I really enjoyed this game until I just didn’t. The difficulty got me and I put it down. It’s one of those games that just keeps saying to you, “There’s more!” and it eventually wore me out. That could be my old age talking, but that’s where it left me. I actually just archived it off my Switch this week figuring I’ll never try to finish it. I was at the Soul Master when I gave up.
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These impressions really bum me out. I have the game in my Switch backlog thanks to a sale. This makes me not want to start it! Sounds like a game I wouldn’t finish. I drop most games before finishing though, so I guess that’s no different than normal…
Played on Switch I loved this game from beginning to end. I was obsessed with it to the point where I looked forward to getting off of work and going home to play Hollow Knight! It was all about exploration for me and getting that next item that would allow me to access a new area. It was hard at times but I learned to play and found the strategies to defeating the bosses. I think I was actually obsessed with this game. Few games can do that for me and I just found it one of my favorite Metroidvania games. Ori… Ori is good too.
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Give it a chance. I stand by the thread title - it’s one of the best I’ve played.
While the game does trend a bit harder at points all the extremely difficult stuff is optional. You still have a 30 hour game that you can beat without doing any of it.
I BEAT ZOTE
Also, this game still feels very tough but fair. If you can recognize patterns in games like Dark Souls or Shmups, you can handle this (or at least what I’ve seen so far 20 hours into it).
Yeah, I’m not much of a shmup player and I haven’t played any Souls games. I’m plenty good on run and gun or action-platformer enemy and boss patterns, though
If you’ve played something like Cuphead as a recent example this is nothing like that. That game is simply hard without good telegraphing of boss patterns and poor game-feel. That game is more of a battle of attrition as you use your pea shooter to gently splash bosses with bullets that leave no impact but slowly drain their invisible life bar.
This game is different - it handles like a dream and the bosses are exciting and patterns are totally readable. Combat feels as good as the best Nintendo games. Everything is fast but has a solid weight to it. You know when you make contact or get damaged because of how good everything feels.
It’s just very fast paced and requires you to think a bit more defensively than most games out there. Boss battles remind me more of a 2D Treasure game than anything else. Imagine if Alien Soldier were a Metroidvania but with far more intuitive/simplified attack and movement options. Kind of like Castlevania SOTN’s attack options blended with a GBA Metroid’s movement options.
It’s a great mix of different games honestly.
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I feel I got past the learning curve, but I still just wasn’t having any fun with the game. I have so many other games I want to get through and not enough time to get through them, I just drop stop I’m not having fun with any more. Like I said I REALLY wanted to love this game, but it just went out of its way to sap any fun from the genre for me. I really felt like I was being punished by the game for even thinking about trying to explore.
Bummer. Did you pick up the Map and Quill as well as the Wayward Compass charm? Those pretty much make the map system like other Metroidvanias. I would prbably not enjoy the game without them.
If you buy maps with these two items, you’ll automatically fill in blank areas you’ve visited upon resting at a bench as well as always see where you are when checking the map.
The game tries to make you feel like even with a map, you’re exploring “uncharted” areas. Similar to how Metroid on NES felt except you actually had to use a real pen and paper to map it all out.
I see HK more of a Metroid like than a metroidvania, since combat focus is more on bosses than regular enemies. The exploration, the feeling of wonder thanks to the incredible ost and art always remind me of Super Metroid (and the platforming to).
That said I think I enjoyed it more on the art departament than the gaming one, since it took like forever to beat and some parts were way too Annoying to traverse (of even find). But the lote was so entrancing that I had to skim down the lore wiki hardcore (I did not do the 100% ending, I did not have the patience).
It’s a good way to satisfy the metroid hunger, unless you crave guns, sci fi, of plain metroid lore.
Yeah I have those, but it doesn’t work like other Metroidvanias. In other games in this genre I don’t need to hit a save point for it to update the map with the places I’ve been. Going to those places updates the map. The thing with saying it feels like Metroid on the NES is Metroid is super dated at this point, and is a hard game to go back to outside of QoL user hacks IMHO.
I BEAT THE GAME!!! Spoiler filled impressions below.
You can really tell that the developers made the optional content in this game far more difficult than the critical path to beat it. That final boss was… a let down? I am sure I’m missing a lot of stuff and I doubt I saw the true ending. I also totally did not understand the story and am going to google some more information about the lore and what I missed.
I finished with 77% completion at 33 hours or so. I was definitely missing a bunch of charms. I also skipped the boss at the end of the beehive area since it was just mind-blowingly fast with difficult boss patterns and the closest rest bench is so far away. You also cannot set a teleporting beacon nearby which made me not want to endure it. That was the one part of the game that felt unnecessarily and arbitrarily brutal just due to the checkpoint distance.
I also did not beat Zote’s second form on the surface of the over world surface nor did I finish the third coliseum challenge. Both of those felt more possible, but I wanted to beat the game rather than re-attempting those challenges over and over again at this point. I will eventually go back and attempt them I’m sure.
I think I’m happy to put the game down for at least a little while. It was a spectacular ride up until the end. This was easily one of the best Metroidvanias I’ve ever played (apologies to those that hate the phrase). I think the level design is unmatched and I really enjoyed the 77% of the game that I experienced.
What was your final boss? There are several degrees of endings with the final final one is something I never got, but it’s also a magnitude harder and different than the obtainable hard one. What most people consider the “true” ending is the pre DLC one that takes the most amount of in game steps to get and I’d recommend trying for it at least since unlocking it gets you effectively all of the story/access to all of the story.
It was the Hollow Knight, looking diseased and in chains. I killed him and then got chained up.
There is one step higher than that that isn’t some super hard thing to get. Well 2, but both are obtained after getting a hidden item then you get one ending or the other for using or not using a skill at the end of the that boss you just fought. If you want I will spoil where/what that hidden item is. If you enjoyed the game I definitely think it is worth it to go for it.
I am actually still exploring the game. Decided I’m not ready to put it down yet.
Thanks for the heads up. I am going to continue exploring on my own without spoilers and will definitely hit you up if I get stumped.
Not to resurrect an old thread, but I just finished my playthrough and I wanted to share.
Overall I really loved the game. The high points were the lore/storytelling and the excellent movement and control.
As someone who normally doesn’t get into Metroidvanias with a few exceptions, I was going into HK mostly for the Souls-like storytelling I’d heard about. The story is there and the lore is interesting without being too in-your-face or stopping to info-dump on you too often. What you do find out if you dig a bit really adds a lot to many areas and encounters.
The controls are also top-notch. I never felt let down and that I was only limited by my input. This ‘competency’ only increases as the excellently-paced power-ups begin showing up. You feel powerful and capable without feeling overpowered (for the most part) from beginning to end, which I feel is the most important part of Metroidvania gameplay.
Something else I really enjoyed was the mapping system. It made for a great loop of striking out into the unknown, relief at finding Corinth, and eventually dominating an area that was once dreaded.
My least favorite aspects of the game were the souls-like “lose your stuff, fight your ghost” mechanic and all of the optional content which just felt like bloat in the end.
That said, the death mechanic was more an annoyance than a major issue, and since I played the game with all of the DLC already installed, which is somewhat unfair to judge that way. I imagine if I had played the game closer to release it would have felt more appropriate to me.
It was also the least enjoyable part of the game to me, but by that time I had already put like 40 hours into the game so I didn’t mind it’s existence for people that were into it as much as I would if the entire thing was based around it.
I’m replaying this game for the third time lol. Thanks to GamePass. I played on Steam first. Then on the Switch. Now on XB1. Game is a masterpiece.