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Hollow Knight Review — IGN

Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight’s rich world and incredible depth of content will make you want to explore its caves for dozens of hours.

By Tom Marks

Updated: Apr 21, 2020 12:16 am

Posted: Jun 22, 2018 3:10 am

It’s not hard to get lost in the deep, subterranean world of Hollow Knight – and I mean that in more ways than one. The expansive catacombs of Hallownest have countless paths to explore and secrets to find. But more than that, it’s rich with lore, history, and purpose that drew me into a 2D Metroidvania kingdom I wanted to uncover every inch of.

The deeper I went into Hollow Knight, the more I was surprised at just how much content and freedom it has to offer. I could wander in basically any direction and find bosses to fight, upgrades to collect, and secrets to uncover. But what’s truly captivating about the exploring this long-dead kingdom is its atmosphere. Art, music, color tone, sound, and a million other little details combine to give each area of the map a distinct sense of place, and those areas jigsaw together in a way that feels intentional and alive.

World Wide Web

There are far more of these distinct biomes than I ever expected to discover, and the edges of each one blend together with the next in ways that help them make sense in the world. For example, walls on the border of the Fungal Wastes, even impassable ones in other areas, will be dotted with its telltale mushrooms. The lush environment of an area called Greenpath feels bustling and humid, a stark difference to the cold, dark caves of the Forgotten Crossroads. The bubble-filled region of Fog Canyon isn’t technically underwater, but the muffled filter over all of its audio goes hand-in-hand with jellyfish enemies and a brighter blue tone.

Hallownest’s capital city, the City of Tears, is a metropolis in a huge cave where it’s always raining. But it wasn’t until 10 hours after I first discovered this place that I stumbled across the Blue Lake, a massive body of serene water positioned just above the underground city. Hollow Knight doesn’t shove this connection in your face, it just lets you explore its world and piece together the story for yourself as you sit down and enjoy a moment of quiet.

Hollow Knight’s larger story is told in a subtle way, but its lore is so deep that I feel like I could write a book on it.

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In fact, Hollow Knight tells you very little about what’s going on, and instead sends you into a world full of monumental events that all happened long before you arrived: wars and heroes, love and culture, disease and destruction. The aftermath of Hallownest’s troubled past is left for you to discover and comes through loud and clear, but only if you take the time to listen. It’s told in a very subtle way, but teaches you so much about Hallownest in the process that I feel like I could practically write a book on it.

It’s a tragic tale, one full of fallen heroes and terrible decisions, but it still manages to make time for beautiful, calm, and hopeful moments throughout. And it’s easy to enjoy those moments, because Hollow Knight’s hand-drawn art is simply beautiful. It’s a world that manages to feel cohesive despite its citizens being adorable bug-people in a dying cave.

The story (and your place in it) is picked up as you go. Some of it through dialogue with the adorable and quirky characters who still reside in this decrepit kingdom, some through important story events, and some just by observing your surroundings and the clues strewn about it. After my second playthrough, I have a fairly clear picture of Hallownest’s history, but it’s a picture I assembled myself.

As much as I genuinely loved being pushed out of the boat and told to start kicking, Hollow Knights’ first few hours can be a predictably sink-or-swim experience as a result. It’s an unashamedly challenging game that does a great job of silently teaching you how to play, but it still felt a little bit daunting to start — especially when death means having to fight your way back to your corpse to reclaim your money, called Geo.

You have to find a map seller named Cornifer in each area before you can start keeping track of where you’ve been, and even then you have to equip a specific charm to see where you are on it in real time. That, coupled with fact that getting good at the combat takes practice, means I spent my first couple hours just trying to figure Hollow Knight out.

But once I picked up the rhythm of its combat and the pattern of exploring its initially restrictive cave systems, Hollow Knight clicked in a way that made me never want to put it down. After Greenpath, the second major area, you reach a point where there’s no clear “correct” direction anymore. Like any Metroidvania, your path options are gated behind things like ledges too high to reach or gaps too far to jump until you find the necessary upgrades, but there are enough options that don’t result in dead ends to keep to you exploring for quite a while.

Hidden around the Kingdom of Hallownest are traditional Metroidvania abilities like a dash and a wall climb to help you better navigate its caves and reach new places. These new movement abilities also allow you to move through new paths in familiar terrain faster and more efficiently, giving the obligatory need to retread old ground (which does happen a fair amount) fresh life. Suddenly your wall climb turns that small gap between platforms into a shortcut instead of a hazard.

New movement abilities allow you to move through new paths in familiar terrain, giving the obligatory need to retread old ground fresh life.

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Thankfully, there is also a flavor-filled quick-travel system called the Stagways. Stag stations can be found and unlocked across Hallownest, allowing you to call The Last Stag to take you between them. What could just be a jump between points instead becomes a quest in itself, and I almost always spoke to The Stag after unlocking a station not to travel, but to hear his gruff but optimistic take on whatever new stop I brought him to.

Hollow Knight’s world also undergoes more concrete changes as you progress. Railways and elevators will unlock permanently, opening shortcuts that loop back to earlier sections and easing the burden of backtracking. One early area eventually even morphs into a much harder late-game section in a way that makes it feel like your actions in Hallownest have real weight.

Hammer Meets Nail

The combat in Hollow Knight is relatively straightforward, but starts out tricky as you learn to time quick directional sword slashes with jumps and dashes. It rewards patience and skill massively — killing enemies is a matter of sharp timing, learning attack patterns, and having quick reflexes more than just the upgrades you earn along the way. You can find upgrades to your weapon damage, increase your max health, and equip charms with a variety of abilities, but more importantly, I just got better as I went. A boss that gave me tons of trouble at the start of the game was a pushover when I returned for a second playthrough.

And while your timing requires precision, the combat itself is somewhat forgiving. Hitting enemies lets you collect a resource called Soul which you can stop and channel at any time to heal, as long as you don’t get hit. So while the all-or-nothing nature of dropping your Geo on death gives exploration a sweaty-palmed tension, Hollow Knight also gives you the tools to take a breath, gather Soul, and get your health back up.

There are a decent amount of smaller enemies scattered around each level as well, acting as weaker baddies that let you recover Soul and collect Geo in relative safety. But there are just as many scary opponents too, and dying far from a checkpoint is a real risk. The enemy variety is impressive to say the least, with nearly 100 different types to fight, and even ones with similar behaviors looking dramatically different depending on what area of the map you find them in.

A charm system allows you to customize your own methods for killing those enemies as well. Each charm takes up a set number of notches (which you can earn more of along the way) and range from small effects, like extending your attack distance or gathering more Soul on hits, to large trade-off changes, like doubling your health but preventing you from healing at all, which can dramatically change how you play.

Thankfully, you can freely swap them out whenever you sit at a bench, which also serve as Hollow Knight’s save points and healing stations. That meant I could come up with specific combinations to counter different scenarios on the fly. I had my favorite loadout for general use, a loadout that upped the amount of Geo I got and collected it automatically, and a loadout for moving more quickly. If you prefer using Hollow Knight’s Soul-consuming damage abilities instead of swinging your sword (called a Nail) you could equip charms that increase Soul damage and even change your attacks entirely.

For some harder boss fights that didn’t give me an opportunity to heal, my loadout even shifted to maximizing my temporary health at the cost of unequipping charms I had grown to rely on. Through all that experimentation, it never felt like there was a wrong choice. All the charms are good, and they all work, and it’s up to you to determine which you like the most and which work best for the scenario in front of you.

And if any situation will push you to test those choices out, it will likely be one of Hollow Knight’s copious amount of boss fights. Seriously: there are dozens of different bosses, ranging from small and quick enemies to large, deadly brutes. These contained challenges are some of the best thrills available because they force you to find a strategy, learn when it’s safe to attack or heal, and get better each time you get crushed

Because believe me, you will get crushed. Those hard losses occasionally slowed my momentum, but there is almost always some other path to explore. If I was having trouble pushing through in one direction, I’d just wander down another until I got stronger (or just better) and decided to face that tough fight again.

Soul-Searching For Secrets

In fact, a staggering amount of Hollow Knight’s best content is entirely optional. You could probably beat the campaign without seeing two-thirds of what it has to offer, though the quest to get an alternate (and much better) ending will pull you in front of significantly more. Bosses, thoughtful story, and whole sections of the map can remain hidden, which adds to that feeling of actually exploring this world when you do stumble upon them.

None of Hollow Knight’s optional content feels like filler.

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The key here is that none of this optional content feels like filler. I actively wanted to find every secret I possibly could and learn what was actually going on in the story. It all felt unique, significant, and wonderfully put together. Even after the 30+ hours it took me to truly beat Hollow Knight, I was excited to go back for more.

Having so much to do at any given time can admittedly be overwhelming at points. There can be so many open paths on your map that the burden of deciding which to explore next can make you doubt which is the “right” way. But the beauty of Hallownest is that there is very rarely a right or wrong choice, and it’s unlikely two players will explore these caves in the same order.

Hollow Knight has also been getting free post-launch content updates since its launch on PC last year, all of which are included on Switch (and more updates are on the way, according to developer Team Cherry). Those patches have added new areas and new bosses, and one even added the ability to add custom markers to your map. The simple act of being able to visually track when I need to revisit an area or which paths I’ve yet to go down is a godsend. It has helped me take stock of what needs to be done alongside the other late-game amenities Hollow Knight makes available for completionists, like maps that will eventually track certain collectibles.

But so much of what’s worth finding past the point where you can “beat” Hollow Knight is pure, concentrated lore. To really get a picture of what you’re doing (and to properly inform an important choice you have to make) you need to explore. I love that those key moments in the story tie into some of the best gameplay challenges it has to offer as well.

For example, one of the final secret areas basically transforms Hollow Knight into a Super Meat Boy-style platformer with very little combat. Platforming challenges exist all throughout the world, with some of the most thrilling requiring you to use your Nail as a pogo stick while you bounce across spikes, Duck Tales-style — but this area is something else entirely, and tells you about the history of that location with its themes.

And, as I mentioned before, the music adds to that setting and art one thousand times over. While each location has its own theme and boss fight music, individual melodies and instruments will shift in and out as you move from screen to screen. The mood and tension of a scene are often driven by that music, and the soundtrack has quickly become one of my favorites.

Hollow Knight is a Metroidvania with a well of content to discover that’s as deep as its labyrinthine caves. The world of Hallownest is compelling and rich, full of story that’s left for you to discover on your own, and built with branching paths that offer an absurd amount of choice in how you go about discovering it. With such a high density of secrets to find and fun, challenging enemies to face, it’s worth spending every moment you can in Hollow Knight.

Hollow Knight Review

amazing

Hollow Knight’s rich world and incredible depth of content will make you want to explore its caves for dozens of hours.

Tom Marks

Ghost Song review: a melancholy Metroidvania with a hint of Hollow Knight

Ghost Song review

A moody Metroidvania with enough Hollow Knight DNA to tide you over until Silksong, but its stilted protagonist and occasional lack of direction prevents this from being one of the all-time greats.

Developer: Old Moon
Publisher: Humble Games
Release: November 3rd 2022
On: Windows
From: Steam, Humble, Game Pass
Price: £/€/$ TBC

Ghost Song is a 2D Metroid-like that’s always a feast for the eyes, but a frequent frustration for your head and hands. Its gorgeous art direction depicts a vibrant alien world that bubbles and throbs with bio-mechanical life, where spore clouds and fleshy organic tunnels live side by side with floating metal skulls and impenetrable thickets of wires and cables. It’s a fascinating place that seems to morph and change with every passing map segment, calling to mind the animated techno gunge of Akira and Metropolis one minute, and the flowering brilliance of Alex Garland’s Annihilation the next. Its roots sink deep, creating a world you’ll want to explore every last nook and cranny of as you delve deeper into its underbelly to find out why you’re here.

But Deadsuit, your android-like protagonist, makes for a slightly rusty-feeling companion at times, lacking the grace and elegance of Nintendo’s Samus Aran, and the nimble dexterity of Team Cherry’s nameless knight. It will tide you over until Silksong arrives, for sure, but it also never quite sings in the way you’d hope.

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From the off, it’s clear Ghost Song owes a great debt to Metroid and Hollow Knight. Deadsuit herself might be a smaller and less imposing presence than Nintendo’s fearsome bounty hunter, but her arm cannon and glowing visor feel like they could have been an old suit design that’s been saved from the recycling bin. You’ll eventually acquire other weapons to use in tandem with the arm cannon, including a spear and a very large (and very good) Buster-like sword, but shooting remains your primary method of interaction with this strange, impenetrable world, and the way you need to plant your feet in order to aim freely with your analogue stick couldn’t feel more Metroid-like if it tried. Heck, there are even little yellow bugs that go round and round hugging the suspended platforms in Ghost Song, just like the little yellow spiky dudes at the beginning of Samus’ 1986 debut.

The spectre of Hollow Knight emerges when your health bar hits zero, with Deadsuit emitting an eerie shriek and blinding light as she sheds her collection of nanocells and teleports back to the nearest save point

The spectre of Hollow Knight emerges when your health bar hits zero, with Deadsuit emitting an eerie shriek and blinding light as she sheds her collection of nanocells and teleports back to the nearest save point. These nanocells are collected from every enemy you take down, and are what you need to improve your suit’s power, health, and durability at special (and very Chozo-like) upgrade statues. As in Hollow Knight, and indeed every other Soulslike you’ve probably played in the last five years, you can go and retrieve these nanocells by returning to the site of your death, but they’ll disappear for good if you fall again along the way.

There’s only a small smattering of save points to be found here, but fortunately its hallways aren’t so packed with enemies that getting back ever becomes much of a chore. It only starts to become particularly problematic when you accidentally walk into a barriered boss room and get absolutely mullered within the first five seconds, leaving you stuck in a perpetual cycle of either ‘gitting gud’ or abandoning your cells altogether – the same as it ever was in FromSoft’s Souls games, essentially.

Thankfully, those losses are never quite as painful as they are in other Soulslikes. Upgrades still gradually creep up in price over time, but whereas a bad death in Elden Ring, say, can see you lose thousands, if not tens of thousands of runes in a single location, Ghost Song rarely deals in anything more than a couple of hundred. 1000, absolute tops. And yes, it still takes a fair bit of work to earn those cells back if you do have the misfortune to lose them altogether, but when even end-game upgrades come to less than 3000 cells a pop, it just helps to make it all feel a bit more manageable and less like a grind.

That said, there was a moment around the midway point where I was seriously considering doing a bit of grinding, though, as I’d seemingly hit a wall in my ability to progress. Your main goal in Ghost Song is to retrieve five special ship components that will let you and your newfound human survivor friends repair their vessel and (hopefully) escape the planet’s static field that brought you all (and the ruins of many other ships) crashing to the surface in the first place. Borrowing from another Metroid-like hall of famer, Ghost Song pulls an Axiom Verge 2 here by placing these five points of interest on your map by default, putting the onus on you to find a viable route and pick your way towards them.

In classic fashion, some of these objectives need special abilities in order to reach them – your double jumps, wall jumps and dashes and the like – but finding these power-ups caused quite a few sticking points for me. You see, there are lots of bosses you’ll encounter during Ghost Song, styled as other survivors who have been corrupted by the planet’s oppressive atmosphere. Some are compulsory, but most are entirely optional, and defeating them will often net you an extra missile type for your arm cannon, or a new module for your suit, such as giving you a small window of invincibility when you dash, for example, or the ability to sprout healing plants at your feet. These are all governed by how much power you have available to plug into them, and offers a pleasing sense of variety in how you can kit Deadsuit out. A couple of bosses, though, will yield those critical jumping abilities you need, and working out which ones you need to defeat and which ones you can skirt around (as some of them are really quite difficult) can be tricky.

«There are lots of bosses you’ll encounter during Ghost Song, styled as other survivors who have been corrupted by the planet’s oppressive atmosphere»

This really came to bear when I was trying to get to my second ship component. The game tells you which one you should head to first, but after that leaves it up to you, and having exhausted all other routes, I was essentially left with two options — and both seemed to involve fighting super difficult bosses that locked you into their respective arenas. I just didn’t seem remotely equipped to deal with either of them at that particular moment, although a suit module I eventually found off another boss that exponentially increased my firepower in line with my current suit level certainly did help quite a bit in that respect.

But Deadsuit herself also feels quite stiff in the hands, her jump never quite offering the range or level of control you need to dodge projectiles, and her dash to get past enemies always seemingly falling short of where you’d like. You do develop a certain muscle memory for these things over time, but it’s easy to get overwhelmed in these fights, especially when Ghost Song’s more run of the mill enemies don’t offer anywhere near the same level of challenge.

A clunky protagonist I can live with, but that freeform structure of ‘go anywhere in any order’ also falls foul of some of the same pitfalls I encountered in Axiom Verge 2, namely that the direction you need to go in to actually find these bosses and components isn’t always as obvious or intuitive as it might seem on your map. Once again, there were times when I had to head in almost the opposite direction to get where I really needed to be, making it difficult to judge if you’re actually making progress. Having suffered through that with Axiom Verge 2 earlier in the year, this second-guessing of the map screen is something that’s been engrained into my psyche with Metroidvanias now, but it also just made me appreciate the elegance and sense of clarity you get from having simple little waypoint markers and mini ‘hey, my scanners sure are picking up something weird over here!’ objectives in Metroid and Hollow Knight. Some might call them too hand-holdy and that part of the fun is nosing through its squelchy caverns and the like, but my patience does also have a limit for these things.

As it turns out, one of those difficult bosses was entirely optional in the end, and the other involved a monster that actually fled the scene after a while, meaning I didn’t need to waste my time bashing my head against it after all. From then on, it was all relatively plain sailing, and by the end of my ten hours with it I’d even learned to judge Deadsuit’s dash correctly.

I enjoyed Ghost Song overall, but that middle act slump did almost kill it dead for me, too, which is a shame, as underneath it all, this is a very accomplished Metroid-like for such a tiny dev team — and it will certainly fill that Hollow Knight shaped hole in your life while we wait for Silksong, especially if you’re a Game Pass subscriber. There’s still plenty to admire about what Old Moon have made here, but there are enough fluffed notes in the mix that it just stops short of being a harmonious whole.

great in small / Computer and mobile games / iXBT Live

At the beginning of the story, I admit that I feel a deep envy. Envy to those who are just about to get acquainted with the wonderful world of Hollow Knight. This is a game that has a soul. Soul in a small white mask. You will surely love her.

Hollow Knight is a metroidvania game from the Indian studio Team Cherry. Four people worked on the game. Funds for its development were collected on Kickstarter. The collected amount amounted to a «fabulous» figure of 57 thousand dollars. The development lasted from 2013 to 2017. Four years, four people and $57,000. Is this enough to create a good game? Well, of course not. In addition to dry numbers and man-hours, the developers put their soul into the game. As a result, we have one of the best representatives of the genre at the moment.

Of course, one cannot do without comparing this game with Dark Souls. The developers claim that at the time of creation, they practically did not play it. And the similarity of these two games is probably due to the fact that inspiration was drawn from the same sources. Is it so? What’s the difference! What matters is the end result. Hollow Knight is never secondary to Dark Souls. Taking a good idea and implementing it into your project is not shameful. On the contrary, it is very wise to learn from the best. If the borrowing does not go beyond a reasonable limit of course.

If you think about it, we are used to the fact that the heroes are epic, and the villains think in terms of at least one planet. Hollow Knight, on the other hand, shows that the big sometimes lies in the small. The entire world presented in the game, perhaps, will fit under your boot. He is so small. The fact is that the action takes place in a kingdom whose inhabitants are beetles. Very different beetles, all types and sizes. But these are just small insects with big problems.

The beginning of the plot may seem worn out, because a great misfortune has happened in this world. He began to die, and the inhabitants are gradually losing their minds and souls. But the first impression will be deceptive, you have never heard such a story. And if you have enough strength and skill to see the true ending, then you will probably be satisfied. Suffice it to say that in Hollow Knight, despite all the gloom, a happy ending is possible. But you have to fight for happiness.

One of the most important aspects of the game are the characters. Never met more charming creatures. And besides, I don’t like insects. The artist, animator and authors did a great job. If I were a kid, the Hollow Knight would definitely be my favorite character. Bold, agile, tenacious. Of course, I came up with most of his image myself, because the main character is always silent. Your knight can be as cunning and cruel as you like. But not only on the main character is the light. There are many other interesting characters. Mysterious girl Hornet. Fallen into insanity old Zot, with his 57 commandments. Harmless cartographer Cornifer. Powerful and cowardly Rag. All of them deserve attention and sympathy.

Very well reflects the essence of the «mighty» Zot, cool grandfather, you will make friends.

As for the level design. Laconic and dark. Vivid and lively. Dark and scary. The developers skillfully and scrupulously, manually worked and drew the entire game world. Exploring it is interesting and exciting. In front of you, windy wastelands will be replaced by green gardens, and gardens by fetid sewers. I can’t even begin to count how many types of locations there are in the game, there are a lot. A lot of interesting finds: amulets, parts of health and mana spheres, caterpillars, ingredients for improvement and sale will diversify your travels. It will be very difficult to find everything that the creators have hidden. However, if you explore the world poorly, you risk missing not only amulets, but even entire hidden regions.

After death, part of the soul is separated from the hero. In order to regain integrity and your savings, you need to find it and return it. At the same time, she will resist, but not much. In case of failure, the money will be lost.

Let’s move on to the gameplay details. Before us from the very beginning is an open world in the form of a labyrinth. There are three ways to navigate it. The first is, of course, on foot. The second is a cabbie beetle, whose stations are to be found and opened. I will not describe the third method, it will be a pleasant surprise for you.

The locations have benches that act as checkpoint bonfires. There are not very many of them, but most of them are arranged very appropriately. By sitting on one of them, you will save progress, replenish your health, and in case of death, appear at this point.

The structure of the world, as already mentioned, is like a labyrinth. There are many workarounds and conditional restrictions that will open as you get new abilities. In addition to the classic double jump, there are new interesting mechanics designed to overcome obstacles. I will not describe them in order to keep the intrigue for those who have not played.

The process of exploring the world can be compared to a spiral. You will often return to already open locations, as if walking in a circle, to use your new abilities and move a little further. It should be borne in mind that the game world is quite large and is divided into areas. It is easy to get lost in it or forget where and what secrets you did not take. There is a map to solve this problem. However, initially it will not be available. Each of its fragments corresponding to a particular area will have to be bought from a cartographer. The cartographer, in turn, is in a hidden area, the map of which can be bought from him. In other words, in order to get a fragment of the map, you have to blindly study the locations from memory, hoping to meet Cornifer.

There are two other things to consider about the map. Shortly after the start, pins will be on sale. These pins are very useful and allow you to mark places of interest on the map. There will be a lot of such places inaccessible for the time being, so buy all the pins. It is also worth paying attention to the mechanics of orientation on the ground. If you do not have a 100% memory, then you will most likely get lost even with an open map. After all, in order to determine your location, you need a compass. It can be bought at the very beginning and there are no problems with this. The problem is that the compass occupies the precious cell of the amulet.

This is Cornifer, the cartographer. Upstairs, a beautiful wife is waiting for him, and he climbs through dead places and draws maps.

And now it’s time to talk about amulets. This is perhaps the most interesting and unusual part of the game mechanics. Amulets are artifacts that give special abilities, or change existing abilities. You can find them both for sale and in the vastness of the game world. A significant part of the amulets are well hidden, or require special actions to obtain them. Before putting on a specific amulet on a hero, you will have to take into account that each of them has its own cost in cells. Initially, the hero has three slots for amulets, but this does not mean that you can wear three amulets. This means that you can either equip three amulets worth one slot, or one amulet worth three slots. The number of available cells can be increased as you progress and brought up to eleven. In total, there are 42 amulets in the game. As already mentioned, each amulet requires its own number of free cells, from one to five.

Now that the basic mechanics of amulets have been described, we can get to the point. After all, everything is not at all limited to simply hanging new trinkets. The fact is that the amulets are combined with each other. And these combinations are able to take the most bizarre forms, radically changing the properties or bonuses that they give. In addition to simple and obvious, you can collect extremely entertaining combinations that will radically change your style of behavior in and out of combat. For example, we have an amulet that gives such a property — during treatment, a cloud of spores is thrown out, causing little damage in the area. And if we add to this a seemingly useless amulet that creates a constant aura of stench around our hero, we will get a powerful release of deadly gas every time we heal. Thus, the amulets together complement and enhance the properties of each other. Of course, not all amulets are combined. But there are many combinations, it makes no sense to describe them all. Try it yourself. It is very interesting.

42 amulets. To collect them all, you have to work hard.

Let’s move on to the fights. You will have to fight constantly in the game. There are more than one hundred and fifty varieties of enemies. I will not say that all, but most of them use their own special techniques and tactics. In the best traditions of Souls, you have to learn. Learn and die. The key to ultimate success is your personal skill. Timings and balance of power are performed at the highest level. Perhaps this is the game that you can go through without a single missed hit. But for this, as you know, you have to be an Asian without a personal life. Bosses are a special and at the same time traditional item. They can be conditionally divided into mandatory and optional. With obligatory — plot, you will cope, if not without difficulty, then with a little training and pumping up. But the additional ones will be a real challenge. Some of them are enhanced versions of already defeated bosses. And some are completely new, and very strong enemies. Here you will need to gather all your skill and self-control into a fist.

Deepening into the gardens, many people longingly remember the gloomy dungeons. Who knows what might be hiding in the bushes.

You probably, like me, have never thought about how the beetles fight. Mostly nails. Well, what else to fight the bugs? So our main character is armed with a sharp nail. This carnation cannot be exchanged for another weapon, but it can be improved and reforged at the blacksmith. In addition to the usual blows, a special can be carried out with a nail. tricks. Initially, they are not available, but it is possible to master them as you progress. I confess honestly — I did not find the proper application of this special. tricks. It is very difficult to include them in a series of jumps, dodges and strikes, as they require time to charge. Even in the arsenal of a knight, magic appears over time. It is difficult to overestimate the value of healing magic, it is given from the very beginning and will be your best friend throughout the game. But other spells are not useful to everyone. After all, the local analogue of mana is often not enough not only for combat spells, but also for the treatment of the hero. To use magic in battle, you need to deftly dodge blows. And this skill will come only with experience.

Of course, platform combat is inseparable from acrobatics. And acrobatics is inseparable from movement. This part of the game is the second aspect that will require skill from you. For some people, obstacles and alternating movement mechanics will seem more difficult than other bosses. But the main story path is within the power of most players. For the most sophisticated jumpers, there are also worthy tests from the category of conditionally optional. I bet, on the «path of pain» gamepads, from fits of rage, died no less than hollow knights.

Path of pain. Not only will everyone reach the end. Few people can do it.

In general, as you already understood, this game has two layers. The first, obligatory plot layer. It will be within the power of most players who love the metroidvania genre. The second layer is for those who have little and want to test. However, no one will tell you what is mandatory for the passage and what is not. Take heart.

Summing up what we have. An outstanding representative of metroidvania and souls-like genres. Great art design. Great combat mechanics. Interesting mechanics of combining amulets. Complicated gameplay at times. Fascinating and mysterious story. If you have: strong nerves, straight arms, and a reaction like a praying mantis. Then you can try to test yourself in special forces. And in this game will be enough moderate skills and patience. Lovers of souls and metroidvanias should definitely familiarize themselves. For others, I highly recommend trying it. Chances are you’ll be just as pleased and fascinated by Hollow Knight as I am.

Is Hollow Knight a bad game? — Games on DTF

Or why I’m not really looking forward to Silksong.

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Silksong ranks third on the Steam wishlist as a continuation of the legendary game . But how justified is this? Since then, having played a bunch of similar games and looked at a dozen playthroughs of other people, I can not help but note that the game is simply teeming with flaws . So I would like to discuss this topic with the respected DTP community.

1. Tangled locations.

Mysterious new world — how great to explore it… Until you finally get entangled in all these many transitions.

Already in the very first location, problems begin: it has a dozen and a half exits and all lead to a dead end. Or not all? Who will remember?

Many rooms are very similar to each other. Fortunately, it will help us …

2. Map.

Or will it not help?

a. In order for the map to work properly, you need to go back and buy at least a compass and a pen.

b. Cartographer gives only draft maps , which at least allows you to get to the local point of interest. That’s just often the cartographer can skip . And then you turn into a blind kitten, poking at everything.

in. To mark places of interest, you need to buy pins . Apparently, professional ethics make it difficult to mark the found places with a pen.

After a certain point in the game, new pins are available in the cartographer’s shop. But how does the player know about it?

e. The whole system with drawing a card on a bench is absolutely illogical . Do you really want me to believe this: our hero cannot draw a single piece of the map himself without the cartographer’s sketches, but is able to remember all the transitions visited throughout the game and draw them immediately after receiving the sketch?

3. Skip content.

a. What could be better in a game with a large open world than being able to skip 3/4 of the dialogue ? Well, I don’t know either.

Quirrel, Tiso, Hornet, Rag, Cornifer… If you arrive at certain places earlier than «scheduled», then just skip their stories.

b. It’s even more fun when content is skipped because you don’t have a specific tool. What, you made it to the Resting Lands last? Nothing, because you can run around the whole world again to get miserable crumbs of the lore that has not yet been missed.

c. But the top genius in an open world game is to make some locations with items disposable . Went on the right path — did not receive a bonus item — the location is closed. It’s good that these are only very valuable things, and not something unique.

About the fact that certain actions permanently close the 1st and 4th endings, I will not say anything.

4. Boss battles.

One of the most interesting parts of the game, because each boss is unique — how can boss fights be bad?

a. Of course, if you do not take into account that you have to get to many bosses through a bunch of rooms stuffed with opponents. It’s so interesting to go through the same thing instead of learning a new boss.

b. You may object that it is possible to move quickly through dreams. Only now the player has no idea about it until he gets the ability in fact. And that’s why it even becomes a shame that you spent so much time running around for nothing.

in. Of course, you noticed that the bosses do not have a life bar. But worse, many bosses don’t even have phases , so it’s impossible to know how much more to hit them.

What should I do to kill the boss faster? For example, upgrade weapon . But did you know that many bosses (Sentinels, Collector, Xero, Defender and others) shamelessly increase their health with each weapon upgrade ? Here is such an interesting auto-leveling.

5. Contact damage.

Needless to say, even soft and fluffy enemies deal damage for some reason when touched?

And here is the main boss — no . wtf?

6. Secret walls.

Just a terrible way to hide something. Often, visually, such walls do not differ from others, so you have to stupidly hit all the walls in a row.

On the right is a secret wall.

It’s especially cool that an addition is hidden behind one such wall, and an entire location behind another.

7. No hints.

It’s good when the player has the opportunity to explore the world on their own. It is worse when there are important things in this world that are not given any hint .

For example, the game teaches you all the way how to identify the penetrating floor. But here is access to the White Defender for some reason does not follow the general logic of .

Or Grimm. Even if you find a secret wall — which nothing points to — you can go there without the right tool and just forget about it: after all, nothing on the map will be marked .

Or how about one person who tinkles merrily in a certain place? If you haven’t been there yet, fine, but if you were, what will make you come back to the same place again?

8. Useless tricks of the nail.

a. To make it more fun for us to play, we can learn nail techniques: weak , slow and awkward . Looks like a great help, right?

b. Another very interesting mechanic worth mentioning is parry . So important mechanics that many might not even know about it, because the game does not even have a seedy amulet for it.

9. Unfair challenges.

How to make a really difficult challenge for a player? Invent a Path of Pain that requires all the skill of platforming? Let dance in Grimm’s terribly fast and painful nightmare to test reaction and dodge?

a. No, let’s come up with a third challenge in Colosseum — maroon the player 10 minutes before giving really difficult waves of enemies. Confused, didn’t follow? — spend again 10 minutes to reach this place.

b. Oops, did the players pass it? So let’s zafigachim Fifth Pantheon , where half an hour we will shove the simplest bosses, which the player has already passed at least twice, and only then we will challenge.

This is not a difficulty, it is stuffiness in its very supreme manifestation.

10. Fragmentary history.

You can’t write a normal story — write a few meaningful sentences and scatter around the world — the players themselves will think of everything.

It’s interesting when you can find extra parts. But when the game can’t even tell the root cause of the batch, you’re just disappointed.

Not to mention that part of the lore can be skipped, and part is hidden in secrets.

11. Inconsistent mechanics.

Everything else belongs here. I will only point out two things.

a. Throughout the game we are saved only on benches. But behind the gates of the city he keeps us by force.

b. When we die, we leave the money box at the death location. But quite often, the «money bag» is — for some inexplicable reason — in another far away place in this room.

On 20 марта, 2023 By alexxlab

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