Hollow Knight Review: A Far From Hollow Experience

It's amazing what Hollow Knight has done. Not just from a gaming perspective, but from an art perspective as well. Team Cherry was able to create a very depressing and post apocalyptic setting but instead of keeping the tone dreadful and dreary, they were able to add life and a sense of wonder to the world. Not only that, but some of the character designs are a bit cute. And despite the juxtaposition of world design and character design, the game on a general level works well.

Hollow Knight isn't for everyone, obviously. But it's content, quality, and art style really puts this indie game on a pedestal above the rest. 


Graphics:

You can tell a lot of effort had went into the art direction of this game - even the backgrounds

The game is absolutely gorgeous. The hand drawn sprites (if you can even call it that) move gracefully. Each character and enemy in the game have an amazing amount of detail and animation. Despite the sad and dark atmosphere of the game, the animations give a lot of life and personality to each character in the game.

Hollow Knight is set in one large kingdom with small towns scattered about, but each area has its own unique look and feel. Each area has a certain color and hue associated with it as well. After descending down into the games first area, The Forgotten Crossroads, the gametakes the chains away and allows the player to go where ever they want with their current abilities. The game also has subtle changes in its scenery when changing from one locale to another. It's great to see a nice small touch to make the world seem like one seamless area rather than small chunks sewn together.

The whole game runs beautifully at 60 frames per second. It never misses a beat and with a game this gorgeous, the framerate becomes  very sweet icing on an already very delicious cake.

Gameplay:

Get used to platforming, there jumping puzzle scattered throughout Hollow Knight

It takes some getting used to but Hollow Knight has some pretty good game mechanics. Starting off, you only have a blade (actually called a nail) and a magic healing power (that is essential in this game). With any game, you have a meter that fills up when you kill baddies which also acts as your Magic Point system. As the game progresses you can discover more magic abilities and more blade abilities.

Besides upgrading your nail and your magic abilities, the game has a "charm" system. A few dozen charms are strewn about the world ready to be discovered. Each charm can grant the player new abilities and also give other types of power-ups- things like more health, better defense or faster dashes. Yet only a limited amount can be worn at the same time. It gives a bit more depth to the combat and can also help when the player is in a bind.

The game is a Metroidvania, which I believe I discussed before in this blog. Exploration is a huge component of the game and it definitely delivers. There are several hidden secrets, shortcuts, characters, upgrades, and side-quests littered throughout the map. There's a ton of stuff to discover and I don't even think I finished everything the game has to offer.

The difficulty in this game is nothing to shake a stick at. It can be pretty brutal, especially in the early stages where taking a couple of hits could easily kill you. There's a Dark Souls-esque mechanic of recovering your money, but most of the time it isn't all that necessary. There is definitely challenge present in this game, but sometimes the game can be a bit unfair. When being hit, your screen pauses for a moment which, to me, is very unsettling and cause the player to be thrown off balance. Though later in the game that can change through a charm, it's not found quickly enough.

Even the dark and creepy areas are wondrously drawn and fun to explore.

The game's map isn't the greatest, however. Sometimes it doesn't tell you what some places lead to without zooming out to the world map and then zooming back into the next section. Sometimes it does. Some enemies, I think are too unforgiving and their attack patterns make it so they will hit you if you don't obliterate them first.

Also the last gripe I have is that saving your game and your map exploration requires you to sit at benches scattered around the game world. This makes dying not terrible, but just a pain. You lose all your progress and then have to start back at the last bench you were at. Also, a map can't be used until you buy it in the main town or find the guy who sells it.

Story:

Benches, the main way to save your game

I...had a hard time following the story of Hollow Knight. I admit, I'm not the best at discovering or understanding lore. But the main point of the game is to chase down these |"Dreamers" to unlock the seal that was keeping the "Hollow Knight" at bay so you can finish him off once and for all (maybe?). The rest, I feel, may be spoilers. But this is one of those scenarios where the story doesn't really drive the game. The story is fleshed out by those who care to flesh it out. Otherwise, the game is perfectly enjoyable without knowing anything about it. Just exploring and fighting enemies/bosses for the sake of gameplay perfectly fits the game.

Plus, me highly rating this game without actually knowing the story is positive, isn't it?

But despite me not really delving too much into the story, the game does have some well written characters. And all the characters have great personalities and side stories that are fun to complete. They range from a washed up knight still full of himself to a damsel in distress who fantasizes about being rescued so much so that she falls in love with you the minute she lays eyes on you (however that changes in the DLC). It's always a joy to interact with these townsfolk (for lack of a better term) and then find that their story continues the more you explore and complete certain tasks. Some of their stories are happy, some are tragic, but all of them beg to be finished from beginning to end despite the rewards.

You get to meet some interesting characters - some are nice, some are not. 

Conclusion:

If anyone asked, I would tell them to play this game. The difficulty only comes in the beginning, and a lot of things can be done out of order. So if something is too hard, it's easy to come back to it later. Hollow Knight is full of content, almost 27 hours I clocked in this game and combat and platforming can be pretty fun. There's always a new ability or item or upgrade around every corner and trying to find all the secrets can be a little daunting, but always rewarding.