Nine Sols

Nine Sols has a lot going for it- beautiful hand-drawn animation style, engaging exploration, and blistering parry-focused gameplay. The map is intricately designed and there are tons of nooks and crannies to explore. Combat is tough, but generally fair. Getting your parry timings down takes some practice, but it just so rewarding when you nail it. Rebuking every attack before turning on a boss never got old. There's very little required backtracking which kept everything moving along nicely. Upgrades generally feel meaningful, rewarding careful play. The story is also pretty good. Yi's relationship with the ensemble supports the action and learning more about the world slowly as you slay bosses provided ample reason to keep at it. Difficulty felt right up until the final boss. I ended up cranking down the difficulty because hey, life's too short to keep banging my head against this thing. Proud I made it that far though!