Nine Parchments Reviews

Nine Parchments is ranked in the 28th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
4 / 10.0
Dec 15, 2017

Nine Parchments is a difficult game to recommend as it's a very average approach to a genre that has existed for some time now. While it's visually appealing scenes are impressive enough to pique the interest of potential players, it's stale gameplay and painfully slow leveling system lack the fresh and creative experience that you'd expect to find here. Amongst a sea of games on Steam and the other digital stores, Frozenbyte have failed to include features that retain players' attention in the long-term. There are no puzzles to solve, no secret areas to explore and no worthwhile loot to discover. Enemy encounters quickly feel tiresome and monotonous, with successful fights boiling down to whether or not you can identify an enemy by its colour. If you're looking for a co-op dungeon-crawler with solid mechanics and a unique design, maybe pick up one of the popular favourites rather than this new title.

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Cubed3
Top Critic
5 / 10
Jan 24, 2018

Nine Parchments can be enjoyable in small doses with others. Playing alone can feel depressing as the grind of pressing on feels strongly palpable. There really isn't anything wrong with the mechanics since it controls nicely and feedback is satisfying. The art direction is top-notch and fantasy atmosphere has a much more colourful Magic the Gathering vibe going on. It is the sheer unimaginative level design and pedestrian scenarios that will bore most people. There is very little variation from the first stages to the end game stages and there is desperately a need for something to mix up the action.

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5 / 10.0
Dec 30, 2017

Nine Parchments has a lot of potential, it's just too bad most of that potential didn't make the final cut.

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5.5 / 10.0
Dec 16, 2017

A near miss for "instant classic" that could have been so much more, and possibly could still be someday, with some quality of life updates from the developers.

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6 / 10
Dec 8, 2017

Nine Parchments is a perfectly fine dungeon crawler-esque experience that sadly never really manages to deliver on its true potential. While it might tick a lot of the genre checkboxes, these ideas are never expanded upon enough to help the game truly stand out. As a multiplayer adventure, there’s definitely fun to be had in working together to tackle swarms of enemies, but alone, you’ll be hard-pressed to keep engaged through to the end credits.

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6 / 10.0
Dec 19, 2017

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.

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6 / 10
Dec 14, 2017

Nine Parchments is a solid release. Its gorgeous art style, dependable controls and fun co-op play almost hide a multitude of sins. Almost. Unfortunately, with a poor save system and combat mechanics that never really develop from the first level onwards, Nine Parchments soon becomes a slog that is less than magical.

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6 / 10.0
Oct 19, 2018

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.

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6.3 / 10.0
Dec 15, 2017

Nine Parchments isn't necessarily a bad game. It's a very basic experience that lacks many different qualities, and from what I've witnessed, the title has to work out some major technical issues. However, many people will find a very enjoyable experience here, with a lot of unlockable characters and stuff to find. If you're into co-op experiences, you can't go wrong with Nine Parchments on Nintendo Switch. If you rely on online play, you may want to hold off until a patch is released to fix the connection and save file issues.

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6.5 / 10.0
Dec 6, 2017

Nine Parchments has its problems, but for the most part, it is still an entertaining dungeon crawler.

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6.5 / 10.0
Dec 8, 2017

There's fun to be had here, if you're able to play it with others. Alone, Nine Parchments is a dull slog. Play with others, and it becomes an electrifying slice of pandemonium.

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Drew Leachman
Top Critic
6.5 / 10.0
Mar 20, 2018

Some design choices are also questionable, but in the end, I found the overall package contained a decent amount of content and had some fun collecting new spells and unlocks with some people online.

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6.5 / 10.0
Feb 2, 2018

Nine Partchments could be a fun game if you can wander in its levels with a couple of friends (in no more than a couple of evenings). After that, the experience gets boring and repetitive, and you'll probably search for something else to play.

Review in Italian | Read full review

Just Push Start
SC Austin
Top Critic
6.8 / 10.0
Dec 10, 2017

Overall Nine Parchments is a mixed bag for me as a game.

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Dec 21, 2017

"Some kind of magic."

Review in Finnish | Read full review

Dec 11, 2017

Nine Parchments is a charming little dungeon-crawler that boasts some truly stunning visuals and intuitive gameplay, but suffers from a distinct lack of depth. Nevertheless, if you can get a group of pals together, you'll be in for a spellbinding time.

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7 / 10
Jan 30, 2018

Nine Parchments delivers on the combat, visuals and variety front, with plenty of options to choose from and a strong gameplay core that will keep players entertained for several hours. It doesn't quite go all the way when it comes to its plot and level design, though, as it feels somewhat underachieving in these fronts and could certainly benefit from being more unique.

Review in Portuguese | Read full review

GamePro
Top Critic
70 / 100
Dec 22, 2017

The pretty magic adventure is quickly out of breath, because it lacks of creative peculiarities, but above all, on motivating elements.

Review in German | Read full review

7 / 10
Dec 11, 2017

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.

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Feb 28, 2018

Nine Parchments features great gameplay and environments but the world feels limited.

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