Hollow Knight Reviews

Hollow Knight is a metroidvania widely regarded as one of the best games of all time by people, I am someone who has played a lot of Metroidvanias so I will give my fair review if its so-called legendary status holds grounds. If you do not understand what a metroidvania is, it's simply a platformer with a huge interconnected world where you are encouraged to explore as much as possible, where traversal upgrades which lead to paths once inaccessible is usually how you typically progress in a metroidvania. Now, Hollow Knight is definitely a game with a ton of content, for someone inexperienced at this genre I say that this could very well be a game which satisfies many for its generous pricing and vast quantity. Now let's go over some positives, I think the world itself has a coherence in how it's connected, the city of tears for example is fittingly at the centre whilst you can get a coherent idea where fungal wastes are from crossroads which makes it quite easy later on to not get lost, which is perhaps something other metroidvanias struggle with. The animations are also very beautiful to look at with a very expressive artstyle, it has a rather vague but simple to grasp story which I think satisfies those who do not wish to get too invested. Now on to the things I thought were less good, first off the charm system itself which are equippable passive abilities are a fine thing by themselves, however. Having a compass be an equippable passive is a dumb decision for a Metroidvania, the common counter-argument would be that you can unequip it for bosses but that is exactly what makes it counterintuitive, it should have been integrated without the thought of being an equippable passive, but a permanent one that does not take up slots. The combat was a bit dull in my opinion, and this comes from someone who enjoyed a lot of Metroidvanias. You do not have much expression in combat but I suppose that's why this reaches a wider audience for its simplicity. Where it's fair to critique however is that many enemies and especially bosses are very identical. Many bosses for some reason have two of the same attacks, a lunge attack and a dive attack (Take the mantis lord and hollow knight boss as one of many examples which follow this trend). This makes boss fights very predictable to me, I wish bosses had more spectacle and variation instead of a reskin of the same idea but some slight revamped gimmicks. People usually call this game difficult but it really isn't, it's about reading patterns and because the patterns are very similar, I think this is something people from the more casual side are declaring, but all in all if you have experience with this genre it's not "ninja gaiden" levels of difficulty, it's average difficulty at best. Which is no issue at all, the critique is not on the difficulty of the game but rather the samey nature of many of the bosses. The expression of movement is also a little lackluster to me compared to other metroidvanias as really the only thing you will be using is your normal dash and double jump to pass areas, with the occasional usage of the crystal dash. Some may say "but of course you can pogo stick the spikes to traverse" but that isn't exactly my point. My point is that I wish there were more abilities in the toolkit while traversing as seen in other Metroidvanias. But again, that is more of a personal preference. I think the biggest and most fair critique however is that the map system is flawed. I can get behind the idea that you need to buy maps to access parts of it, and that more of the map is revealed to you when you sit down on a bench and write down the rest of the map. The issue however is that when the character writes down the map it is widely inconsistent. If you barely explored one huge area, take the huge are of the crystal caverns, you will be confused to see that there is an area with rooms below, this creates unnecessary backtracking. A more simpler solution would be to write down the map partially to what has been revealed to the player character's point of view. This is why the grid system from Metroid and Castlevania which have the maps as blue squares, each grid/square gets filled yellow once you fully pass the area which is in my opinion the definitive way of handling maps in a metroidvania. Overall though I know I wrote a lot of critiques but I still recommend the game, I just don't believe it's the greatest metroidvania as that would put it at a too huge pedestal. For an average player this is definitely an enjoyable experience and you are getting your money's worth with the 15 euro price tag. I hope that Silksong solves some of my critiques of the game. Final score after getting the true ending: 8/10

I never though of getting a platinum of a game until I played this masterpiece. The GOAT of games. F u c k Markoth

just started this game, and its already amazing. from the soundtrack, the enviroment and the playstyles. i already got spoiler for the overall story, but there are still many thing that amaze me.

deepnest!!!!!!! i may be a easily scared loser but deepnest sucks!!!!!! get the game and stop looking at negative reviews

fun mechanics and fire music. bosses are challenging but enjoyable

Dying multiple times is part of the game, just accept that!! That's what I tell myself when I spend hours in trying to beat a boss. It's a challenging game, lots of hair pulling fun! It has beautiful artwork, smooth movement and interesting lore. I recommend for the players who loves a free-roaming type gameplay, challenging boss fights and patient enough to not rage quit.

Hollow Knight is one of those rare games that completely pulled me in from start to finish. At first, I thought it was just another indie platformer, but the deeper I explored Hallownest, the more I realized how much care and passion went into every part of the game. The world feels alive despite being a fallen kingdom, with beautiful environments, memorable characters, and an atmosphere that constantly makes you want to see what's around the next corner. The exploration is incredibly rewarding because the game doesn't hold your hand. Every new area feels like a genuine discovery, and finding hidden paths or secrets always gave me a sense of accomplishment. The combat is simple but satisfying, and the boss fights are some of the best I've experienced in a Metroidvania game. Many of them took me multiple attempts, but defeating them never felt unfair—it felt earned. The soundtrack deserves special praise as well. It perfectly matches the mood of each area and made many moments even more memorable. While the game can be challenging and sometimes leaves you feeling lost, that's also part of what makes the adventure so special. If you enjoy exploration, challenging combat, and games that trust players to figure things out on their own, Hollow Knight is an easy recommendation. It's easily one of the best indie games I've ever played and absolutely worth every hour I spent in it.

I have a massive love-hate relationship with Hollow Knight. There were moments where I genuinely wanted to throw my controller at the wall, turn off my console, and pretend this game didn't exist. It is brutal, unforgiving, and tests your patience like nothing else.Let’s just get this out of the way: The Path of Pain is actual, literal torture. Spending hours dying on the exact same set of spikes, mistiming a double-jump by a millisecond, and hearing that relentless buzzsaw sound effect on loop almost broke my spirit. Team Cherry really leaned into the "pain" part of that title. And it’s not just White Palace; it's getting lost in the Deepnest with no map, losing thousands of Geo because you died on the way back to your shade, and hitting a brick wall against bosses like Nightmare King Grimm or Absolute Radiance. There were times I felt genuinely defeated.

No gamer should go without playing this game. I argue it's necessary. This is my favorite game of all time and in my honest opinion it is the best metroidvania ever made. I love Silksong as well, but I need more time to learn more about it to claim it's better than Hollow Knight.

Hollow Knight is a side-scrolling exploration game with a large interconnected world. The art style is one of the things that stands out the most. Every area looks different, and the darker atmosphere gives each region its own identity. The game doesn't really tell you where to go. At first I spent a lot of time wandering around and checking paths that ended up leading nowhere. Later on, after unlocking new abilities, a lot of those places started making more sense because they connected to areas I had already visited. Backtracking is a big part of the game. You'll regularly return to older locations after getting a new movement ability and find routes that weren't available before. The map becomes important pretty quickly, especially when trying to remember places that looked inaccessible earlier. The combat is challenging, but it feels rewarding once you know what to do. I used a keyboard and mouse even though I have an Xbox controller. That's just what I'm used to, and I didn't run into any control issues. Movement felt precise during both platforming sections and combat. A screenshot of the keyboard and mouse bindings is attached below for reference. Overall, there's also a lot of optional content beyond the main path. Hidden routes, extra areas, and different endings give you reasons to keep exploring. The amount of detail in the world is noticeable throughout the game, and there might be something undiscovered even after spending a long time exploring. The combination of exploration, challenging combat, and detailed world design makes it a memorable experience from beginning to end. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3733128589