Nine Sols 2025.12.31 — Mac version

You step off a wooden lift into a sun-dappled grove, sword in hand. An enemy lunges — you don't dodge; you stand your ground, parry at the last split second, then riposte with a flash of crimson. That loop of risk and reward is the heartbeat of Nine Sols, an Asian-fantasy action-platformer built on hand-drawn art and a combat system that demands you lean into danger.

• You'll enjoy it if you love Sekiro-like deflection. Combat isn't about whittling down health bars — it's about reading attacks and timing a tap of the block button to turn defence into a devastating counter.
• You'll enjoy it if you want a world that rewards poking around. Interconnected regions hide NPCs who hand out upgrades, new abilities, and handy tech when you track them down.
• You'll enjoy it if you have a thing for 2D animation. Every backdrop and character frame is drawn by hand, giving the whole journey a living, brush-stroke feel.
• You might struggle if you prefer button-mashing. Patience is the price of entry — panic strikes get punished fast.
• You might struggle if your Mac is older than an M1 Air. The minimum asks for that chip and 8 GB of RAM to keep the frames smooth.

Tucked inside are six interface languages — English, Russian, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Korean, and Japanese — so the story lands no matter where you're playing from.

Parry veterans from Hollow Knight and Dead Cells feel it first

Mac players who already enjoy tight, parry-driven melee combat settle into Nine Sols fastest. If you've spent hours in Hollow Knight boss rooms or timed counters in Dead Cells, the deflection-first rhythm here will click within the first few encounters. The game doesn't hold your hand — it teaches through failure, and that suits anyone who treats a tough fight like a puzzle rather than a frustration.

Exploration-minded players get plenty back too. The interconnected layout of New Kunlun hides side rooms, shortcuts, and NPCs tucked behind breakable walls or reachable only with a later ability. Folks who double back after every upgrade find the most lore, the best upgrades, and some of the weirdest encounters. If you're the type who opens every cupboard in an RPG, this world rewards that instinct.

Players on older Intel Macs also get a fair shake: the nine sols mac full version build runs on 64-bit x86 machines as well as Apple Silicon, so you don't need an M-series chip to start parrying.

Turn off screen shake to read attack tells better

Before you even see your first boss, hop into the settings menu and flip two things.

1. Turn off screen shake. The default camera rumble on heavy hits looks cinematic, but it muddies attack tells. Switching it off makes parry timing far easier to read — especially on a MacBook's smaller display.
2. Rebind the block button to a shoulder key. The default face-button placement asks your thumb to do too much at once. Moving block to a trigger or bumper frees your right thumb for jumping and dashing without ever leaving the parry. The difference in boss fights is night and day.

Once you're comfortable, check the graphics preset. Dropping one notch from the highest setting pushes frame pacing into steadier territory on base M1 and M1 Air machines, and the hand-drawn art still looks gorgeous.

• macOS 10.13 or newer
• M1 Air processor or better (Apple Silicon & Intel supported)
• 8 GB RAM
• 15 GB available storage