing nine parchments with each of these victories. Thanks to the increased repetition of the main levels, these boss battles are often a treat; they can be pretty challenging at times but, with some clever strategic thinking, you’ll manage to overcome them and find yourself eagerly anticipating the next one.
The combat works around an elemental system (fire beats ice, for example) and combining the elements with a suitable style of attack is key. Most attacks are long-range but come in different forms such as continuous beams of energy, or short bursts that do a little more damage with each hit, and these can all be accessed on a rotation system triggered by the shoulder buttons. You can also use close-combat melee attacks, but these usually create more risk than reward and you are much better off keeping your distance from enemies. Coming up with the best strategies and carrying out the attacks can be really fun, but the actual amount of fun you have might depend on how you choose to play.
We decided to play through the game on a solo quest first and, for the first hour or two, things were still fresh enough that we were enjoying the simple but satisfying combat. Unfortunately, after a while had passed, the aforementioned repetitive nature of the level exploration started to make the game drag a little; some of the initial ‘magic’ was lost. The boss fights did stand out as we mentioned, but the rest of the time we were left hoping for something more.
Luckily, things changed in multiplayer. Roaming around the levels with up to three other players can create all kinds of havoc; it is scarily easy to comically set your friends on fire or leave them desperately fighting for their lives while you fumble around deciding which attack to use. Naturally, this kind of thing is best enjoyed between friends who can communicate, so while jumping into games with strangers online is an option, we’d recommend local wireless as the ultimate way to play. Even though the repetitive nature of the levels remains, working out new tactics together – especially when surrounding enemies – and a much better life system (where players can restore fallen comrades by standing over them, as opposed to a simple two-life system in single player) really help to make things more enjoyable.
Just when things were looking up, though, we encountered the next major problem. Nine Parchments has a very strange feature in place whereby you can only have one campaign running at a time, even across different modes. This means that if you switch from a multiplayer campaign to a solo one, or vice versa, all of your story progress will be lost – you always have to start from scratch. You keep your unlocked weapons, upgrades, and level – the idea here is that you can complete the game and then re-play it with your new gear as often as you like – but of course this creates a rather serious problem.
If you’re wanting to see the story through to the end you have two choices: you must either play through the entire game on your own, making sure to never jump into any multiplayer action until it is done; or you can play exclusively in co-op mode, waiting for your friends to be online each time you want to play (and therefore never touching the game when you leave the house without a Wi-Fi connection). The decision is frankly baffling. Frozenbyte have addressed the issue, stating that a fix should hopefully come in January to allow multiple story runs to sit side-by-side, but you have to wonder why this wasn’t considered a day-one inclusion, especially for a portable console.
Despite the occasional online connectivity issue, the game does work perfectly well in other areas. The worlds are gorgeous to look at – not quite as stunningly beautiful as Trine in this humble writer’s opinion, but very lovely nonetheless – and the combat runs very smoothly indeed. We did notice, though, that playing with a Pro Controller either with the console docked, or in table top mode, seemed to offer a much better experience; the combat revolves around a twin-stick approach and the control sticks on the Pro Controller offer much more precision than those on the Joy-Con.
Conclusion
Nine Parchments is a game with an awful lot of potential; the combat is fun, the multiplayer co-op works a treat, and the gorgeous art creates a visually impressive world to explore. Repetition in the format and layout of levels - and the incredibly strange decision to delete your save data when wanting to switching between single player and co-op games - are unfortunate shortcomings, however. If you love your co-op adventure-type games, and especially if you like the sound of the light RPG elements, you may well get a good time from this game – just keep our warnings in mind.
Comments 27
Doesn't really grip me much.
I tried the demo and I really couldn't get into it which is unfortunate as it was something I was looking forward to. Also I couldn't get over how poor it looked in handheld mode.
As someone with a family who plays nearly exclusively co-op, I have a lot of experience with co-op games. This one is fantastic fun!
Would not play solo, it is meant as multiplayer.
Couch co-op is best, but there is ample online right now.
If you play co-op with friends this is a no brainier must buy.
It's just arcade-y enough to jump in and play, and just complicated enough to keep serious gamers focused. Great, great addition to our library!
I'd put it in the 8-9 range, but your milage may vary.
No thanks, just Yooka Laylee for me.
The environments look like high-res equivalents of the prerendered backgrounds from Final Fantasy VII. It looks really great!
Looks like fun, I may get it if I ever got a party going on.
Back in the day when I had 3 regular friends I'd likely have sank all kinds of time into this. It distantly reminds me of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles in the co-op sense and I found the demo intriguing at least. Due to the volatile nature of my money/time I'll have to pass.
This could have been a great game. The Combat is hectic and challenging enough to keep you on your toes, but its so linear and completely devoid of puzzles. I am absolutely stunned that the folks that made Trine made this game and did not put a single puzzle in the game. The linearity could be forgiven if there were puzzles to be solved. The other huge omission is loot. This is a Gauntlet Style top down dungeon crawl and there is no loot. There is no reward for killing anything or breaking anything. 4/5 Quills in every level are just on the path as you walk and the chests are more or less useless. This game needs a patch. It is mechanically solid and artistically beautiful, but it is really lacking in the basics of its genre.
I am playing it local co-op with my wife and we are really enjoying it! It's taking a bit too long to unlock new characters (we have two beyond the initial two, and not the one we want yet). I wish there was a little more depth (quills do nothing but serve as a collectible, hats add no stat boosts) but the game play is very fun. One battle I had to do solo because the camera was too unforgiving in multiplayer and kept killing us by pushing us offscreen. We nearly gave up at that point but I beat it solo on the first try. So far we haven't gotten tired of the game and we are sinking many hours into it!
@ParSnake I saw the pictures in the eshop and thought they were pre rendered. Then I tried the demo and was like damn son this is real time.
I wish it was worth it for single player only.
It's pretty fun, can also be very unforgiving. But it's a treat to play this type of game on the Switch
Beautiful game.
That's one thing Frozenbyte always nails.
in all honesty this just makes me think of gauntlet which i like.
Development team have already issue statement about new update coming to switch in 2018 -
You read what were getting here -
https://www.frozenbyte.com/2017/12/upcoming-updates-to-nine-parchments/
Looks good too me. It's my kinda game though.
My partner and I have poured 20+ hours into this already, and despite running into several bugs and the mentioned save issues we have had heaps of fun (almost finished our second play-through, still have one more character to unlock). We have a second switch and have wondered if there are any advantages to using local wireless - is the screen view the same and are you still locked to the same area during battle? Has anybody tried this?
If playing solo on this do you get to have AI characters alongside you or are you totally alone ?
I liked Trine, so I'll probably like this too.
The problem is: it's hard to find people who actually want to play this kind of coop game...
A game like this sounds like it would have been sweet when I was in college and could play it with my roommates. Since graduating and moving away, I find it very hard to get together with people to play games anymore. It's mostly single player games these days for me. Pass, but only because I don't have the opportunity to play co-op much anymore.
Yeah the demo didn't really capture my imagination. It felt very boring and shallow. My family and friends decided to pass on this title.
This was sounding great, like a top-down spell-casting beat-'em-up, but then near the end it mentions twin stick combat. How does that work, and why wasn't something that important elaborated on in the review?
If it's just something like a spell wheel selector, that's okay. However, if you're using the second stick to aim your spells, then that ruins the game for me. If that's the case, then they should've just had you either fire in the direction you're facing or used motion controls for aiming instead of ruining another promising game by turning it into a stupid twin stick shooter.
EDIT: I found a review on Metacritic that confirms that this is indeed a twin stick shooter. Thanks for nothing, Forzenbyte! At least give us multiple control options next time. Those Joycons are there for a reason, you know.
@BulbasaurusRex You do fire the direction you're facing and don't have to use the right stick if you don't want to (but it allows you to move and fire in a different direction). There is also single joy-con support.
@Toadie No, if you are single player you play alone. When additional players join in the enemies become more numerous and harder.
Can anyone answer my questions? Has anyone tried local wireless play?
Didn't enjoy the demo much. They seem to have lost it a bit after Trine 2, that was a great game.
@DrMonk Oh, OK, that works, and the difficulty scaled to the number of players is also a nice feature that I wish had been included in "Metroid Prime: Federation Force." Add to future Wishlist...
@KcebEnyaw Personally, I like the fact that it's linear and without puzzles. It's meant to be a straight action game like a top-down beat 'em up, not a traditional dungeon crawling adventure like the Zelda series.
Anyone tried 4-player online co-op yet?
Great online game. Excellent. Many updates since review.
You get 10 game saves now. You can join people online and quit anytime and restart from there the next day with you as host.
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