Fight to bring beautiful colors back to a hand-crafted world of darkness and discover the story of Europa, a young warrior, and her ghostly childhood companion, Apino.
Modeled estimate, not a reported figure. How we estimate →
Prices
Each in the currency that store quoted — not converted: the gap between two rows is the publisher's pricing, not an exchange rate.
Discounts
Every price cut of more than 20% we have observed, in each market that quoted one, with this game's chart position on either side of it. These are episodes, not a model: a sale is one event, and one event cannot tell you what the next one will do.
Reviews, worldwide (the counter carries no country): 2/day in the week to Aug 23 → 2.14/day in the week after.
For scale, across Steam · Top Sellers · Brazil over the last 30 days: the 26 chart moves that followed a price cut of more than 20% went a median of 7 places towards #1, and the 2,400 moves with no price cut behind them went 2 away. One store, one chart, one country — it is the only place we have enough observations to say even that.
Prices outside the United States have been collected since 6 August 2026 and chart positions since 19 July 2026, so a cut older than that has no market to compare and a market that joined later has no history yet. Nothing here is converted between currencies.
About
9 Years of Shadows is a side-scrolling Metroidvania by Halberd Studios. Travel alongside Europa, a brave warrior determined to enter the mechanical giant Talos and stop the corruption within before it swallows the world in darkness. Battle through tainted creatures, meet charismatic musicians and uncover the truth behind the curse that robbed the land of all color.
Many have tried to venture inside the twisted depths of Talos, a dormant fortress where several civilizations have settle over centuries. And, after losing everything she held dear, Europa has nothing holding her back from attempting what others could not achieve. As a noble fighter who refuses to be bound by the curse, she must enter the castle, find the source of corruption, and return the color once and for all.
This adventure is not for Europa to face alone. Inside the giant, she befriends Apino, a cute floating bear who seems to possess magical abilities that can restore color and replenish the health of his allies. He is also able to shield his companions from the multiple dangers that roam Talos’ hallways.
While exploring the castle, Apino can cleanse the corruption around Talos and shoot a variety of projectiles that can destroy dark crystals and inflict damage:
A fist that punches upwards when conjured.
A blast that travels along a surface until collision
A cyclone that returns to Apino like a boomerang.
Use the elements to your advantage to travel the map dynamically. Acquire the elemental armors that were once treasures to ancient civilizations and change on the fly and unlock special abilities to traverse your way: from swimming against waterfalls to traveling underground tunnels or gliding through warm air currents.
Harness the power of lightning, water, earth, and fire. Surprise bosses while you switch armors, perform strong halberd combos, and exploit your foes’ weaknesses to pave your way through the heart of the shadows.
Music is all but the soul of the game. Revitalize the world while you listen to a moving soundtrack composed by Miguel Hasson, as well as soothing pieces scored in 432hz by celebrated composers Michiru Yamane (Castlevania series) and Norihiko Hibino (Metal Gear Solid series). Meet these guest composers as in-game NPCs who aid in Europa’s quest throughout the game.
Music is the binding thread that combines gameplay and storytelling: collect musical notes and perform a healing lullaby to restore your health.
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"Literally stunning"
Keen Gamer
"A stunning Metroidvania"
GamesRadar+
"Excellent & responsive combat"
Game Rant
"Delights all the senses"
GameLuster
"Two thumbs up"
LadiesGamers
Sums Steam only; GOG, PlayStation, Xbox, Epic, Nintendo publish no volume signal, so the true total is higher by an unknown amount.
| Store | Price | Audience | Score | Chart | Est. revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SteamYou are here | $19.99 | 3.4Kreviews | 77% | — | $1M |
| $7.99−60% | 578ratings | 84% | — | not modelled | |
Engagement
Reviews
Themes across 152 recent reviews and how positive each mention is. A keyword signal, not full sentiment analysis.
Reviews
蛮好玩的一款类银城，美术也不错，手感稍微差了一些，差强人意吧，就是体量有点小，15小时左右就几乎全收集了，算是一款不错的小品级类银城，而且买cdkey的话价格也很便宜。
I'm writing this from the perspective of a completionist who likes to get all of the collectibles and achievements in a game (when the achievements aren't insane, anyway). A casual playthrough isn't actually that bad. For the most part, the combat feels pretty OK, the graphics are nice, and I liked some of the ideas behind it. Having "light" instead of "health" that you can replenish mid-combat if you pass the skill check reliably is a fun twist (though I don't necessarily like that some of the specials *consume* Light). Buuut, there are... *issues,* especially from the perspective of a completionist. I think my biggest issue is friction in traversing the map. The elevators work at first as a means to let the main character talk to herself about recent story developments, but after she's run out of stuff to talk about (particularly at the end of the game, when you might be doing post-game clean-up of items), instead of skipping the dialog part entirely, the game simply displays a hard-to-see "..." and expects you to hit the confirm button to progress past this. Every single time. There's also a hard coded timer for before and after this displays, making elevators take a tedious amount of time. On-foot has its own share of issues, too. Each of the primary mobility upgrades belong to a particular set of armor, and can only be used while wearing that armor. For the *most* part, this is OK, but there are plenty of situations where this becomes an issue. The final mobility skill you get is just a dash that's really nice for moving through rooms with, but it can only be used with the final armor you get. If you enter a fire or poison room, or heaven forbid touch a waterfall, you're yanked out of that armor and go back to your slower speed. This becomes *especially* tedious because the final armor has higher attack power than the others, so you're suddenly weaker for it, too. Additionally, the game has no indicators for which areas you might be missing items in. And there are plenty of items where it's possible to 'explore' a room on your map without ever actually seeing or immediately retrieving the item. This means it's entirely possible to fully explore the map, but have *zero* indicators on where a missed item might be. So if you want to backtrack and pick up every item, you need to systematically re-check every area. While fighting the above issues the entire way. It's definitely one of those cases where I like the concepts, but I think they could have been implemented a bit better?
Media
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Price dynamics, follower growth, revenue and sales trajectories with interactive tooltips
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Every market we collect.
Genres
Stats
All-time low is the lowest price we've recorded for this game since we started tracking it.
Languages: English*, Spanish - Latin America, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian, Simplified Chinese*languages with full audio support
| $19.99 |
| 184ratings |
| 79% |
| — |
| not modelled |
| $19.99 | 50ratings | 86% | — | not modelled |
| $19.99 | — | — | — | $0 |
| $19.99 | — | — | — | not modelled |
Matched by title — a reused name can pair the wrong games. * is a critic aggregate. Prices and positions are each store's United States storefront; Epic charts worldwide. Audience and Score too, except Steam's, which is worldwide.
Hours played at review time, across 153 reviews with recorded playtime.
positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up
C'était sympathique
J'ai vraiment bien aimé les choses bien, j'ai moins aimé les choses moins biens.
top best artwork in pixel-art and sound. gameplay goated 20/10
Un metroidvania muy bonito, lleno de color y música. El combate es quizás demasiado sencillo y me hubiera gustado quizás, que la exploración fuera más rápida, pero es un buen juego 👍
Что хочется выделить в 9 Years of Shadows: 🔸 Классическая метроидвания: вместо оружия — разные доспехи и стихийный урон 🔸 Прекрасная пиксельная графика — глаз радуется 🔸 Приятная и ненадоедающая музыка 🔸 ~10 часов на прохождение (можно закрыть сразу на платину) Единственное, к чему могут быть вопросы — сюжет. Но в таких играх он и не главное. Он есть, он неплохой, он очень драматичный — и это в пиксельной-то метроидвании! 😅 Из забавного: в игре куча отсылок на греческую мифологию, и это выглядит очень уместно. Если вы любите пиксель-арт и метроидвании — проходить мимо нельзя! ⚡ 8 доспехов Зевса из 10!
9 years of shadow é um metroidvania muito bom. a arte do jogo é muito bonita, a trilha sonora é boa, o combate é muito bem feito e eu gostei bastante da mecânica das armaduras. ele é de certa forma bem linear na ordem dos upgrades. apesar de ser bem curto, acho que se ele durasse mais do que isso seria enjoativo. num geral, gostei bastante.
I had some basic issues with the design as others mentioned before. - The lightbar management is a bit weird, but it also helps in certain bosses where you are can't really tell where to dodge certain mechanics so you can just basically stand still, mash attack button and time the light bar regeneration. - Some bosses didn't make sense to me or felt so random. - Don't forget to save... - The conversationts are bit weird. - The map has no markers so it's hard to backtrack the last upgrades. BUT it was certainly a good game! You can tell it was made with love! Europa and her armors' design were great! +points for Halberd weapon and + for Blashpemous reference ingame!
A very good metroidvania. The entire game`s aesthetics are magnificent, being one of the most unique and pretty indie games I've seen. Combat is fun but be aware that is not the game`s focus so it's rather simple and limited. The traversal on the other hand is amazing, having several unique ways of interact with the environment. Exploration is unfortunately is not very good if compared to more complex mvanias, there`s not much backtracking to do although to 100% you will probably take a while looking around. Story is simple but effective and the protagonist is estoic and has significant depth for an indie game. If you're a big fan of mvanias I would definitely recommend, but if you're looking for super complex level designs with a lot of backtracking this might not be your thing. I would love to see a more ambitious project from this team in the future, they showed they can bring quality and uniqueness together.
Players by region
Where this game's players are, estimated from review languages.
Players also reviewed
The games this title's players most often review too — audience affinity.
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