@fredb375 this game is made by the same people who made a horror game called "devotion" that was pulled off of stores because of a winnie the pooh reference that offended the CCP. There was a whole big drama about it.
For me, mechanically, Eigong is the best boss. But Lady Ethereal wins me by all her build up, soundtrack and, of course, the battle itself. Still, hard agree with your tier list. This game is absolute fire and it deserves way more attention and praise.
Dude, when you go to the factory the first time and you go through her boss room, that glitching, looping through the room and then the jumpscare. I will never forget it.
To be honest eigong was one of the best bosses Ive ever seen. Its so fun to fight agaist her and the mechanics are impecable. To be honest perhaps the difficulty jump was way too hard. I spent almost 4 hours on her, when no other boss took me more than half an hour or 45 min. But since I had fun the whole time, i dont mind. The only issue the fight has is that sometimes the talisman attack can grab you from stupid distances or affect you even if you dodge.
Agreed, she's so much more difficult than any of the other bosses. I hated Twins due to the randomness; some sequences were really difficult to deal with as Phil mentioned, but Eigong was so so punishing. And I also call bullsh*t on her talisman range, didn't feel fair.
It was a hard spike, but once I sat in phase 1 and learned the timings for her basic sword strings, it was amazing, especially with the hedgehog jade and water flow. It was a sharp increase, but I loved every minute of it
I immediately knew Eigong was gonna be number 1. She's by far the most fun boss I've ever fought in any metroidvania. I'm glad to see her at the deserving spot of number 1.
At last boss now, my only problem with the game really is that exploration doesnt feel that engaging to me. The world feels small, and i never got the sense "i wonder what lays beyond". Otherwise the game hits on all notes.
Jiequan is the boss where things really began to click for me, and I started to feel like an actual master or martial arts. There was a particular moment where I started to react almost instinctively, batting away his attacks and automatically punishing with a talisman during openings. For a moment, I wasn't even thinking, I was just flowing through the fight like water, and it felt great.
While you can use dodge to get out of certain unfavorable situations. From some of the fights I've seen in this video I feel like you would have an easier time using the unbound counter (the charge up parry against red attacks) towards the end of the game where everyone has heavy hitting, red fire dropping, aoe attacks its worth its weight in gold.
Yeah, for all bosses in the game I'd argue the dash is a context-sensitive defensive option rather than the bread-and-butter defense you'd expect. A lot of bosses have serious reach and can very easily catch you after a dash, especially with those endgame AoEs. There are certainly times I prefer dashing through attacks rather than unbounded countering them (Lady Ethereal's death ball, for example), but the game really knows how to tell players what they should and shouldn't unbounded counter.
Eigong is arguably one of the best final bosses in a metroidvania EVER. It doesn't feel unfair or insanely long but just the right amount of difficulty and mechanics put together. It really makes you use everything at your disposal.
Final boss took me two and a half hours this morning. I thought I had no chance at the start and then slowly learned everything til I had the first two phases down. That third phase crazy shit I never got great at air parrying, but good enough to win
This game was absolutely amazing and is now one of my all time favorites, also yeah, while i was fighting eigong i truly felt like the first time i fought isshin... truly incredible
General Yingzhao is way better in my opinion. Pretty much S tier for me. I can't think of a better first boss in a game (maybe Sekiro's first boss). He teaches you several lessons you'll never forget: - Bosses are tough. - Prepare mentally for more than one phase. - You must parry. Dodging is not enough! It is big, scary, strong and fast. And also soooo satisfactory to beat. Mostly, because you will pretty much beat him hitless after several tries.
Red Candle Games' first 2 games were both horror games, and Nine Sols definitely brings that aspect back in quite a few areas, one of which being a very stress-inducing (but not unfair) stealth section somewhere in the middle of the game and another being Lady Ethereal's Mindscape and boss fight. They are really creepy, but that only adds to the appeal imo.
8:07 i used to have the same problem with the horizontal snake. As soon as i figured out that i just had to double jump over the snake, the Fengs were doomed. the fight ended then and there
I barely beat Eigong last night, and the second I learned she had a third phase with a better ending, I was immediately gunning it for whatever it took to get it. I’ve already got the relationship achievement with Shuanshuan, and just finished getting my health maxed out, I just need to find all of the jades and max out my level, and that lady is as good as gone
@@БогданРука By the way, both of 2 words are meant as Butterfly, but 蚨蝶 has been a rare word in nowadays. I first looked this word up in the dictionary after I played the 九日.
Solid list. No real disagreement. Eigong was definitely an insane fight. It took me many hours, but that only made the eventual victory all the more satisfying.
lady butterfly was the reason I started incorporating talismans in the game this also caused me to change by key-binds like instead of the interact key being the 6th mouse button i changed it to the scroll wheel and replaced it with the talismans attach
I haven't put much thought into how I would rank them, but I think my list would be kinda different. I find a solid dancelike rhythm more appealing than chaos, so the bosses/phases that were praised in this video for being chaotic (like the Fengs, Ji, and maybe Eigong's third phase) would probably be lower on my list.
imo ji and eigong third phase have a good rhythm too though. I agree that the fengs appeal is positioning and learning pattern, but eigong third phase (if you perfect parry her screen wide attacks) is very rhythmic too!
@@gigashill Yeah, I'd probably agree about Eigong 3 having a rhythm if I'd gotten it a bit more down to rote memory before finishing the game. For Ji though, although I think the knife spam attack has a good rhythm, his other attacks are something I'd label as having a consistent timing, but not a strong rhythm.
100% agree. I really didn't like the Fengs due to how random it seemed. Even if she consistently cast the same spells in the same order it would be easier to learn.
I will say this as a gamer from the days of the ps2: The gaming industry nowadays... Are big fat Cowards because they think persuing every trend and agenda in the world including forcing themes in games and the Oversaturated live service model or the stupid "Make every game AAA and open world" is making them look like idiots. Games are supposed to be Fun hobby NOT A WAY TO GOUGE PEOPLE FOR MONEY! That is why when i see games made by indie devs nowadays it warms my 25 old heart and while though i only played hades so far (Yes im having a blast and cant wait for No.2) and now Nine Sols shot through my entire backlog
Same, dude lol I have a backlog with more than 30 games that I was cleaning and Nine Sols zapped trough all of them and became one of the few games I've 100%
Bro I didnt think Id get a goated recommendation like afterimage from watching this video so thanks for that btw if you havent already play blashemous 2 which has my favorite metroidvania boss eviterno who slighlt edges of out king darrius
I'd put Yanlao a couple places higher (he's a personal favorite of mine for the music and feel of the fight), switching him and Jiequan, but otherwise I also agree with the rankings.
Excellent tier list. For me Fengs are better than Jiequan. I don’t like normally gang bosses but that one was really enjoyable. (I died at least 20 times until master it)
Nine Sols is my favorite game of the year, hands down. Sorry Black Myth Wukong, you're very good, but Nine Sols is better. This game has the best boss fights I've seen in a long time.
Great video! Would have to point out that the audio should be a little bit more quiet compared to your voice since it's kind of hard to hear you above the other noise.
Lady Ethereal is the WORST in the first half of the game, stupidly spamming with three attacks, which in themselves are VERY easy to counter, and the whole difficulty lies only in increasing the tempo of these attacks with each phase. This is not a fight of skill, this is a fight of attrition, it's disgusting! Rank D or maximum C
It’s a long fight barring on tedious but the buildup, visuals and lore are absolutely top tier. Also love how many approaches there are to tackling the fight
*Me after reacting to lady etheral* Me:Poor lady *After a intense parkour* (oh nooo) *Lady etheral has a meltdown* Me:Ahhh sh here we go again oh well time to put her down Those who know what lady etheral feel must know what it means
I don't really like how you're not humbling Eigong fight at all, when it isn't all that perfect. There obvious problems that followed the player from the mid of the game. Unpredictable hitboxes - sometimes you can dodge, move away, but still get hit even though visually you weren't right under attack. Talisman grab - that I hated personally. Sometimes you can dodge through it perfectly, sometimes you dodge through it and then you get teleported to her hand from 3m away. I like to move away and just charge attack at the edge of her grab and I still get into her hands sometimes when I'm too close, but I'm nowhere near the actual visual representation of attack. But that are my only complaints, everything else is okay. And, of course, as long as you do it perfectly as developers want you to, you won't encounter those problems but it just takes away fun from various approaches. Like Yi is often punished by Talisman's long animation, but you can't punish Eigong just because her grab is junky. You can go through her with your own talisman, but it'll just teleport you into her hand and deal damage.
@@superexplosion12 I'm just not turning blind eye on issues like consumers do. I know what developing takes and I know that those are mistakes. Fight is easy. Also story mode sucks, noone needs those damage modifiers, they don't fix game issues in any way.
I think it is because your playstyle is different or even the unintended way to beat the boss(not that it excuses lack of polish in the dodge mechanic). I guess its intended that players parry these attacks(and if they are red attacks, they mostly have a fire spread/splash damage afterwards, which negates the issue). The parrying in the game is good, works just as intended and if you are parrying almost all attacks it isnt noticeable. For ex, I didn't even notice the talisman attack as an issue because I always tried to parry it. (and I am pretty sure you are not intended to dodge through the talisman, it just works sometimes unintended by the devs). And I havent actually noticed any bad hitboxes in my playthrough, Though there is probably truth to the fact that the devs didnt perfect the dodge mechanics and focused on parrying.
@@nothing0x4D2 my comment aged like milk, devs fixed Talisman and Crimson sphere hitboxes since then. Literally went pog when I tried it again and how easy it was to counterattack now and be much more aggressive. It's impossible to prove that it *was* bad to people with *Perfect Game 10/10* glasses on, though Nothing is perfect, and can only get better if you admit the problem. Also I played and in community for long now, but I still diss story mode, I'm sure if it was removed people would just get over themselves and learn bosses, instead of calling it hard and unfair game. Existence of easy mode is what's shakes players belief in themselves.
@@RadXader I think I appreciate the lens that nothing is perfect and improvements can be made, thats how games improve. About story mode, it is just damage and health modifiers right? If thats the case, this approach is looked down upon in the gaming community already. I think there should be a accessibility mode, only for people who may have trouble with motor skills or disabled in some other way. Other than that for a game like nine sols, they should go with difficulty like Hollow knight where you have the option to play more difficult bosses for a better ending. Still Nine Sols devs are still working on the game, like adding Boss Rush, so I hope they will work on other features too.
For Sky Rending Claw, it isn’t actually one of your attacks that ends the charge phase. It is shooting the machine with the shots that chase you!
Man if this game doesn't get game of the year because of the winnie po stuff I am going to be so mad.
That's exactly why, and it pisses me off too! Every major reviewer is avoiding this game like the plague.. Sell outs! 😒
@@Duckinsmokes ive not heard about this, could you explain?
@fredb375 this game is made by the same people who made a horror game called "devotion" that was pulled off of stores because of a winnie the pooh reference that offended the CCP. There was a whole big drama about it.
@@Duckinsmokes
That is why people should keep politics out of games instead of trying to sneak in their propaganda.
@raywing00 I agree, but in this case, it was literally just a joke that they got offended over.
For me, mechanically, Eigong is the best boss. But Lady Ethereal wins me by all her build up, soundtrack and, of course, the battle itself. Still, hard agree with your tier list. This game is absolute fire and it deserves way more attention and praise.
Dude, when you go to the factory the first time and you go through her boss room, that glitching, looping through the room and then the jumpscare. I will never forget it.
To be honest eigong was one of the best bosses Ive ever seen. Its so fun to fight agaist her and the mechanics are impecable.
To be honest perhaps the difficulty jump was way too hard. I spent almost 4 hours on her, when no other boss took me more than half an hour or 45 min. But since I had fun the whole time, i dont mind.
The only issue the fight has is that sometimes the talisman attack can grab you from stupid distances or affect you even if you dodge.
Agreed, she's so much more difficult than any of the other bosses. I hated Twins due to the randomness; some sequences were really difficult to deal with as Phil mentioned, but Eigong was so so punishing. And I also call bullsh*t on her talisman range, didn't feel fair.
It was a hard spike, but once I sat in phase 1 and learned the timings for her basic sword strings, it was amazing, especially with the hedgehog jade and water flow. It was a sharp increase, but I loved every minute of it
I immediately knew Eigong was gonna be number 1. She's by far the most fun boss I've ever fought in any metroidvania. I'm glad to see her at the deserving spot of number 1.
At last boss now, my only problem with the game really is that exploration doesnt feel that engaging to me. The world feels small, and i never got the sense "i wonder what lays beyond". Otherwise the game hits on all notes.
Well yeah, the game takes place in an island in outer space. There is nothing beyond.
Jiequan is the boss where things really began to click for me, and I started to feel like an actual master or martial arts. There was a particular moment where I started to react almost instinctively, batting away his attacks and automatically punishing with a talisman during openings. For a moment, I wasn't even thinking, I was just flowing through the fight like water, and it felt great.
While you can use dodge to get out of certain unfavorable situations. From some of the fights I've seen in this video I feel like you would have an easier time using the unbound counter (the charge up parry against red attacks) towards the end of the game where everyone has heavy hitting, red fire dropping, aoe attacks its worth its weight in gold.
Yeah, for all bosses in the game I'd argue the dash is a context-sensitive defensive option rather than the bread-and-butter defense you'd expect. A lot of bosses have serious reach and can very easily catch you after a dash, especially with those endgame AoEs. There are certainly times I prefer dashing through attacks rather than unbounded countering them (Lady Ethereal's death ball, for example), but the game really knows how to tell players what they should and shouldn't unbounded counter.
A hard agree, almost ALL the time, I prefer to use the unbounded counter than rather to dodge more often
I got it much later in the game, maybe because I followed a "wrong route", so I ended up dodging many attacks that I could have countered
I kept trying to dodge Eigong’s bomb attack until I realized an unbounded counter would work perfectly, and guess what, it did.
Eigong is arguably one of the best final bosses in a metroidvania EVER. It doesn't feel unfair or insanely long but just the right amount of difficulty and mechanics put together. It really makes you use everything at your disposal.
Final boss took me two and a half hours this morning. I thought I had no chance at the start and then slowly learned everything til I had the first two phases down. That third phase crazy shit I never got great at air parrying, but good enough to win
Took me like 6 hours 😅 totally worth it though
Both Eigong and Eviterno should take the throne as best metroidvania sword duels
You made excellent decision of playing Nine Souls before Elden Ring dlc :>
Masterpiece Metrodvania after Hollow Knight.
This game was absolutely amazing and is now one of my all time favorites, also yeah, while i was fighting eigong i truly felt like the first time i fought isshin... truly incredible
General Yingzhao is way better in my opinion. Pretty much S tier for me. I can't think of a better first boss in a game (maybe Sekiro's first boss). He teaches you several lessons you'll never forget:
- Bosses are tough.
- Prepare mentally for more than one phase.
- You must parry. Dodging is not enough!
It is big, scary, strong and fast. And also soooo satisfactory to beat. Mostly, because you will pretty much beat him hitless after several tries.
Red Candle Games' first 2 games were both horror games, and Nine Sols definitely brings that aspect back in quite a few areas, one of which being a very stress-inducing (but not unfair) stealth section somewhere in the middle of the game and another being Lady Ethereal's Mindscape and boss fight. They are really creepy, but that only adds to the appeal imo.
8:07 i used to have the same problem with the horizontal snake. As soon as i figured out that i just had to double jump over the snake, the Fengs were doomed. the fight ended then and there
I barely beat Eigong last night, and the second I learned she had a third phase with a better ending, I was immediately gunning it for whatever it took to get it. I’ve already got the relationship achievement with Shuanshuan, and just finished getting my health maxed out, I just need to find all of the jades and max out my level, and that lady is as good as gone
Lady Ethereal is literally called Butterfly （蝴蝶）in the Chinese version, so you were right👍
Actually, Lady Ethereal's name in Chinese is 蚨(fu^)蝶，its pronounced just similar with 蝴(hu^)蝶（Butterfly)
@@超高中級的民俗學家 got it, thanks for clarifying
@@БогданРука By the way, both of 2 words are meant as Butterfly, but 蚨蝶 has been a rare word in nowadays. I first looked this word up in the dictionary after I played the 九日.
Solid list. No real disagreement. Eigong was definitely an insane fight. It took me many hours, but that only made the eventual victory all the more satisfying.
Bro says every name except the one which is an english word 💀
lady butterfly was the reason I started incorporating talismans in the game this also caused me to change by key-binds like instead of the interact key being the 6th mouse button i changed it to the scroll wheel and replaced it with the talismans attach
I haven't put much thought into how I would rank them, but I think my list would be kinda different. I find a solid dancelike rhythm more appealing than chaos, so the bosses/phases that were praised in this video for being chaotic (like the Fengs, Ji, and maybe Eigong's third phase) would probably be lower on my list.
imo ji and eigong third phase have a good rhythm too though. I agree that the fengs appeal is positioning and learning pattern, but eigong third phase (if you perfect parry her screen wide attacks) is very rhythmic too!
@@gigashill Yeah, I'd probably agree about Eigong 3 having a rhythm if I'd gotten it a bit more down to rote memory before finishing the game.
For Ji though, although I think the knife spam attack has a good rhythm, his other attacks are something I'd label as having a consistent timing, but not a strong rhythm.
100% agree. I really didn't like the Fengs due to how random it seemed. Even if she consistently cast the same spells in the same order it would be easier to learn.
Finally I can watch it! Just finished with normal ending, sure hope there won't be extra secret boss in true ending.
I will say this as a gamer from the days of the ps2: The gaming industry nowadays...
Are big fat Cowards because they think persuing every trend and agenda in the world including forcing themes in games and the Oversaturated live service model or the stupid "Make every game AAA and open world" is making them look like idiots.
Games are supposed to be Fun hobby NOT A WAY TO GOUGE PEOPLE FOR MONEY!
That is why when i see games made by indie devs nowadays it warms my 25 old heart and while though i only played hades so far (Yes im having a blast and cant wait for No.2) and now Nine Sols shot through my entire backlog
Same, dude lol I have a backlog with more than 30 games that I was cleaning and Nine Sols zapped trough all of them and became one of the few games I've 100%
Bros glazing Eigong like hell fr 😅
She deserves it😅
我覺得康回的設計的確對只習慣格擋的玩家不友好，我也是第一次玩九日這種類銀河惡魔城才知道怎麼清怪，(我的第一款全完成動作遊戲是Sekiro，還沒玩過Elden Ring)
我私心比較喜歡對付截全、風氏、易公，打起來比較有緊湊的爽快感，勾芒、蝴蝶夫人、姬打起來比較迂迴，英招和開天爪打起來還算過癮，有格擋的手感。
而全遊戲花我最久時間的排序是：易公>勾芒>蚨蝶>英招，因為不習慣使用格擋外的手段，打起來會有不適應問題，習慣射箭跟符咒就好多了！
GRIME MENTIONED LETS GOOOOOOOOO
Bro I didnt think Id get a goated recommendation like afterimage from watching this video so thanks for that btw if you havent already play blashemous 2 which has my favorite metroidvania boss eviterno who slighlt edges of out king darrius
@@completelyaccurate already have, Eviterno is great
Ji isn’t that hard but it’s an absolute experience
My tierlist would be almost same, although… Jiequan would switch places with the lady for me for some reason lol
I'd put Yanlao a couple places higher (he's a personal favorite of mine for the music and feel of the fight), switching him and Jiequan, but otherwise I also agree with the rankings.
absolute facts brother💯
Excellent tier list. For me Fengs are better than Jiequan. I don’t like normally gang bosses but that one was really enjoyable. (I died at least 20 times until master it)
nice content . you got a sub
I cried at the true ending of nine sols
Man ur so underrated
youre 100% right
Nine Sols is my favorite game of the year, hands down. Sorry Black Myth Wukong, you're very good, but Nine Sols is better. This game has the best boss fights I've seen in a long time.
Great video! Would have to point out that the audio should be a little bit more quiet compared to your voice since it's kind of hard to hear you above the other noise.
Lady Ethereal is the WORST in the first half of the game, stupidly spamming with three attacks, which in themselves are VERY easy to counter, and the whole difficulty lies only in increasing the tempo of these attacks with each phase. This is not a fight of skill, this is a fight of attrition, it's disgusting! Rank D or maximum C
It’s a long fight barring on tedious but the buildup, visuals and lore are absolutely top tier. Also love how many approaches there are to tackling the fight
this dudes a masochist (same)
My ranking is pretty much the same. Lady E and Eigong at the top.
*Me after reacting to lady etheral*
Me:Poor lady
*After a intense parkour*
(oh nooo)
*Lady etheral has a meltdown*
Me:Ahhh sh here we go again oh well time to put her down
Those who know what lady etheral feel must know what it means
I aprove
I don't really like how you're not humbling Eigong fight at all, when it isn't all that perfect.
There obvious problems that followed the player from the mid of the game. Unpredictable hitboxes - sometimes you can dodge, move away, but still get hit even though visually you weren't right under attack.
Talisman grab - that I hated personally. Sometimes you can dodge through it perfectly, sometimes you dodge through it and then you get teleported to her hand from 3m away. I like to move away and just charge attack at the edge of her grab and I still get into her hands sometimes when I'm too close, but I'm nowhere near the actual visual representation of attack.
But that are my only complaints, everything else is okay. And, of course, as long as you do it perfectly as developers want you to, you won't encounter those problems but it just takes away fun from various approaches.
Like Yi is often punished by Talisman's long animation, but you can't punish Eigong just because her grab is junky. You can go through her with your own talisman, but it'll just teleport you into her hand and deal damage.
should've played on story mode bud. the fight is perfect
@@superexplosion12 I'm just not turning blind eye on issues like consumers do. I know what developing takes and I know that those are mistakes.
Fight is easy. Also story mode sucks, noone needs those damage modifiers, they don't fix game issues in any way.
I think it is because your playstyle is different or even the unintended way to beat the boss(not that it excuses lack of polish in the dodge mechanic). I guess its intended that players parry these attacks(and if they are red attacks, they mostly have a fire spread/splash damage afterwards, which negates the issue). The parrying in the game is good, works just as intended and if you are parrying almost all attacks it isnt noticeable.
For ex, I didn't even notice the talisman attack as an issue because I always tried to parry it. (and I am pretty sure you are not intended to dodge through the talisman, it just works sometimes unintended by the devs). And I havent actually noticed any bad hitboxes in my playthrough,
Though there is probably truth to the fact that the devs didnt perfect the dodge mechanics and focused on parrying.
@@nothing0x4D2 my comment aged like milk, devs fixed Talisman and Crimson sphere hitboxes since then.
Literally went pog when I tried it again and how easy it was to counterattack now and be much more aggressive.
It's impossible to prove that it *was* bad to people with *Perfect Game 10/10* glasses on, though
Nothing is perfect, and can only get better if you admit the problem.
Also I played and in community for long now, but I still diss story mode, I'm sure if it was removed people would just get over themselves and learn bosses, instead of calling it hard and unfair game. Existence of easy mode is what's shakes players belief in themselves.
@@RadXader I think I appreciate the lens that nothing is perfect and improvements can be made, thats how games improve.
About story mode, it is just damage and health modifiers right? If thats the case, this approach is looked down upon in the gaming community already.
I think there should be a accessibility mode, only for people who may have trouble with motor skills or disabled in some other way.
Other than that for a game like nine sols, they should go with difficulty like Hollow knight where you have the option to play more difficult bosses for a better ending.
Still Nine Sols devs are still working on the game, like adding Boss Rush, so I hope they will work on other features too.
Yanlao is definitely the worst...
Final boss is the worst, easily... It seems to me they tried to copy Ishin from Sekiro but completely missed the mark by a fucking continent...
Is this a joke that went over my head or do your bones suffer from skillthritus? Were there moves and patterns that felt unfair to you?
Eigong is lazy designed trash