Game of the Month #49 (Feburary 2019): Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight is a challenging, beautiful action adventure game set in the vast, inter-connected underground kingdom of Hallownest. A 2D action game with an emphasis on skill and exploration, Hollow Knight has you fighting a fearsome host of deadly creatures, avoiding intricate traps and solving ancient mysteries as you make your own way through fungal wastes, forests of bone, and ruined underground cities.

Made some decent progress before I got lost, now I'm thinking of restarting. Great game nonetheless, really captures that feeling of isolation that I only felt this way in Dark Souls. Difficulty is fine, bosses have simple-to-read patterns. Your currency works the same way as souls in DkS, if you die, you can travel back to that spot and pick it up, if you die on the way again, it's gone for good, the inspiration is more than evident.

Been meaning to get back into this for a while. I'll admit it's a little on the difficult side for me, but I always loved it's aesthetic and approach to storytelling.

I have Hollow Knight w/ the Godmaster DLC so I'm going to see if I can do all of that this month. I got up to the second boss before I turned it off for a break and I'm really enjoying it so far, although I've been having trouble with hitboxes. I'm kinda on a Resident Evil binge after 7 which really inspired me to play some of the games I never got around to, so I'm worried I wont be able to finish this month.

I bought this (with DLC and OST) in the Steam Winter Sale after hearing so many good things about it. I'll be jumping in in a week or so, once I've finished a couple of the games I have ongoing.

I've finished last year, it's a excellent metroidvania.
I tried to get the platinum, but it has some really hard trophies, maybe one day i'll try again.

Beat the first boss and just about to enter the second zone, I think this is my first Metroidvania game and I'm really enjoying it, visuals are amazing, love the sense of progression and how the character controls

Replayed it after the magnificent Resident Evil 2 and the long awaited Kingdom Hearts 3(Still playing) and Hollow Knight really is one of the best games I've ever played. Forgot where I placed it in my Top 20.

I finally finished up playing Kingdom Hearts III's story the other day (I'll keep picking at it for 100%), so I finally had a chance to start this last night. I didn't get very far in my first session because microUSB cables suck and my DS4 cord stopped working about 30 minutes in, but I really enjoyed the opening. It wears its Dark Souls heritage on its sleeves, but I appreciate that it's not afraid to also be... cute? There's certainly bleakness to the world, but the characters I've met so far seem like they haven't given into that despair yet, which is quite refreshing.

Mechanically, of course, I've only scratched the surface, so I'll need to keep messing around after I replace my cable to get a better feel for it. The combat and movement options are pretty limited right now, but then again, it is a Metroidvania, and I've only dipped my feet in the second area. For all I know, there's probably a major upgrade coming up in the next couple of rooms that will blow the game wide open.

My only other concern at the moment is the map system. I'm intrigued by all the different markers you have to individually purchase, but I'm not yet sold on the idea of having to locate the cartographer bug and pay him just to see a shoddy outline of every new region. Hopefully this doesn't end up being more than a mild inconvenience.

A sequel got announced today

I didn't want to post the actual video, incase there was a spoiler in the thumbnail or anything, so click away you beautiful people

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQxwbZsL14Y

I've made what I would consider to be pretty substantial progress since my last posting, which might actually be very little progress in the grand scheme of things because this game is LONG. I know others have made that observation, but it didn't really sink in until I realized that I've only just gotten to the inciting incident and by now I would have already beaten most indie metroidvanias. With a little bit of pluck and fairy dust I can probably finish by the end of the month.

My feelings about the movement mechanics continue to improve with every new upgrade I receive. I still don't love the mapless wandering in every new region trying to find Cornifer, but usually there are decent clues to lead you to him.

I also had my first very costly death yesterday at the hands of the Flukemarm boss: 2000 Geo down the drain. Honestly... this is a mechanic I've never enjoyed. Not in the Soulsbornes, not in Nioh, not here. I know it's mostly for psychological effect. "Paying the ultimate price" for sloppy playing and whatnot. But in practice it always just feels like a shortcut to making the player feel punished. I'm not an experienced developer, so I can't speculate alternative systems, but I just don't believe that making two mistakes in a row is cause for total resource erasure. Especially if the "mistake" is just wandering by accident into an incredibly dangerous new area you had no way of preparing for. I'm glad the bank exists, but I'll admit that sometimes I forget it exists, and the time sink of navigating back to it kinda discourages me from using it often.

It's honestly not that big a deal (despite the large paragraph I devoted to it). I'm not bemoaning this game in particular--just the fact that this is "industry standard" now. I hope that if developers keep making games in this style they at least experiment with new systems.

Digression aside: still relishing the environments and challenges. Excited to see what else is in store.

Really glad I went back to this.

What I find interesting about Hollow Knight is that I have no idea how close I am to the end of the game, and I don't particularly care. Once you reach the fourth area, the game opens up a lot and leaves you to wander with no real objective whatsoever. That would have been annoying in a lot of other games, but it works here because Hallownest is genuinely interesting to explore.

What I love about Hallownest is how it manages to feel surreal and grounded at the same time. On one hand, you're travelling through fantastical, bizarre landscapes populated by quirky characters who talk about knights, magic, kings, queens and so on. On the other hand... it all feels like a place which could actually exist. The different types of insects do things which correspond to their real-world counterparts and the way zones are laid out and connected makes functional sense.

There's not much of a driving plot, but little details in the environment come together to tell a story about how the world lived and ultimately fell. When you explore the City of Tears, for example, nobody explains that it's divided between the slums and the elite quarter, but that becomes obvious from how the inhabitants dress and how most of the elite guards are found in the posher areas of the city. You can say something similar about the bosses. You're not outright told who most of them were before the fall, but you can speculate based on things like where you find them and what you get for defeating them. Everything comes together to tell an interesting story that's worth a lot more than the sum of it's parts.

On the subject of bosses, while I do find Hollow Knight challenging, I also find it very fair. Unlike in some other well-known "difficult games", I've never looked at anything in Hollow Knight and thought "oh my God... I could never beat that because my reaction time is too low". There are lots of ways of hitting each boss and there are virtually no attacks which aren't telegraphed and feel like random bullshit.

In a lot of ways, Hollow Knight less about skill and more about patience. If you take your time learning a boss' attacks and how to dodge them, you'll be fine.

Unfortunately, this principle also extends to the pacing. Hollow Knight is really good... but it takes a good three hours to get to that point - specifically after you get the dash. While the exploration and fast-travel system is fine when you're just going through an area to reach a boss, it can become cumbersome when you need to travel between two very specific points on either side of the map (e.g to grab collectibles). I get that the Stagways are only meant to appear in places where it would make sense, but I don't think it would have killed the immersion to add in a few more *cough* Crystal Peak *cough*.

That said, this is still a really good game that I want to see through to completion.

9/10 based on what I've played so far.

Like some other posters, I also didn't care for the souls-like currency management implemented here. The devs took that part but didn't offer another important element from the original series' formula--a Homeward Bone type of item for warping back to safety when you have Geo you don't want to risk losing. Pragmatically, a save+quit gives the same result some of the time because it sends you back to the last autosave location...but having the actual item would have been much preferred.

So I just picked up Hollow knight today... so yeah reviving this thread as I play through it in the coming days... even though next month GotM is just around the corner. Either way had my first playthrough of the game so:

I'm in the middle of the green forest area. I have beaten the False knight

So far I'm really enjoying the mix of the metroidvania level design and the more deliberate combat of dark souls mixed into this game. They both work really well together and gives the right amount of punishment without being too frustrating. The graphics in the game is excellent and the ascetics are already building a rather interesting world which has fallen into ruin.

The only major downside I have atm is that when you quit the game you return to the last bench (save point) you were at instead of starting where you last quit like in dark souls. This could involve alot of wasted time between play sessions as you have to backtrack to the last location you quit at.

Belated EoW update:

Got the cloak and now heading towards the jelly cave

Not really much too had. Again little time played with this game what with the latest GotM and the wedding I went to but I intend to play this at the same time as hitman. This one I'll prob be playing as a podcast game so meaning I've got music/podcasts in the background. Currently the main issue I have so far is that I'm entirely sure what the ultimate objective is I have in the game. The story has a Dark Souls connotation where things are made vague and open to interpretation but dark souls did after the tutorial explain the ultimate end goal of the game (link the fire) and I'm not entirely sure what the end goal of Hollow knight is yet. Still a minor issue for the game really as the gameplay is still solid and the bosses are areas are slowly ramping up in difficulty while also giving new items to work with

EoW update:

I beat the soul master and got the dream weaver. I now know of the black temple and the three dreamers and looks like I have a series of objectives to do

One of my major issues I had with the game (no clear objectives) seems to of been fixed now although it took 5 hours to get here I now have objectives to get to the end of the game and the game now is starting to do a lot of backtracking which is kind of the fact for these type of games. Still the gameplay is fun and the difficulty is ramping up. The bosses are great even though I've only fought 3 so far but the frequency makes them more of a spectacle. The game is still great and all issues I'm finding so far feel minor

EoW update:

Got the first mask from the 6 eyed dreamer. Also just went through the crystal caves and got the crystal heart so should hopefully open more regions

Not much too add. Found out about the possibility of refighting bosses but at a harder difficulty (they are currently too hard for me so hoping to get bck to them). Finding the lack of benches in areas relatively annoying but I think I'm opening up alot of areas now and there are still alot of places I can go back to and further explore so there still a ton for me to do. I have done a few more bosses since last time and I think I've explored about 75% of the areas so things are slowly coming together

Right Belated EoW update:

I'm in the Path of Pain. Holy Shit the path of pain lives up to it's name. Have to set computer to sleep just so I can take a break

So one thing new I found now is that most bosses have a "harder" difficulty after you beaten them. I really love that as it allows players to go through the game on a more easy level but still give some real challenge to the players who want it. Heck the second fights with these bosses I couldn't one shot any of them in comparison to there original where I one shot each of the bosses in the main quest line.

I have definitely hit a problem where I find the fact you return to a bench when you quit the game will hamper your progress. There is a later challenge in the game which I'm currently trying to achieve and I think I'm close to the end but due to the way the game saves progress means I can't quit the game in my normal session and then come back to the last position I left is a real pain in the arse. I feel it really hurts players who don't have enough time to play in big sessions and is something I'd wish developers would think about when creating there games

...I just turned off my PC and lost all progress. ARGH stupid reflexes

EoW update:

Completed the White palace but not the path of pain. May come back to it

Beat the fallen champion and am heading towards an area in the kingdoms edge to continue on with my search

So playing this in between Elden ring play sessions. I think my opinion has now solidified into either a 9 or 10 (need to think about the benches save point being a let down for me) but I am enjoying the way bosses are done with an easier fight followed by an optional harder fight

Just beat hornet a second time and beat the Trial of the conqueror

Went into the abyss and got the shadow cloak

Got the ibis tear and got into the teachers archive in the fog canyon

So the distance between benches is kind of of hurting my enjoyment of the game. I don't really like long trials to get to the end of a area and like to drop the game and come back at any point. It doesn't help that they are rather difficult to beat and don't want to face a gauntlet each time I want to try the challenge. I will prob head to endgame and then try out the gauntlets slowly for the rest of the year but we'll see the further along I get.