Hollow Knight Review

Game Review : Hollow Knight

“When simplicity gets you immersed so deep”

Warning : Minor spoilers ahead

• 
  
• ·        Overview, and first impressions

Hollow Knight is a game developed by Team Cherry, an Australian game developer and self-published through Kickstarter. This game is a metroidvania, a genre where the focus is exploration of the world with lots of backtracking to obtain previously skipped content. Let me tell you this upfront that I sincerely enjoyed this game and probably deserve a game of the year award in some gaming medias. Many people compared this to Dark Souls due to the story style, combat, and exploration albeit in 2D but I prefer to compare this to the classic metroidvania Castlevania Symphony of The Night of the PS1 era (should this game be referred again I’ll just call it SoTN) as this game reminded me of it and also scratched an itch I always felt every time I played a metroidvania game but I have to agree that some aspect of Dark Souls got into this game, albeit a bit simplified.

• ·        Story

You play as the title of this game suggest, Hollow Knight who travels to a kingdom known as Hallownest to find out its mysteries and many things buried within this kingdom for reasons unknown at least to me and that is all I can tell you. I have to be honest here, I am not a lore guy and the way this game presents its story is just like Dark Souls in a way that the game doesn’t tell you outright and the deeper story lies in NPC dialogues, in game item descriptions, and some scattered things within Hallownest that is so all over the place that it can be given an analogy of a very thick story book with all of its pages scattered across the floor and it’s basically up to you to piece it together to understand everything. Casual players might overlook the many details that makes the premise of exploration interesting and ended up saying “I don’t even know what I am doing here” and I can understand that but for those who are obsessed with lore I can guarantee your satisfaction in piecing the story together as I hear it’s quite dark and deep.

• ·        Combat Mechanics, HUD, and Charms

While I compare the storytelling style to Dark Souls the combat comparison goes to SoTN. While SoTN gives you 8-directional attack with many types of weapons Hollow Knight gives you 4 directions which are up, left, right, and bottom with only your sword (they called it Nail in-game) but even though this is simple the execution is so precise that I feel this is a great thing despite its simplicity and doesn’t need any more weapon types. Just like SoTN this game also has additions to the traditional sword swing be it the charged attack and spells, spells in this game consume Souls that you can obtain mainly by attacking the enemy and is used for spells you want to cast be it healing or attacking. There are also RPG equipment mechanics present in this game in the form of charms with many range of effects from additional health to outright change the form of certain spells or attacks or even helps you explore along the way and this adds a level of complexity to gameplay and playstyle that you like which is amazing in its execution in-game. These charms can be obtained through NPC stores or found throughout the journey across Hallownest. The game’s HUD is also nice in its simplicity that it doesn’t disturb you at all whether you’re on a boss fight that needs full concentration or when you just want to take in the sights in this game. Combat in its entirety even with the addition of charms to the mix it still feels simple, and I mean the amazing side of simple not the “too simplistic” kind of simple. Enemies have patterns you can observe and use to your advantages although there are some things including attack patterns I find personally annoying when I encounter certain enemies but for me it serves as a challenge worth tackling and not something you absolutely want to run away from. In short while this game looks so simple it is not as simple as you thought it would be and the combat mechanics present in the game works wonderfully and is actually fun to play.

HUD is just like that, so simple

• ·        Exploration, Map design, Sounds

As a metroidvania game exploration element is simply a given thing and one that must not be squandered so easily, you explore around Hallownest and find new abilities and items be it after you win a boss fight or bought from an NPC store or simply found throughout Hallownest at random and then come back to see what you miss before you got that ability or items and Hollow Knight pulls this off to a remarkable degree whether you are someone who is new to metroidvania or a nostalgic guy like me since you actually feel like exploring new areas. Since this is a 2D game the roads just simply go up and down or left and right so of course a map is going to be needed but Hollow knight don’t just give you a complete map of a certain area, it makes you explore to complete the map and to make things a bit more complicated you need the area map and a quill that can be bought for a cheap price, and also the icons to mark the important rooms of the map like NPC stores and such from the first NPC store for completing the map and if some of you say that is a bad design choice I think it’s the opposite. While I have to agree that buying the quill and those icons is an added hassle but you can pretty much buy the quill and the icons on your first 3 hours of the game so it doesn’t count as an annoyance for me though I have to ask why do I have to buy the quill and the icons in the first place when an incomplete map is usually enough for you to complete it. However, after 15+ hours into the game I came to realize that It adds to the immersion especially when in tandem with the sound both soundtrack and the ambience sound since it adds to the feeling of exploring uncharted areas be it blind before you buy a map or after you buy the map. The map design also adds to the immersion as well since the maps albeit in 2D are so well designed you can simply stop moving and just take in the sights especially in some particular areas that I will mention soon with the exception of a very dark place that serves to scare the hell out of you. The soundtrack along with the ambience sounds of this game might be my new favorite thing to listen to since the sounds are so well made it made my day just listening to it and If I may be honest, some of the tracks are so great that I literally put the volume on max and paused the game only to hear the soundtrack along with the ambience since I don’t want to be disturbed by the enemy while I enjoy the music and I can certainly recommend you the soundtracks in this game along with the ambience sound. If you are not convinced then simply go check Youtube for the OST plus ambience sound (I recommend hearing City of Tears as an example) and if by going to Youtube convinced you to buy this game then get the soundtrack also to support Team Cherry! (but I digress)

Sit down, crack open a book and just listen to the music

Going back to the exploration part and as I said that there are aspects of Dark Souls that got into this game is that every time you die you lost all your Geo (in-game money) and have to get it back before you die again because just like in Dark Souls if you die again before you get the money back then it’s lost forever. Speaking of dying, if you died (and you will, trust me) you will be back at the last Bench room you sit on and as to why you are revived there I don’t really know (again, Dark Souls style storytelling) which invites the comparison of Dark Souls bonfire. In the topic of Bench rooms it is basically an area to rest, adjust your charms accordingly and also to update your map, incidentally the Bench rooms are accompanied by a great soundtrack that is to me a calming music.

Now I apologize if I’m going off topic and came back to the story but after seeing for myself how the exploration mechanics and combat mechanics are amazingly implemented despite its simplicity I began to think that Team Cherry designed the game along with its mechanics first, then put the story later. They did, so again if you love cryptic storytelling like Dark Souls you will like this game a lot.

• ·        Playing Experience : Fun or not?

At first I don’t know how this game can be compared to Dark Souls and not SoTN in gameplay since this game is 2D but upon closer inspection my only conclusion is in the boss fights, I got my ass handed down to me time and time and time again while figuring out the pattern until you come up victorious. It is true that you can just move to other bosses if you are having a difficulty fighting one but if it’s a main boss fight you really have not much of a choice and you can’t level up like SoTN so the only recourse is to go farm some Geo and buy charms to help you prepare but to be honest few charms are useful to me in a boss fight and I prefer to whack the enemy with normal attack rather than soul spells. Pro tip : always prepare a boss fight charms setup and exploration setup.

I am a fan of miserable tone story and by god this game delivers, during my exploration I always thought of “what happened here?” and it doesn’t go away with the exception of when I am doing a serious boss fight. In the subject of exploration, is the map design perfect? Not at all but if I make a score for the map design it would be around 8 to 8.5 since there are areas that gives off the feeling of hassle especially when you are trying for a boss fight again and again but the boss fight is blocked by annoying enemies. My biggest annoyance in this game comes in the early game where the boss fight area is quite far and I have to go through many teleporting and flying enemies and even if the boss fights get easy once I remembered the patterns and I swear those teleporting assholes before the boss fight are way harder to kill if not for the wall blocking its path. Looking the exploration as a whole it is immersive and fun to go through

Back to the subject of boss fights and Dark Souls and SoTN comparison player can heal in the boss fight but in Dark Souls there are many windows to heal through and in SoTN healing is almost instantenous but in Hollow Knight you need a setup for heals and windows to heal are small and in between with the addition of a ferocious enemy resulted in a tense, strategic, and challenging boss fights not to mention if you equip the wrong charms it could be the end of you in an instant. All of that almost make me rage quit and go for a meditation to calm myself for a moment but it is definitely fun to go through especially after a difficult boss fight it felt almost ecstatic to me as I screamed “HELL YEAH!” before my mom scolded me for being too loud.

No bugs are discovered by me at the time of writing so its quite solid for me.

The best part for me is when I meet this ghost bug lady who is a good singer with voice so calming I forgot what the hell was I supposed to do at that moment. The ghost bug lady also likes the hollow knight since its nice to have at least one listener and that made me feel a bit appreciated especially after almost everything in Hallownest goes to shit and tries to kill me.

She sings so good I held back from killing the ghost bug lady

• ·        Conclusion

Overall this game is solid from a mechanical standpoint with great soundtrack and ambience that mixes well with the map design that helps a lot for the immersion even though this is a 2D game, the core combat is simple with some additions that some might go to or just use the tried and tested traditional method and the exploration that has a feeling of exploring the place and not just simply to fill the map as a tedious chore. I had lots of fun playing it and this is an experience that is worth going back to once you finish the game for the first time be it for lore hunting or for the sake of speedrunning the game, and yes there are achievements for speedrunning.

This game is for :

1. Metroidvania game lovers be it hardcore or casual.
2. The players who seek great soundtrack.
3. Speedrunners.
4. Lore hunters.

This game is ill suited (but still worth to try) for :

1. Players who dislike cryptic storytelling
2. Players who dislikes grinding
3. Players who are prone to rage quitting and stop playing a game entirely

Final score and verdict : 8.5/10 “Immersion within simplicity”

If you have any feedbacks, seen any typos, have writing advice for me or have an opinion of your own then please leave it in the comments! Thank you for reading my review and stay tuned for more reviews!