Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight

Now that I am officially the guy who plays any given game last, it’s only natural I would wait to pick up this highly-recommended and inexpensive Metroidvania when it went on sale 50% off in the Switch eShop. I put this one off in part because I heard it was very challenging and I’d already had several games in a row that were too difficult to finish, so I wasn’t too eager to add to that pile.

Hollow Knight is a beautiful, beautiful game with wonderful play control. I love the art style and the subtle sense of humor, so much love has been put into this game. As with Steampunk Dig, you descend into the underground from the fading town of Dirtmouth to find goodies and fight monsters and locate villagers, who then return to the surface and improve the town. You can purchase maps as well as map markers for various locations of importance (rest spots, train stations, and so on), you can also buy pins to place on your own POIs which is a neat and useful feature.

It’s challenging. In each new area you have to locate the cartographer to get the base map for that area (his cheerful humming is music to my ears). Until then you’re exploring on your own and must rely upon memory, and as a result I find myself doing quite a bit of backtracking and retreading of some areas. I could do with less of that, though it does feel more like honest-to-god exploration than fog of war. I wish the stations in the underground railroad were, I dunno, more, but they do a good job of placing the stations convenient to the level’s boss fight.

The last game I played like this, Ori and the Blind Forest, I got stuck on one particular jump unfortunately somewhat early in the game. I could never get past it, so I put the game aside and never got around to trying it again. The most challenging parts of Hollow Knight are definitely the boss fights, but the benefit of concentrating most of the game’s challenge there is the player can practice and overcome, buy loot for a little help, etc. As with classic Metroidvanias the bosses have tells, so practicing and learning the patterns pays off. I do think, from a design standpoint, it is better to have more difficult bosses than punishing parkour segments. Maybe I’m biased in that regard, being God King of the Shitty Casuals. I have a “I survived Guacamelee!” T-shirt around here somewhere; if the game’s good enough I’ll work at a parkour challenge, but if there’s no way to mitigate the difficulty with power-ups, etc., then eventually, as with Ori, I may have to give up, and that’s not what developers intend when they create these challenges.

I’ve just opened up the third area, Fog Canyon, so I have quite a ways to go, but so far Hollow Knight is a great Metroidvania I would put up there with Guacamelee: Gold!, and both of these are on sale on Steam right now.

Hollow Knight - Take 2

After posting a glowing review of Hollow Knight I ended up abandoning the game 7 hours in. I died twice in a row, losing all the geo I’d been diligently stockpiling, and was already struggling mightily with the platforming (specifically the bouncy mushrooms, which I just couldn’t figure out how to time right) and the escalating boss difficulty.

Well, my Big Gaming Mood has returned and I decided I would like to take another stab at some of my abandoned titles, so I started a new game on this. I expected to be totally back to square one, having not played in a while, and was a little surprised at how quickly it came back to me. My first game I spent a lot of time aimlessly wandering, as I kept just missing the map guy, but this time I knew more or less where he was and that helped tremendously. The first boss, False Knight, seems a bit much for what it is, but I beat it and I’m now to the forest section. The boss of this section was very difficult for me the first time, I died… a lot. A lot a lot. And I don’t know I have the patience for it. But I do think this playthrough I’m being a lot more careful with timing and that is serving me well.

Meanwhile, I’d just like to point out this game has multiple GUI skins, but no difficulty settings. I’ll never stop grinding that old axe so just enjoy the screeching sound of metal on stone every time I post about this game.

Also, last night I died 5 times in a row in the same area and put the game away. It’s an optional area and I’m a bit under the weather and not playing my best, so I’m just going to collect my spirit and move on, but let’s be clear. If that happens again, I’m Marie Kondoing this thing and hitting the delete button. I’m not even going to archive it. It will just be g o n e.

Hollow Knight - Take 3

I’ve been reinstalling Switch games relegated to the archive and I decided to give Hollow Knight another try. This will be my third attempt. This is my first time playing this game on a TV screen with a pro controller and it improves the experience considerably. The game looks so good on a big screen.

Donut likes to watch me play, which forces me to reign in my Everything and project a false sense of chill. They have been chastised many times for losing their temper while playing a game, so it is imperative Renaldo Gade the OG controller thrower stay cool during these tribulations. Honestly, it’s instructive for them to see an ostensibly “good” player repeatedly fail and have to take a break. That’s just how it is sometimes.

The good news is I got farther than before! Things I found difficult my last playthrough were much easier this time. The environments are cool and I dig the characters, and when things are going well (when I have a map and I’m exploring a new area) it’s a lot of fun. I lost a lot of geo before I found the banker because I got too ambitious exploring the Fungal Wastes. Now that I have a way to save geo that aspect, while annoying, doesn’t bother me as much. Ultimately, the main sticking point is gonna be the backtracking. Save point benches are really spread out in this game and if you die at a boss you often have to travel a bit to try again.

According to HowLongToBeat this is a 30-40 hour game. 6 hours in (most recently discovered Soul Sanctum), I honestly cannot imagine playing this game 40 hours. If a game has a high difficulty level and strategic checkpoints I can sometimes power through it, but in this case I’m sure I’ll get frustrated and put it away again. My inability to play through this game used to bug me but now I’m at peace. Here’s why.

The difficulty largely hinges on tricky platforming (which I admittedly hate) and pattern memorization/telegraphing (which is fine), but the real issue is the backtracking. I view it as a design philosophy disagreement, which somehow makes it easier to accept. Backtracking can have purpose if it forces the player to practice beating a certain type of enemy, but generally speaking, we want to reward a player for progress and exploration by allowing them to unlock shortcuts so they can choose to grind/retread or not. Hollow Knight punishes failure and exasperates exploration/trial by design. I don’t agree with it in principle, and not just because I’m terrible at platformers. YMMV, but do keep in mind I’m an Official Gameologist and therefore always right. 🙂

Hollow Knight IV

I got stuck on the Soul Master boss in Hollow Knight, but instead of being a little piss baby I decided to explore the map and practice beating enemies. While revisiting the POIs I marked on my map I discovered this game is delightfully non-linear. I uncovered a lot of new areas (Howling Cliffs, Royal Waterways, Crystal Peak, Ancient Basin) and found a bunch of crests and upgrades. This is probably the most inefficient run ever, but the thrill of discovery is such I don’t really care. I increasingly enjoy this game and all the creatures in it each time I play.

• I forgot to take a screenshot, but in a particularly tricky jump area I noticed the developers had included a partially-hidden ledge. This was very thoughtful, and I appreciate it.
• For some reason, I only recently realized I could exploit the game’s save/quit feature to avoid backtracking in certain instances. Now I’m a lot more keen to venture out to tricky areas knowing I won’t have to trek all the way back to save.
• I figured out you can spike bounce. I’m not sure when or if this is explained because I read about it online. So far, I have only needed it to save a grub.

Anyway, I leveled up my nail twice, assembled two more health masks, bought two more notches, got an assload of charms, diligently watched a how-to video, and finally beat Soul Master while almost embarrassingly over-leveled.

Follow your dreams, kids!

Hollow Knight V

Hollow Knight continues to delight. There are many interesting lore and gameplay developments. I am still bad at this game, but I am notably improving. Donut likes the game as well, and will usually plunk a controller into my hand unprompted to signify Hollow Knight time.

Donut is obsessed with the Glowing Womb charm, which passively consumes soul to create little Hollow Knight hatchlings that hover nearby and fight for you. Unfortunately, this can unexpectedly hinder your ability to focus soul to heal, as soul is regularly passively depleted, and if the hatchlings kill an enemy the Hollow Knight doesn’t get to harvest soul from the kill either. A neat charm in theory, but not a good fit for Clumsy Buttonsmash McGee over here.

I was diligently stocking my extra geo in the bank, so imagine my surprise when I went to the bank and found the banker ran off with the goods. On the one hand, how clever! On the other hand, FUCK YUO

Somewhere, I think Deepnest, I encountered a old inscription that sounded a lot like our own nuclear waste storage warnings. I was surprised, but also not surprised, when I returned to the Crossroads to find infection spreading there.

The way the game gradually ups the ante, first by taking away banking, and now creating more difficult enemies and blocking certain pathways with infection, keeps things interesting.

Hollow Knight VI

I keep meaning to post about this and keep not. Donut and I are still enjoying this one, and I’m glad they’ve been able to watch me play a fairly challenging game over a long period of time and take breaks/manage frustration without giving up.

I reached a sort of bottle-neck when I reached Hornet Sentinel, which is her second fight. I must have played this battle at least a dozen times and at one point took a break to exhaust every remaining nook and cranny of the map before I resumed it. I can’t explain why it took so long, because Hornet’s pattern is one of the easier ones and the battle should NOT have been difficult. The best I can say is when a random element is introduced (Hornet leaves random “burrs” in the arena that inflict damage if not destroyed) I would fumble the controls and start making mistakes, there was something about this element my brain simply didn’t like.

When I finally beat her I snagged 3 sorely-needed powers in rapid succession: the king’s seal, the shade cloak, and Isma’s tear. So the map has opened up for me once again to continue exploring and I can clear out all those areas I marked because a shadow gate or acid was blocking the path.

The lore in Hollow Knight is fascinating. It’s mysterious and I don’t really understand it. After I’m finished I’ll probably sit down and pour through a wiki to get a better grasp of things. Characters will be like, “So you’re doing this,” and I’m like................... yes. Whatever finale I’m edging towards..... yes, I have intent and I am doing that. My goal is wherever the hell the game loop takes me but I’ll pretend I know what I’m doing.