Nine Parchments

Frozenbyte have solidified their place in my mind as a solid Tier One developer. I purchased Trine 4 in a bundle during this Steam Sale (which was also good), only to find that the two games also included were both remarkably enjoyable. Shadwen turned out to be a surprisingly good stealth game, and Nine Parchments is turning out to be a surprisingly good magical Gauntlet-like, though it being a co-op game means I can only trust the Steam reviews to tell me that the co-op experience is good.

I do have a few problems with it – the paths are linear, the collectibles don’t really stand out against the cluttered (but beautiful) backgrounds, the upgrades don’t affect your gameplay much (which is usually “keep moving and firing”), and the walking animations are tied to the direction your mouse looks, which can look very strange. Despite this (and perhaps because of some of it), it seems like the sort of game I would pull out at a party without hesitation. If I had parties.

Steam Link