9th Dawn Remake Review
One of the longest and arguably the hardest games I played on my phone. 9th Dawn Remake is what I expect from modern Android games - being a direct competitor to what people get on PCs.
This game is the 4th entry in the 9th Dawn series by Valorware, being a “technical” remake of the first game they published for PC players back in 2017 - to my knowledge, everything is the same but the controls were completely remapped and UI received a bit more love from the developers. It’s a long game - because of the enormous amount of content for a mobile title, and how the difficulty works, forcing the player to try something, die, repeat again and keep trying until they manage to go through a tough, spongy enemy. I like it a lot and this completely explains the £7.99 price tag. It felt a bit weird for me to start reviewing a very good game after recently published Reprobates review, but I couldn’t stop playing it (I still haven’t finished the game).
0. TL;DR
Developer: Valorware
Release date: 4 April 2025
Genre: RPG, Dungeon Crawler, Singleplayer, Offline
Price: £7.99
Pros: Multiple hours of content, enjoyable fighting system with many ways of upgrading the character, interesting plot, nice pixel-art
Cons: For some people it might be too unforgiving, highest graphical settings make the game go sub 30FPS with no noticeable visual changes
Download: Google Play
1. Gameplay
9th Dawn Remake is a 2.5D - 3D maps with 2D characters and items - dungeon crawler and a role-playing game. Your character is an Adventurer, a no-skill wanderer that gets involved into an interesting mystery just for the sake of gaining more knowledge and helping other people.
The controls are simple: movement is handled on the left side of the screen, while attacks in a chosen direction are managed on the right. The player can switch between weapon sets and perform dodges during combat. Throughout gameplay, hundreds of items can be found — including equippable gear like weapons and armor, as well as consumables or crafting materials. The character develops both passively and actively: fighting with specific weapon types improves proficiency with them, while defeating enemies grants experience points used for leveling up. Each level gained also provides stat points that can be distributed among various attributes of the protagonist.
After a short tutorial, the player arrives at a settlement populated by various NPCs. A few of them will give the protagonist quests, which may seem simple at first but will eventually lead to areas where enemies pose a real threat. In addition, there are merchants where you can buy or sell items, as well as a Card Master who offers two minigames — one is a mini dungeon crawler with card game mechanics reminiscent of Magic: The Gathering, while the other involves climbing a tower made up of randomly generated levels filled with treasure and enemies.
As previously mentioned, the map is vast and offers plenty to explore. The game features an autosave system but also includes a death mechanic similar to the one found in the Dark Souls series — the map is dotted with "respawn" points where the character will reappear after dying. If a player ventures deep into a dungeon without finding such a point and happens to die, unfortunately, they’ll have to restart from the last one they reached. The saves only serve to let you continue your session after quitting the game. Notably, when launching the game again, if the player is inside a dungeon, all previously defeated enemies will respawn — so it’s best to exit the game in areas where there weren’t hordes of frogs or wolves.
2. Visuals, Audio & Performance
9th Dawn combines 2D and 3D graphics. The game features three-dimensional maps with two-dimensional effects layered on top. The pixel art isn’t particularly detailed, and the maps are built from textured squares which become repetitive after a while — but the visuals are sufficient and not likely to turn players away. The atmosphere leans heavily into brown and green tones, against which the colorful magic effects stand out. Characters and monsters only move left or right, and instead of proper rotations, the game simply flips their sprites. I can't say much about the music — it's tolerable, but I turned it off quickly in favor of my own playlist.
Performance-wise, the game is questionable — on the highest graphic settings, the framerate dropped below 30 FPS, and only switching to the lowest settings made it possible to play smoothly at 60. I didn’t notice anything in the visuals that should’ve caused such a drastic difference in performance, especially since changing the settings didn’t seem to visually alter the game much. Something definitely went wrong here, likely due to the game being a port from PC to mobile.
Note: The graph above contains results both for highest and lowest settings.
3. Ads & Microtransactions
None. I wouldn’t expect a studio that sells their game for almost 8 pounds put any ads in it and I’m gratefule they meet my expectations. I also haven’t seen and advertisment of this game anywhere, so I can’t say if there was any “mischief” arranged to promote it. There are no microtransactions either, everything has to be grinded.
4. Verdict
9th Dawn Remake is a very good dungeon crawler, and I’m glad the developers decided to bring it to Android phones. The sheer amount of content and the level of challenge offer tons of hours of gameplay, and the addition of a co-op mode only enhances the experience. It’s one of the best games I’ve downloaded on my smartphone, and I’m hoping for more titles like this in the future. I just wish the developers would put a bit more effort into optimizing their ports — because while console-to-PC ports are usually playable regardless of their state, the significantly lower performance of smartphones can make things less enjoyable.