Hollow Knight review
Hollow Knight is a Metroidvania that needs no introduction. If you’ve been on the internet for long enough, you’re borderline guaranteed to have run into either a small thing wearing a white mask and brandishing a knife nail, or madmen screaming about a “silksong” being released any second now. Safe to say, it’s a *beloved indie hit*.
Which makes it all the harder to say that having finished it with the Dream No More ending and 100% (not 112%) completion, I didn’t enjoy it that much due to a few – perhaps controversial on my end – gripes. But let’s start with the positives.
The art style is great. A lot of indies – and by extension games I play – use pixel art. While that art direction has a lot of variation and is one of my favourites in general, its prevalence makes a different game all the more exciting. Hollow Knight’s hand-drawn animation is mesmerising. I found myself just sitting on benches (game’s equivalent of save points) and taking it all in a few times, particularly in a few scenic locations1. This extends to the world in general. Every area is meticulously crafted with a unique environment and atmosphere, with countless secrets scattered around.
User Experience is well-done. Every slash feels instant, every hit taken has weight, the game feels amazing and the controls tighter than in any game I played before (a low bar?). Though challenging, I enjoyed the platforming sections of the game.
But now we come to the negatives. I won’t hide that most of them are “skill issues” or part of the genre’s charm, but these reviews are supposed to be about my experience with the games.
The first problem is boss difficulty – I don’t like being “stuck” in games due to battles. If there is an unbearable boss fight in front of me, I’d rather be offered an easier difficulty after a few failed attempts than spend hours doing Sisyphean labor. For me, games are a story medium first, gameplay second2. And when the gameplay is the centrepiece, I prefer it to be something that makes my brain work, not hands – I spent far more time with The Talos Principle 2’s DLC than it took me to beat several final bosses of Hollow Knight, but it didn’t feel as bad because the problem was not thinking hard enough rather than pushing buttons not as precisely and quickly. There wasn’t even a difficulty setting here!
The respawn system only deepens the frustration, as you have to backtrack occasionally long distances at the cost of your time and at the risk of loosing all your currency if you fail. Several times I lost multiple hours and several bossfights worth of Geo (the currency) and felt a very strong desire to just close the game for good. Perhaps I would’ve been a slightly less bitter person for it.
But the biggest annoyance was lack of direction(s). Multiple times, I had to look up where I was supposed to go next. Of course, this is part of the course with metroidvanias, but this didn’t make it less annoying to be in the middle of nowhere with only a vague idea of my destination. Some kind of “something might be there!” or “did you check this place thoroughly?” marker that firmly nudges you into the “right” direction would be greatly appreciated. And if getting lost is the intended experience, I’d love an Official Guide like in Rakuen, so I at least don’t need the internet to look up small hints of what I need.
If you love games that challenge your skills, metroidvanias, and being lost in a beautiful world in state of decay, you might enjoy Hollow Knight. But not if you’re me, apparently.