Nine Parchments

With a stronger connection to the world and a more rewarding progression system, Nine Parchments could have been more than a fleeting arcade fancy. If you can find it on sale (which it has hosted many times since launch) and can wrangle up three other people, it's a decent party game that will fill a single afternoon.

Visually, the game is vibrant, colorful, and just very charming. It runs smooth as butter too. I never had any frame rate dips, even when I had multiple spells and enemies flying over the map. The story is simple for the most part, but the look and presentation still had the whimsical Trine feel to it and it always made me crack a smile.

Nine Parchments is an excellent co-op adventure game with a fantastic combat system, beautiful environments and a wonderful melodic soundtrack. There’s a lot to see and unlock, and just trying out different character and spell combos will take multiple playthroughs. This game will surely be a popular choice for group play.

Although Nine Parchments manages to nail its combat system on the mark, it’s the only positive thing the game has to offer. Most, if not all, of the experience, is unrewarding and feels like a chore to complete. There’s a real dearth of scattered collectibles, which requires multiple playthroughs to acquire all, and the skill tree system takes a large amount of time to complete but serves to be unrewarding as well.

Nine Parchments, though wielding action RPG elements, works best as a party game. There are chaos and comedy to be had when you have three other friends sharing the screen, combining spells, chucking heals, and being sure not to stand in the fire. All of these mechanics combined with a lighthearted story lend themselves to a laugh-filled-couch-co-op game that should not be played alone.

One big point that I need to mention is that this game only allows for one save file to be kept at a time. So, if you start a multiplayer or single-player session, you are locked into completing it unless you want to start campaign progress over from the very beginning. Goals met toward unlocking new characters remain saved, but progress and character building does not. The developers mentioned via Reddit that they intend to remedy this with a future patch, but I felt that I needed to mention this here in the off-chance that someone reading this review wants to consider this game in its current state.