The format of these posts is simple: let’s discuss a specific game or series!
Let’s discuss Hollow Knight. What aspects do you like about it? What doesn’t work for you? Feel free to share any thoughts that come up, or react to other peoples comments. Let’s get the conversation going!
If you have any recommendations for games or series for the next post(s), please feel free to DM me or add it in a comment here (no guarantees of course).
Previous entries: Nintendo DS, Monster Hunter, Persona, Monkey Island, 8 Bit Era, Animal Crossing, Age of Empires, Super Mario, Deus Ex, Stardew Valley, The Sims, Half-Life, Earthbound / Mother, Mass Effect, Metroid, Journey, Resident Evil, Polybius, Tetris, Telltale Games, Kirby, LEGO Games, DOOM, Ori, Metal Gear, Slay the Spire
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oh boy!! rubs hands together
here we go: this is definitely my favorite game i’ve ever played. Maybe it just stands out as the first metroidvania that I really sunk my teeth into, but I think Hollow Knight is truly something special and, judging by the hype for Silksong, I know a lot of folks agree with me. The gorgeous hand-drawn art and hauntingly-beautiful soundtrack create a striking first impression. The initially-depressive atmosphere shifts to new moods throughout the game. The nuanced combat is reminiscent of Dark Souls, maybe the best game to make that translation to 2D. The “badge” system is a clever and streamlined upgrade system that lets the player shift playstyles almost on-the-fly.
And my favorite part: THE MAP (by which i mean both the game world and the map system)!!! Omg I know a Metroidvania is made or ruined by its map, and so all well-regarded Metroidvanias have a pretty good map. Simply put, Hollow Knight is just a cut above all of them. Like all Metroidvanias, the map does the cool thing where paths are locked off to you until you get new abilities that act as “keys” to open up new areas. Hollow Knight differs in that the game starts off linear, and then two abilities you get within the first few hours act as the keys to open up almost the entire game world. So as soon as you get your legs under you and you are getting the hang of the combat, you can turn around and go almost anywhere you want as long as you are down for the challenge. Accordingly, almost every player of this game has a pretty different experience, which is really unique for non-roguelike.
Regarding the map system itself: unlike most Metroidvanias, the map does not automatically fill in as you go. Instead, you don’t get any map for a new area until you find the traveling mapmaker NPC. Once you find him, you can buy his rough, incomplete map of the area, which is nonetheless invaluable. Once you buy the pen upgrade from the shop in town, you can fill out the unfinished map with areas that you have explored. However, the map only updates when you rest at benches (save points), so you still have to keep a mental map while you are exploring. And the pen does not work in an area until you find the mapmaker NPC (little ghost needs a piece of paper to draw on). The devs play with this - in some areas the NPC is pretty close to the entrance, but in others he is pretty deep into the area, so again you have to keep up a mental map for longer. And finally, the map does not show where you the player are on it unless you equip a specific one-slot badge (some badges take up more slots). Some players are frustrated by this, but it helps if you view that slot as like a bonus slot. Once you memorize an area, you can take that badge off to get a little extra power for a boss fight. In “exploration” mode, having that badge equipped makes you feel just a little less powerful, which adds to the tension.
Which segues into my final point: this game makes you feel like an adventurer exploring a forgotten kingdom, in a way that I have never felt in any other game, not even Dark Souls. The extremely open-ended design and MASSIVE game world mean that you the player will be constantly discovering new areas, even dozens of hours into the game. It just keeps surprising you over and over. This is why I like the map system described above. Many are turned off by the friction that the devs added to the map - they could have just given you an auto-updating map like every other Metroidvania. But the friction adds to the feeling that you are an explorer in a hostile land, and the tension you feel when you are exploring a new area without a map is unparalled. In Dark Souls, there are parts where you can choose where to go, but the game overall is pretty linear, so it rarely feels like you the player are driving the exploration. That sense of exploration, and the layers-upon-layers of mystery within the story, are why Hollow Knight remains my fave of all time to this day.
Side note: I suspect Elden Ring would give a similar feeling, given that it is Souls + open-world exploration. However, I have not played Elden Ring yet personally (i’m a patient gamer down to my bones). For folks that have played both: Are there similarities in Elden Ring’s sense of exploration? Is there any intentional friction in the map system? Or did From go with an auto-updating map like most games?
Regarding Elden Ring, I would argue it does the sense of exploration better than Hollow Knight, but only by a small degree. For every area, there’s no map at the start, and the entire map’s size is obscured since it only shows what you’ve traveled through. It gets bigger as you go, but it’s still obscured by a fog of war for areas that fit inside the map, but you don’t have a map fragment for. You can see on the map where you can obtain the fragment, but not how to get there. Most times you can just cut a straight line to it, but sometimes it’s a pain.
All that said, the thing it does better than Hollow Knight for exploration is a limitation of Hollow Knight’s map system. It’s split into different rooms, and each room has finite entrances and exits. Because you fill out the map through exploration, you’re going to know what you have and haven’t found.
Because Elden Ring gives you the entirety of the map, it’s both helpful and not. You can figure out (mostly) how to get from point A to point B, and you have markers for everywhere you’ve been. There’s two minor issues with that, though. It’s a 2D map for a 3D world, which means you end up with some locations not being properly shown, because they’re underneath cliffs. The second is that the map does almost nothing to show what places of interest there are. You have large buildings shown, but that excludes all the catacombs (dungeon areas) you can visit. There are areas on the map that are right there, but due to the topography you have no idea how to get there. Going by the map alone means you’re going to miss out on a solid amount of the content available.
It’s because the map is so limiting that it feels so good. You’re able to use it to figure where places are in directional relation, but you still have to look yourself to try and uncover areas. My first run, I prided myself on uncovering everything. I searched high and low, inspected the map to make sure I went to every corner, and really made sure I knew what was out there, and it felt amazing in terms of how much content there was and how much exploration you could do. I started a second run when the DLC came out, and found an area that, somehow, I had entirely missed. It took over a hundred and forty hours of searching, really searching, to get what I thought was complete, and it still wasn’t. It was a fantastic feeling on my second run.
Hollow Knight’s map is excellent. The gameplay is excellent, the exploration is rewarding and challenging. But the issue it has is that it only has those two dimensions to work with. Elden Ring really works to emphasize that third dimension when scouring for secrets.
Thank you for your write up! This has me WAY more interested in Elden Ring than I was before. I like Dark Souls a lot, but part of it is my investment in the lore. It’s not that I expect Elden Ring lore to be worse in any way, but it’ll be a new world to relearn so I have to work myself up to it. Reading your take has me way more excited to dig into it!
Elden ring has a suprisingly similar map system to hk, also, it’s 35% off rn!
Love your write up. I feel similarly, and many many randomizer runs (Archipelago.gg is great for it), speedruns, and classic playthroughs later I still find the atmosphere and music incredible
Thank you! Glad to find a fellow HK obsesser 😁
Overall great, but the movement, mainly during all the backtracking, just wasn’t fun enough to carry it. You have a dash and that’s it, the charge dash is too situational.
It might not be Metroid with Shinesparks and such, but maybe up the default walk speed at least? The rest of the game wasn’t outstanding enough to make up for it either, besides the map being very open, even for a metroidvania. I like how there are 3-4 ways to enter the area with the Dream Nail.
First game I ever played where I was like “yo, I actively WANT to do the speedrun achievement, and the deathless achievement.” So, first game where I ever did those things. Maybe I’m just crazy, but I found them way easier than I expected.
Also, a prime example of storytelling through music.
I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the world. However the difficulty made me drop the game at the half of it. Since I turned 40, I play games to relax not to rage on bosses. Therefore altogether, a bit of pity I couldn’t see the end.
The vast majority of the game is optional so that you can get to the final boss and see an ending. I remember getting the normal ending and thinking “really? That fight was trivial”. Turns out the minimal play-through is tuned for a low skill level. The “true” ending is another story though.
Same. I enjoyed a lot of what I played but I don’t get on well with metroidvanias. So I only played a couple of hours before I either got lost or died too often to a boss.
I really love the difficulty in this game, but I get that that’s a matter of taste. Hollow Knight would definitely benefit from an “assist mode” like Celeste, or a “god mode” like Hades. I think the devs intended for the badges to be a way for players to fine-tune their difficulty and playstyle (kind of like how in Dark Souls, pyromancy is easy mode, at least early on). But often the best badges are hidden behind challenges, and even the best badges do not dramatically reduce the difficulty. So I totally empathize with your perspective.
Thanks :)
I had the same problem with Dead Cells: I could finish the game once, but impossible to continue with the Boss Cells activated. Thankfully, they introduced an “Assist Mode” with a later patch and I managed to continue playing.
For me it wasn’t some boss or something. It was just some ridiculous precision platforming that couldn’t get past. I’m 45. My reaction times aren’t what they used to be. And the fact that you have to fight your shade every time made it just that much harder.
Ori and the Blind Forest also had some difficult precision platforming but the instant reload and no death penalty made it much easier to just try dozens of times until you get it.
this is where I think an assist mode would come into play. Personally, I think the difficulty and the limited checkpoints are important for the delicious tension of the game, so removing either aspect would ruin the game for me (and as I said elsewhere, this game is my favorite of all time). But if you could go into the settings, and flip on an assist mode that gave you checkpoints at the beginning of every room? I see no downside there, make the game more accessible for more people!
I also agree that the Shade is a flaw in the game design. Honestly the only clumsy design choice that I can think of in this game. I think Team Cherry wanted to do something similar to the Dark Souls bloodstain mechanic without completely copying it, but the shade ain’t it. If you like the difficulty of the game, the shade becomes a meaningless roadbump after the first few times, so it might as well be an automatic collection. If you are struggling with the difficulty of the game, the shade is just another hurdle to the game clicking for you. The shade has some lore significance, but I feel like they should have just made it an automatic collection without having to actually fight the shade.
Idk, I know I’m in the minority, but the stuff I don’t experience in a game is just as important as the stuff I do experience.
As someone who played WoW as a kid, the world always felt bigger and more memorable because there was stuff I wasn’t geared/skilled/determined/lucky/whatever enough to see. Then during WotLK they made a concerted effort to ensure everyone could see all the content. Suddenly the world felt small. Less like a world and more like a series of checkboxes that you tick off and say “done, onto the next game”.
I really appreciate when the creators say “not everyone will see everything, and that’s ok, that’s how we intended it”. Elden Ring is really good about this. I’m about to finish my first playthrough, I know ive missed a lot of stuff, but that’s OK, my playthrough was uniquely mine.
I have never been good at platforming, almost gave up on getting into the main city. Luckily my partner has the skills and patience to do those pure difficult platforming challenges for me, so I managed to complete the game. Same thing with Blasphemous actually. Gorgeous game, platforming way too difficult for me.
Even he couldn’t do white palace, and I doubt I’m good enough to beat the true final boss, so I never got the good ending.
My simple solution is to cheat.
Grab something like WeMod and breeze through it for the story and ambience.
breathes in
Hollow knight silk song will happen I am not on copium I believe it is real I will pop off so hard when the date is announced and when it comes out I love hornet maybe you could tell by my pfp you could say I am a little excited for the game and that I love the original and I’m so excited and ahhhHHhhhhhhhHHhhhhhhhhhhhh
SHAW
:3
It just got shadow dropped.
ADEENUM!
Yooooo true!!!
your pfp is how i immediately knew you were a real one.
Awwww you’re too kind. Also W take for your review in this thread as well 🙏
thank you
I don’t go with Hollow Knight for pfps, but this is my gaming PC:
Oh that’s an awesome sticker. Check out my cute hornet plush :)
I love her! Thanks for sharing 👌
I finally got this game through a steam key trade on barter, traded for a game I didn’t need from a Fanatical bundle. It’s now sitting in my library until I have the time to focus on it, as one of my best friends recommended it to me as one of his favorite games ever. So I want to give it the time and focus it deserves, hopefully it will click for me too!
my rec: try to power through until you get the Mothwing Cloak and Mantis Claw, which you get within the first 5 hours or so. If you don’t like the game by then, it isn’t going to click, but I think a lot of people give up on Hollow Knight too early.
I would also add that you can down slash at the beginning. It is very useful and I didn’t start using it till I saw someone online playing way better than me.
Pogo off enemies or spikes. It’s great. There’s a grub worm that I waited till the very end to get because I didn’t know I could pogo on the spikes.
All the bosses are pattern recognition, so if you end up bashing your head into a wall then maybe try to take a break and learn some dishes for the attacks.
Other commenters have explained why it’s good better than I can, so I’ll just say: It’s good enough that my biggest dissatisfaction is that my preferred playatyle (JUSTICE FOR NAIL ARTS!!!) is unpopular.
I’d seen stuff about this game for years before finally deciding to play it and boy was I not disappointed. The art for each area is gorgeous, and the character design for ghost and hornet is right up my alley; I adore capes/ponchos and little spooky things that deal massive damage to enemies.
I die often, and probably won’t go for a steel soul run for my own health and sanity though I can see the appeal. The boss fights are unique and interesting, and my only gripe is when they’re too far from a bench. The treck through the soul sanctum was frustrating, and I was seething every time I had to fight my way back to the hive knight. There is a certain euphoria that comes with finally beating them though.
The weaversong/grubsong charm combo has been invaluable for the colosseum. Not every charm seems worth their notch cost, so there are some (quick/deep focus and fury of the fallen) that I hardly ever use. But finding the right combo for my play style and whichever boss I’m facing is fun.
Haven’t finished my first run yet, but am looking forward to what the white palace holds (aside from the freaking saws).
My all time favorite game and first metroidvania. Atmosphere, combat, and exploration are great.
Skong incoming any day now.
For those interested, !metroidvanias@infosec.pub
I’m too baked to write a genuine answer rn but this is my favorite game. It isn’t my most played but it is certainly my most enjoyed. Something about its dance like cambat really appeals to me
would’ve enjoyed this better with an easy mode lol, also stopped halfway
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Exactly! This game needs a map of explored places.
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