How to Parry in Nine Sols

Nine Sols is a newly released 2D action game with some strong Sekiro inspirations. Of course, with this inspiration comes a reliance on perfect parries, blocking enemy attacks at the right time, only to punish them with a counterattack. But not everyone finds this mechanic as intuitive as the game would hope. If that’s you, here’s how to parry successfully in Nine Sols.

Learning to Parry in Nine Sols

On the surface, parrying in Nine Sols seems quite straightforward. When your enemy’s attack is about to collide with you, press the Parry button. Press it late, and you lose some internal health. Press it perfectly, and you don’t lose anything. You can even parry ranged damage and charging enemies, just make sure you’re facing towards them.

Now, here is where things get complicated. You can’t parry some attacks: if you see a bright red flash, you have to dodge it. At the same time, you can’t parry more than one attack. If two enemies are attacking you at the same time, dodge away. And while internal damage isn’t an issue in the long term, it can still kill you. Internal damage is taken when you parry imperfectly. Unlike normal damage, you slowly recover all internal damage. But, if the internal damage covers your entire health bar, you die, just like with normal damage.

When you do manage to parry, with or without taking damage, you can punish your attacker with a talisman. Every successful parry creates a talisman, which can be placed on enemies by pressing the appropriate button. Keep the button pressed, and you can make the talisman explode. The explosion causes normal damage instead of temporary internal damage, on top of dealing more damage full stop. The drawback is that you’re fully vulnerable for the few seconds necessary to destroy the talisman.

Tips on How to Parry in Nine Sols

The most important trick to mastering parrying in Nine Sols is to look for the white flash of an enemy’s attack. You can parry as soon as you see this effect, and it will work, but it won’t be a perfect parry. Waiting for just an instant, a different amount of time for each attack is the trick to perfectly deflecting every blow.

That’s easier said than done, but with practice, it almost becomes trivial. And besides, the game doesn’t have that much enemy variation, and each unit only has one or two attacks. It won’t take long before you memorize their attack patterns.

Something else you can try is rebinding controls. By default, you use the controller’s bumpers to parry and riposte with a talisman. This makes sense, but the bumpers aren’t quite as comfortable as the triggers or face buttons. I found that placing parrying and dodging on the triggers is the best solution. The talisman doesn’t need much precision, so it can stay on the bumpers. The same goes for the Mystic Nymph.

One last tip: get the Qi Boost skill as soon as you can. It allows you to store up to two talismans, meaning that you don’t have to place one immediately after dodging. This makes group fights and bosses much easier since you can parry as needed before riposting.

That’s all for our guide on how to parry in Nine Sols. If you need more help with the game, visit our Nine Sols guide hub.