Time to Beat: 35 Hours (2nd Ending)
Awkward Mixture reviews an
idiosyncratic collection of games: three year old games seventy-five
percent off on the Winter Steam Sale, (also sometimes GOG's winter
sale), Weekly and Monthly Humble Bundles, other games sold at massive
reductions on obscure websites, or free giveaways. This often
translates to playing games three years after their release, and less
popular games which arrive earlier in the Bundles. Therefore, it's a
joy when a friend gifts an extra Steam key to a popular, and more
recent game.
This review of Hollow Knight is
thanks to one of those friends (and also developer/publisher Team
Cherry for making the game). Released in
February 2017 for the PC, the original version garnered strong
reviews, but was still missed by a number of critics and players
until it was released to the Switch in June of 2018. IGN and
Eurogamer didn't review the game until after the Nintendo release,
while Polygon
even placed it on their best games of 2018 list (as did a number of
indie reviewers)
.
In Hollow Knight, the player
controls a human-like insect, as they explore the underground ruins
of the kingdom of Hallownest. Wielding a nail as a sword, the
unnamed protagonist slays all manner of corrupted bugs, arachnids,
and insects in a quest to restore the kingdom and vanquish the evil
which beset it ages ago.
In style, Hollow Knight is a 2D
Dark
Souls version of a Metroidvania game. The
player explores ancient ruins, avoids dangerous obstacles, retraces
their steps as new abilities allow access to new areas, and faces
punishing enemies and bosses.
Not really a RPG, the protagonist of
Hollow Knight has no levels and only two attributes health
(the amount hits they can suffer before death) and Soul, which can be
spent to cast spell-like abilities, or drained to restore health.
Soul is regained by hitting enemies, which also kills them. Killing
enemies causes them to drop currency. Called Geo, these coins can
purchase more health, more soul, upgrades to the protagonist's nail,
unlock benches or other means of quick transportation, and purchase
Charms.
Where Dark Souls uses Bonfires
to refresh the player and the monsters, Hollow Knight employs
benches. Sitting on a bench restores the protagonist's health
completely, records new locations they've visited in their map, and
allows the player to change their Charms. Unlike Dark Souls,
different enemies seem to respawn with different triggers. Some foes
reappear after a predetermined period of time, others come back if
the player leaves an area, while a third group requires the player to
sit on a bench before they return.
Hollow Knight enables a wide
variety of play-styles with forty-five different Charms. For
example, Gathering Swarm automatically collects loose Geo, for
the economy focused. Wayward
Compass shows the player's location on the map for easier
exploration. While there are odd charms like those mentioned, the
majority focus on one of three styles: an offensive swordsman, a
defensive knight, or a powerful spell-caster. The player can only
equip as many Charms as they have Charm Notches (can be purchased) so
every time they sit on a Bench, the player needs to consider their
immediate needs.
Until the end of the game, the player
will be exploring new areas and backtracking across old ones. Maps
for each of the distinct areas of underground tunnels can be
purchased by locating Cornifer the Cartographer in the relevant area.
He offers a partially completed map for each section, which the
player can complete by exploring further. The player's explorations
only are recorded on the map when they rest at a bench. Conifer's
wife sells markers the player can purchase to mark the locations they
couldn't complete for lack of an unacquired ability. But while the
maps are essential, there are a few issues with them. First, why
does the Knight need to purchase anything more than the a first map?
He has the paper and pen. More relevant then this minor incongruity
are the map's three faults. When the map is updated it shows the
entirety of all the rooms the player entered. It should only show
the parts of the room the player saw. Otherwise the player might
assume they've seen the entire room, and will overlook any secrets
left behind. More egregious, because of the importance of travel, in
certain occasions the maps fails to show secret passages connecting
different areas. A similar failure is the result of doors.
Occasionally the main world will have a door to a side room. In most
cases this is fine because the side room leads nowhere. But one or
two side rooms contain passages to distant parts of the map. If the
player is wearing the Wayward Compass Charm, the map will
still show them at the location of the door, until they exit out a
second door, quite a distance away.
The map facilitates travel by showing
the location of all the passages, Stagways, Trams, and Dreamgates.
While these are essential for navigating efficiently across the vast
underground realm, one method of fast travel is missing from Hollow
Knight: the ability to return to the most recent major location,
whether it be Bench or Stagway. There is an unofficial shortcut.
Saving, quitting, and reloading, will respawn the player at the last
Bench they rested on. It's a useful trick if one is finished with
some business in the middle of nowhere and far, far, far away from
the nearest transportation hub. When traveling by foot there are a
few techniques to traverse the expanse quicker. The Charm,
Sprintmaster increases the protagonist's speed, but even that
is inferior to dashing. Dashing is one of the abilities the Knight
can acquire. The quickest movement for cleared, or memorized, areas
is dashing. Yet, it is exasperating that there is a means of travel
faster than walking, which requires constant manipulation of the
controller.
Abilities are learned when The Knight
discovers the various items scattered throughout Hallownest, like the
Mantis Claw (for clinging to walls), the Monarch Wings (for double
jumping), and Isma's Tear (for walking through pools of acid).
Hollow Knight felt underwhelming with only a few, basic,
boring abilities. They've all been introduced in other Metroidvania
games before, and Hollow Knight offers nothing to
differentiate them. Like most games in the genre, some abilities are
an excuse to block off areas for later. The abilities needed to
break open the ground and to dash through black force-fields where
particularly hard to find.
The Dark
Souls series contains a deep, mysterious, and paradoxical
lore which suffuses the world. The plot and background of Hollow
Knight is even more sparse and inscrutable, bordering on
impenetrable. While the former is enjoyable, the latter is so scarce
as to be undecipherable. There just isn't enough information
provided to the player about what the Knight is doing or why? Yet,
like Dark Souls, Hollow Knight makes excellent use of a
dark and beautiful aesthetic. The visual effect of the Hallownest is
incredibly eerie and sinister. The NPCs are wondrously unique, and
the sound they make is intriguing. All text dialogue is accompanied
by the characters conversing in a made up gibberish language which
sounds so sublime. Unlike Dark Souls, the NPCs can not be
attacked. And a few of them do nothing except offer cryptic hints
towards the lore.
The biggest similarity between Hollow
Knight and Dark Souls (in addition to the dark aesthetic
and the mysterious lore) is the pervasiveness of death. An initial
death in Hollow Knight will respawn the player at the last
Bench they rested on. All the protagonist's Geo will be missing, and
their Soul bar will be damaged. The player doesn't have to, but
should, retrace their steps to the location of their demise. At the
spot, a phantom will be waiting. This ghost is easy to kill, and
doing so will return the player's Geo and repair their Soul. Dying
before defeating the phantom will result in the permanent loss of the
Geo, and their Soul will remain damaged until they find the Phantom
and banish it.
Hollow Knight includes a ton of
content which isn't necessary to conclude the game. It was
originally Kick-started,
and there were a number of Stretch Goals which backers reached.
Included in these were a number of bonus expansions. The last,
Godmaster, was released in 2018, and contains an enormous amount of
content. While I tried it, it was incredibly difficult, as the
Knight challenges Bosses, super monsters, and Gods in an elaborate
arena. Defeating all the enemies in Godhome unlocks the best
endings.
I didn't overthrow the gods, but I did
manage to conquer the White Palace. Beating this area is also
unnecessary but it unlocks some of the better endings. While most of
Hollow Knight involves exploring and defeating deadly enemies,
the Palace was mostly platforming with punishing obstacles which
required absurd timing. It was reminiscent of the torture inflicted
by New
'n' Tasty. Even though I'd recently acquired the Shade Cloak,
which allows the protagonist to dash through enemy attacks without
harm, it offered no protection against the many spears and spinning
blades moving about the Palace.
In conclusion, Hollow Knight is
an incredibly expansive and detailed game, similar to Dark Souls
but often inferior. While it is buoyed by excellent artistic
design, it often felt repetitive, with too much backtracking. The
story was incredibly obtuse, and the difficulty variable. Most parts
were easy, except for the bosses, but even these could be vanquished
on the first attempt or the tenth. was uneven. There are a number of
different endings which the player can unlock, depending on how much
time and effort they are willing to commit to exploring and locating
every secret (and overcoming every challenge) of the Hallownest.
Even when one believes they are nearing the end of Hollow Knight
there is always more obstacles, enemies, and objects to discover.
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