Recent reviews by sleeby

TL;DR Hollow Knight is an amazing game, in terms of price and just how much quality content it packs. It does basically everything well: gameplay, sound and music, art and animation, and story. What's especially incredible is the price this game comes at. In the words of videogamedunkey, it's "a mastapeece for your wallet."

Gameplay: Exploration - exploration is open-ended, and the game gives you a good amount of freedom in terms of how you want to tackle journeying through the world map. I found out through talking to other friends that I reached different parts of the world and story at different points than they did, which I really loved. The game really does reward you for taking the time to take in your surroundings and search around. There were many moments when I thought to myself, "hey, I wonder if I can go there," and ended up finding some kind of reward for putting in the effort to do so. In sum, the game handles the exploration aspect extremely well.

Gameplay: Movement and Combat - I honestly really love the combat of Hollow Knight. The movement is super snappy. Although you start out without much in your kit in terms of movement, you soon will add to your arsenal as you explore, and it'll soon feel really satisfying to move and jump around. There will be some platforming challenges to overcome, testing your mastery of the game's movement mechanics. Beating them with your movement toolkit is very fun and rewarding to do. Your attacks (melee and spells) are pretty fast and pack a nice punch to them, in terms of both animation and sound, with little hit-lag. This contributes to your attacks feeling very rapid and hard-hitting, making the combat feel extremely fast and satisfying. As already stated, combat is fast-paced: you constantly weave in and out of enemy attacks as you counter with your own, making for very fun combat. This leads to the boss fights, which are also a ton of fun. A lot of them can be kind of difficult at first, but if you persevere and take the time to learn their patterns, you'll become master of each fight, resulting in feeling very triumphant once you finally beat them. A central aspect of the game's combat (and exploration) revolves around the charm system. Basically, you can change equipment that affects how you move and fight. There are a ton of different charms, with lots of variety in their effects: some will change your movement speed or dash, attack speed, nail range, spell power, and more. There's enough variety to allow a player to customize their charms to tend toward a specific play-style, which I really liked. I personally used a balanced charm set for general map movement and exploration, and a melee-heavy set for boss fights in particular.

Art style and animation - very cute and pretty to look at. The backgrounds and environments have lots of detail to them that ironically breathe life into a dying world. The animation is snappy, giving a nice sense of impact and character to the movement and attacks of both you and all other characters. The hand-drawn art of all the characters is really pleasant to look at, and I just love it overall. It definitely helped draw me more into the game, as I always wanted to see more of the beautiful sights the world had to offer - both the characters and environments.

Sound design and music - great sound design pervades the game. Each attack you make has a lot of oomph to it, and this is in part helped by the sound design. Actions are reinforced by an accompanying, satisfying sound, helping you remain immersed in the world. All the different kinds of enemies have distinct sound cues, helping you to keep track of what you're up against. The soundtrack of the game is absolutely gorgeous, and honestly was a huge part of why I enjoyed this game so much. Each area has its own beautiful, accompanying music piece, as do most of the boss fights. The music helped each encounter and location really stick in my memory, and I now love simply listening to the soundtrack pieces while I work and go about my day.

Story - The storytelling takes the more subtle approach, akin to games like Dark Souls and Metroid. The game offers you bits and pieces of the world's lore through subtext, environmental cues, and a few cut-scenes. I like this approach, as it didn't feel super in-my-face, and let me organically build up my understanding of the world slowly. Although I have never been too big on a game's story, Hollow Knight's certainly was very cohesive and helped make the world make more sense to me. I came to appreciate the world's lore, enough so that I wanted to watch all the videos on Youtube that delved further into the secrets of this game, and the interwoven tales that tied it all together (shoutouts to Mossbag lol).

Conclusion: I wasn't sure what I was in for when I was initially recommended this game by a friend of mine, but it ended up blowing any of my expectations out of the water, and then some. I entered the game expecting some of the classic Metroid-vania tropes, having played some 2D Metroid games in the past. And now I can say that, while Hollow Knight doesn't exactly revolutionize gaming or the Metroid-vania genre, it does so many things so well in its own style, and thus makes for a very enjoyable, unforgettable experience.