Hollow Knight: A simple, yet fantastic game
Let's start off by saying that I am a huge fan of side-scrolling platformers. I am also not a fan of games that are intensely complicated and involve using all 72 buttons on today's controllers. Perhaps the problem is that I don't really have the patience to remember all that and it's quite annoying when i put a game down for a few days and now i can't remember what any of the controls are because there are entirely too many of them. Ok, moving on... Hollow Knight!
I bought the game because it was featured on the front page of Steam, and normally i will ignore those because these are new releases that paid to be featured there. The good thing about Steam (as i am sure most of you gamers out there are aware) is that they allow you to watch several trailers and view the community feedback before deciding to purchase.
Hollow Knight: The Grim Troupe had received an "Overwhelmingly Positive" community score and the trailers looked great. Plus the fact that is was less than $15 meant SOLD.
The first thing you notice about the game is that it throws you straight into the action and it is dark and beautifully animated. The soundtrack is also haunting and perfect.
You start out with very little in the way of offense (just like in any game) but the enemies attack patterns are easy to predict and upon killing anything you end up getting some coins that help you to purchase powerups called "charms" of which you have a stash of dozens but can only equip a few at a time. This means that certain situations call for certain attributes that you may or may not have yet. It is up to you to find / purchase them. In this way the game falls into the "metroid-vania" category, which is a style of game i love.
You are, in many ways, allowed to go anywhere you want on the map, including to areas that you are not at all prepared for or powerful enough to complete. You quickly discover that this is not the area for you and the game kind of forces you to go the "correct" path by making it extremely difficult to pass rather than impossible.
Don't get me wrong, there are many places where you do not yet have the powerup that is required to get up a certain ledge etc, this is how they prevent you from skipping large portions of the game
no matter how hard you try, you will not clear this gap without the powerup that allows you to dash mid jump
The bosses are also huge and sometimes scary, sometimes whimsical and silly. They are also not too difficult, not too easy. If you get to one that kicks the crap out of you, there is a good chance you are arriving at them too early in the game or you need to watch their attacks and learn how to avoid them. There are very few instances in the game where you are simply able to "brute force" your way past.
Here is a wonderful trailer that shows a bit of everything the game has to offer without spoiling it.
credit to Team Cherry for this vid
Bottom line: This game is easy enough to simply pick up and play but difficult enough that you wont be able to breeze through it in a couple hours. The music and storyline are excellent and the game has wonderful replay value. Combine these things with the fact that the game is less than $20 (or $15 if you find a special) and in my mind anyway... it is the perfect game.
I love gaming to the stars. But I prefer those kind of games I can find on a console. They are usually easier to play because there are fewer buttons on the controllers and the controls can be remembered
This game sounds and looks like fun to play. I love games where you choose which sides are easier for you to complete. Not those which leave you on a tough spot without a way of out. Plus it gives out coin. How nice would it be to be rewarded cryptocurrencies like steemit
Thank you for sharing
it will be ported to Nintendo Switch. It may have already been. I dunno
I will really like to check that out.
Have you played Factorio? @cryptoctopus told me about it. Really nice game.
Oh really?, i do go get my reviews on youtube, though sometimes, it does not suffice
Wish these coins could be cryptocurrencies 😵
This sounds nice, thank you for your review, i love the sound track
Myself, I love simple interesting and nice games not a game that will eventually get me frustrated while playing it all because of the difficulty level.
This is the kinda game I love to play I must confess , and with your review and description , I believe this is a perfect game truly. You see I’ve got to trust your reviews cause all has been accurate and mostly in accordance to what I could agree with. You’re a perfect blogger I must say in admiration
"Hollow Knight", it looks quite interesting, i like games that are not soo difficult at a point in time you just feel like quitting, and those that are soo easy u get bored after playing once because which am skeptical about games, but from your description i thnk i will love this since is not too easy nor too difficult. Hope there is PC version?
You have shared many unknown and some important information in this post which will be useful for many but this game is a lot of fun to play this game.
I'm a hardcore gamer, and some of my current favourite games are NBA 2K18, COD WII, etc. However, these simple games always fascinate me with mundane graphics yet complex gameplays. It sometimes take hours for me to figure out the next correct move - obviously after trying out all the moves that came to mind. Hollow knight to me is no different from the game Limbo in terms of gameplay. The first few level are of moderate difficulty,and then it gets harder along the way. I really like the manner these games make me rack my brain.
Saludos, buena y oportuna la información que brindas, buen contenido. gracias por publicar..
I am not a lover of game but I will give this a try, thanks for sharing anyway.
I really suck when it comes to games, you said the game is not difficult. So games like this is good for me.
Hollow Knight as the name sounds, you know is the real deal. Just like other game, that you won't be able to move to other stage that one ain't qualified for. This bridge between your current stage and the next if you want to bridge the game is pretty high. I will add it to my list of Wish to play games.
this is clearly an awesome game. amazing qualities from indiedevs. one problem i have is that exploring can get quite boring and tedious pretty quickly.