Nine Parchments Couch Co-op Review: Repetitive, Shallow, and More Frustrating Than Fun – 1.5/5

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Nine Parchments – Trailer

Review Summary

Nine Parchments looks like it should be a great couch co-op game. Colourful visuals, spell-focused combat, multiple playable characters, and a light fantasy tone all suggest something fun and chaotic in a good way. Unfortunately, the actual experience falls flat. After finishing a full run and seeing what the game had to offer, we walked away disappointed—and with no desire to keep playing.

This is a game built around repetition, but without the depth or progression needed to justify that repetition. Combat is serviceable at first, then quickly becomes dull. Character progression feels weak. The story barely exists. And some core design decisions—especially around friendly fire and spell selection—actively hurt the experience.

I wouldn’t recommend this game for anyone. If you really want to try it for yourself, you can get your copy of Nine Parchments here.

Overall Impressions

Nine Parchments is not a terrible game, but it is a boring one. You run through levels, fight waves of enemies, defeat a boss, and repeat. There’s little variation, little tension, and very little sense of payoff.

What makes this particularly disappointing is that the foundation isn’t awful. The spell system could have been interesting. Co-op could have added chaos and fun. Instead, the design choices consistently undermine enjoyment. It was also too bad that you couldn’t turn off friendly fire.

After beating the main boss and seeing that the next step was simply replaying the same levels again with newly unlocked characters, we stopped immediately. There was nothing pulling us forward.

Gameplay & Combat Loop

1.5/5

The core gameplay loop is extremely simple: move through a level, kill groups of enemies, reach the end, repeat. Levels are linear, enemy encounters are predictable, and combat rarely changes meaningfully.

Early on, experimenting with spells is mildly interesting. You’re learning what elements do, how spells interact, and how to avoid hurting each other—at least in theory. But that novelty fades fast.

Combat lacks tension. Enemies rarely force you to adapt, and most encounters can be brute-forced without much thought. Boss fights are visually louder but mechanically shallow. They don’t feel like climactic moments—just longer versions of regular encounters.

Couch Co-op Experience & Camera Issues

2/5

Nine Parchments is clearly designed around co-op, but the execution is uneven.

The shared camera becomes a problem whenever players move in different directions. It struggles to frame action properly, and positioning can feel awkward or cramped. Instead of enabling teamwork, the camera often becomes something you fight against.

Friendly fire is always on, and while that may be an intentional design choice, not allowing players to disable it is a mistake. Yes, it adds chaos. Yes, it forces coordination. But it also adds frustration—especially in a game where spell effects are large, overlapping, and visually noisy.

Being unable to turn off friendly fire feels unnecessarily restrictive. Giving players the option would have improved accessibility and enjoyment without taking anything away from those who want the added challenge.

Spell System & Controller Limitations

2/5

Spellcasting is supposed to be the heart of Nine Parchments, but it’s held back by a clumsy control scheme—especially on controller.

Cycling through spells using next/previous inputs is inefficient. In the middle of combat, scrolling through a spell ring to find the one you want is slow and frustrating. You’re often forced to overshoot the spell you want, cycle back, and lose momentum.

This stands in stark contrast to how spell selection works in Baldur’s Gate 3 (read my review of Baldur’s Gate 3 here), where a radial spell wheel lets you flick the joystick directly toward the spell you want. That system is faster, more intuitive, and far better suited to high-pressure situations.

In Nine Parchments, spell selection feels like busywork. Instead of reacting fluidly, you’re wrestling with the interface.

Character Progression & Classes

1.5/5

Character progression is weak. You unlock spells, adjust loadouts, and make minor upgrades, but none of it feels impactful enough to change how the game plays.

Different characters exist, but they don’t feel distinct in meaningful ways. Classes don’t dramatically alter your playstyle, and the pros and cons between characters are muted. This is especially problematic given how the game handles replayability.

After defeating the boss, the game pushes you toward replaying the same levels again—this time as newly unlocked characters. That might work if levels were great or characters felt radically different. Neither is true here.

Replaying mediocre content with slightly different spell sets isn’t compelling. We had no interest in running the same stages again just to see marginally different abilities. As a result, we stopped playing entirely after the first completion.

A system that allowed unlocking or switching characters mid-run, or that introduced new content alongside new characters, would have helped. As it stands, the replay structure feels lazy.

Story & World

2/5

The story is barely present. There’s a setup, some light narration, and then it fades into the background almost immediately. There’s no emotional hook, no memorable characters, and no reason to care about what you’re doing beyond clearing the next level.

This might have been fine if the gameplay carried the experience. It doesn’t.

The world is colourful and whimsical, but shallow. Nothing encourages curiosity or investment. You move forward because that’s what the game expects, not because you’re engaged.

Visuals & Audio

2.5/5

Visually, Nine Parchments is pleasant. Spell effects are colourful, environments are readable, and the art style is consistent. That said, visual clarity suffers during combat, especially in co-op. Overlapping spell effects and enemies can turn fights into visual noise.

Audio is functional. Music sets the tone but isn’t memorable. Sound effects do their job but don’t add much impact. Nothing here elevates the experience.

Replayability

1/5

Replayability is where Nine Parchments fails hardest.

The game expects you to replay the same content repeatedly, but doesn’t provide strong incentives to do so. Levels aren’t interesting enough. Characters aren’t distinct enough. Progression isn’t deep enough.

Once you’ve beaten the boss, you’ve effectively seen everything the game has to offer. For us, that was the end.

Pros

• Colourful spell effects
• Multiple playable characters
• Designed with co-op in mind

Cons

• Boring, repetitive gameplay loop
• Weak character progression
• Forced friendly fire with no option to disable
• Poor spell-cycling controls on controller
• Uninspired replay structure
• Weak story

Final Verdict

1.5/5

Nine Parchments is a disappointing couch co-op experience. It has the surface-level appearance of a fun spell-slinging adventure, but underneath is a shallow, repetitive game that doesn’t respect the player’s time.

The inability to disable friendly fire, clumsy spell selection, weak progression, and forced replay of uninteresting levels all compound into an experience we simply didn’t enjoy. After one completion, we were done—and we wouldn’t recommend pushing further.

There are far better couch co-op games that do teamwork, progression, and replayability right. Nine Parchments isn’t one of them.

Again, I don’t recommend this game at all. If you really want to try it for yourself, you can get your copy here.