Nine Sols — 30 hours, PS5 platinum

Got the Nine Sols platinum on PS5. About 30 hours total, though that includes backtracking through a whole section after missing a trophy. Had a backup save that saved me from starting over entirely, but it still cost time.

Coming in from Hollow Knight

I'm not a metroidvania fan and I didn't finish Hollow Knight. Nine Sols is the first one I've completed. One of the aspects of Hollow Knight I really disliked was contact damage. If I died and needed to get back to a boss, getting knocked around by simply brushing against an enemy on the way there was frustrating. In contrast, I appreciated how Nine Sols has very few enemies with contact damage, and those that do have it as their whole gimmick. The atmosphere and story here also grabbed me more, which probably helped me stick with it.

What actually helped

Check a trophy guide before you start and flag every missable. There aren't a ton, but missing even one means replaying a section. Keep a backup save at least per area. I used a backup save to quickly get a map data chip the evil way.

The mech fight trophy is the easiest to miss. It's for a miniboss in the later areas, not a main boss, and it's very easy to beat. This means it's easy to beat it without entering the mech suit. Look for a root node on your map and find the room above it. There's liquid pouring down onto a robo enemy — you deactivate the liquid to activate the fight. There's also an extra step to unlock the door and actually get into the mech suit. I missed this one because the guide called it a miniboss and I was focused on main bosses, and killed it myself without thinking

The final ending trophy took 20 minutes in Story Mode. Story Mode with 10x damage output and 1% damage taken makes the cleanup run basically instant. Don't stress about it.

The grind

There's no real grind here. The platinum is mostly just playing the game, with a handful of missables to watch. The hard part is the bosses, not the completion. The final boss took me a few hours spread across two days on standard mode (I did do the harder version, which you could probably save for the final story mode cleanup run if you prefer). That's actual difficulty, not tedium.

Worth it?

The game: yes, I'd recommend it. Got it free through PlayStation Plus, and even at full price I think it's worth finishing. That said, $30 is a bit steep if you're unsure whether you'll like it, since it's on the shorter side.

If it's on sale, it's an easy call. It was 60% off on Steam when I platinumed it. At $20 or less, you don't need to think about it. At $30, it depends on whether you're testing the genre or already know this is your kind of game.

The platinum: also yes, but keep a backup save at least for each area. The missables are avoidable with a guide, the boss fights are the real challenge, and barely any of it felt like filler.