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knokelmaat @beehaw.org
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Let's discuss: Hollow Knight

The format of these posts is simple: let’s discuss a specific game or series!

Let's discuss Hollow Knight. What aspects do you like about it? What doesn't work for you? Feel free to share any thoughts that come up, or react to other peoples comments. Let's get the conversation going!

If you have any recommendations for games or series for the next post(s), please feel free to DM me or add it in a comment here (no guarantees of course).

Previous entries: Nintendo DS, Monster Hunter, Persona, Monkey Island, 8 Bit Era, Animal Crossing, Age of Empires, Super Mario, Deus Ex, Stardew Valley, The Sims, Half-Life, Earthbound / Mother, Mass Effect, Metroid, Journey, Resident Evil, Polybius, Tetris, Telltale Games, Kirby, LEGO Games, DOOM, Ori, Metal Gear, Slay the Spire

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41 comments

  • I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the world. However the difficulty made me drop the game at the half of it. Since I turned 40, I play games to relax not to rage on bosses. Therefore altogether, a bit of pity I couldn't see the end.

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  • oh boy!! rubs hands together

    here we go: this is definitely my favorite game i've ever played. Maybe it just stands out as the first metroidvania that I really sunk my teeth into, but I think Hollow Knight is truly something special and, judging by the hype for Silksong, I know a lot of folks agree with me. The gorgeous hand-drawn art and hauntingly-beautiful soundtrack create a striking first impression. The initially-depressive atmosphere shifts to new moods throughout the game. The nuanced combat is reminiscent of Dark Souls, maybe the best game to make that translation to 2D. The "badge" system is a clever and streamlined upgrade system that lets the player shift playstyles almost on-the-fly.

    And my favorite part: THE MAP (by which i mean both the game world and the map system)!!!! Omg I know a Metroidvania is made or ruined by its map, and so all well-regarded Metroidvanias have a pretty good map. Simply put, Hollow Knight is just a cut above all of them. Like all Metroidvanias, the map does the cool thing where paths are locked off to you until you get new abilities that act as "keys" to open up new areas. Hollow Knight differs in that the game starts off linear, and then two abilities you get within the first few hours act as the keys to open up almost the entire game world. So as soon as you get your legs under you and you are getting the hang of the combat, you can turn around and go almost anywhere you want as long as you are down for the challenge. Accordingly, almost every player of this game has a pretty different experience, which is really unique for non-roguelike.

    Regarding the map system itself: unlike most Metroidvanias, the map does not automatically fill in as you go. Instead, you don't get any map for a new area until you find the traveling mapmaker NPC. Once you find him, you can buy his rough, incomplete map of the area, which is nonetheless invaluable. Once you buy the pen upgrade from the shop in town, you can fill out the unfinished map with areas that you have explored. However, the map only updates when you rest at benches (save points), so you still have to keep a mental map while you are exploring. And the pen does not work in an area until you find the mapmaker NPC (little ghost needs a piece of paper to draw on). The devs play with this - in some areas the NPC is pretty close to the entrance, but in others he is pretty deep into the area, so again you have to keep up a mental map for longer. And finally, the map does not show where you the player are on it unless you equip a specific one-slot badge (some badges take up more slots). Some players are frustrated by this, but it helps if you view that slot as like a bonus slot. Once you memorize an area, you can take that badge off to get a little extra power for a boss fight. In "exploration" mode, having that badge equipped makes you feel just a little less powerful, which adds to the tension.

    Which segues into my final point: this game makes you feel like an adventurer exploring a forgotten kingdom, in a way that I have never felt in any other game, not even Dark Souls. The extremely open-ended design and MASSIVE game world mean that you the player will be constantly discovering new areas, even dozens of hours into the game. It just keeps surprising you over and over. This is why I like the map system described above. Many are turned off by the friction that the devs added to the map - they could have just given you an auto-updating map like every other Metroidvania. But the friction adds to the feeling that you are an explorer in a hostile land, and the tension you feel when you are exploring a new area without a map is unparalled. In Dark Souls, there are parts where you can choose where to go, but the game overall is pretty linear, so it rarely feels like you the player are driving the exploration. That sense of exploration, and the layers-upon-layers of mystery within the story, are why Hollow Knight remains my fave of all time to this day.

    Side note: I suspect Elden Ring would give a similar feeling, given that it is Souls + open-world exploration. However, I have not played Elden Ring yet personally (i'm a patient gamer down to my bones). For folks that have played both: Are there similarities in Elden Ring's sense of exploration? Is there any intentional friction in the map system? Or did From go with an auto-updating map like most games?

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    • Regarding Elden Ring, I would argue it does the sense of exploration better than Hollow Knight, but only by a small degree. For every area, there's no map at the start, and the entire map's size is obscured since it only shows what you've traveled through. It gets bigger as you go, but it's still obscured by a fog of war for areas that fit inside the map, but you don't have a map fragment for. You can see on the map where you can obtain the fragment, but not how to get there. Most times you can just cut a straight line to it, but sometimes it's a pain.

      All that said, the thing it does better than Hollow Knight for exploration is a limitation of Hollow Knight's map system. It's split into different rooms, and each room has finite entrances and exits. Because you fill out the map through exploration, you're going to know what you have and haven't found.

      Because Elden Ring gives you the entirety of the map, it's both helpful and not. You can figure out (mostly) how to get from point A to point B, and you have markers for everywhere you've been. There's two minor issues with that, though. It's a 2D map for a 3D world, which means you end up with some locations not being properly shown, because they're underneath cliffs. The second is that the map does almost nothing to show what places of interest there are. You have large buildings shown, but that excludes all the catacombs (dungeon areas) you can visit. There are areas on the map that are right there, but due to the topography you have no idea how to get there. Going by the map alone means you're going to miss out on a solid amount of the content available.

      It's because the map is so limiting that it feels so good. You're able to use it to figure where places are in directional relation, but you still have to look yourself to try and uncover areas. My first run, I prided myself on uncovering everything. I searched high and low, inspected the map to make sure I went to every corner, and really made sure I knew what was out there, and it felt amazing in terms of how much content there was and how much exploration you could do. I started a second run when the DLC came out, and found an area that, somehow, I had entirely missed. It took over a hundred and forty hours of searching, really searching, to get what I thought was complete, and it still wasn't. It was a fantastic feeling on my second run.

      Hollow Knight's map is excellent. The gameplay is excellent, the exploration is rewarding and challenging. But the issue it has is that it only has those two dimensions to work with. Elden Ring really works to emphasize that third dimension when scouring for secrets.

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      • Thank you for your write up! This has me WAY more interested in Elden Ring than I was before. I like Dark Souls a lot, but part of it is my investment in the lore. It's not that I expect Elden Ring lore to be worse in any way, but it'll be a new world to relearn so I have to work myself up to it. Reading your take has me way more excited to dig into it!

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    • Love your write up. I feel similarly, and many many randomizer runs (Archipelago.gg is great for it), speedruns, and classic playthroughs later I still find the atmosphere and music incredible

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    • Elden ring has a suprisingly similar map system to hk, also, it's 35% off rn!

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      • I am currently working on playing the whole Dark Souls trilogy, so I might as well wait for the next sale. But thx fur the heads up!

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  • breathes in

    Hollow knight silk song will happen I am not on copium I believe it is real I will pop off so hard when the date is announced and when it comes out I love hornet maybe you could tell by my pfp you could say I am a little excited for the game and that I love the original and I'm so excited and ahhhHHhhhhhhhHHhhhhhhhhhhhh

    SHAW

    :3

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  • For those interested, !metroidvanias@infosec.pub

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  • I'm too baked to write a genuine answer rn but this is my favorite game. It isn't my most played but it is certainly my most enjoyed. Something about its dance like cambat really appeals to me

    7

  • I'd seen stuff about this game for years before finally deciding to play it and boy was I not disappointed. The art for each area is gorgeous, and the character design for ghost and hornet is right up my alley; I adore capes/ponchos and little spooky things that deal massive damage to enemies.

    I die often, and probably won't go for a steel soul run for my own health and sanity though I can see the appeal. The boss fights are unique and interesting, and my only gripe is when they're too far from a bench. The treck through the soul sanctum was frustrating, and I was seething every time I had to fight my way back to the hive knight. There is a certain euphoria that comes with finally beating them though.

    The weaversong/grubsong charm combo has been invaluable for the colosseum. Not every charm seems worth their notch cost, so there are some (quick/deep focus and fury of the fallen) that I hardly ever use. But finding the right combo for my play style and whichever boss I'm facing is fun.

    Haven't finished my first run yet, but am looking forward to what the white palace holds (aside from the freaking saws).

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  • Permanently Deleted

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  • My all time favorite game and first metroidvania. Atmosphere, combat, and exploration are great.

    Skong incoming any day now.

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  • First game I ever played where I was like "yo, I actively WANT to do the speedrun achievement, and the deathless achievement." So, first game where I ever did those things. Maybe I'm just crazy, but I found them way easier than I expected.

    Also, a prime example of storytelling through music.

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  • Other commenters have explained why it's good better than I can, so I'll just say: It's good enough that my biggest dissatisfaction is that my preferred playatyle (JUSTICE FOR NAIL ARTS!!!!) is unpopular.

    3

  • would've enjoyed this better with an easy mode lol, also stopped halfway

    2

  • I finally got this game through a steam key trade on barter, traded for a game I didn't need from a Fanatical bundle. It's now sitting in my library until I have the time to focus on it, as one of my best friends recommended it to me as one of his favorite games ever. So I want to give it the time and focus it deserves, hopefully it will click for me too!

    2

    • my rec: try to power through until you get the Mothwing Cloak and Mantis Claw, which you get within the first 5 hours or so. If you don't like the game by then, it isn't going to click, but I think a lot of people give up on Hollow Knight too early.

      3

    • I would also add that you can down slash at the beginning. It is very useful and I didn't start using it till I saw someone online playing way better than me.

      Pogo off enemies or spikes. It's great. There's a grub worm that I waited till the very end to get because I didn't know I could pogo on the spikes.

      All the bosses are pattern recognition, so if you end up bashing your head into a wall then maybe try to take a break and learn some dishes for the attacks.

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    • Tell me more about this barter system... is it a site? Or just you and someone else had a key and you traded?

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      • It is a website (https://barter.vg) that links to your Steam profile. You can then publish a list of games for which you have unredeemed keys (from bundles or something similar), and you can add a wish list of games you would want (or sync with your Steam wish list).

        You can then start looking for matches (people who want stuff you have and who have stuff you want) and send / receive offers. Once you both agree on an offer, you contact each other trough Steam and exchange keys, redeeming immediately to make sure the key works. Afterwards you indicate that the trade went well on each others public profile. Scammers are kept at bay by a system of trust: people who have done a lot of trades already without disputes can clearly be trusted. This is why it is linked to your Steam profile, to make it harder to make burner accounts.

        When you first start trading, it is an unwritten rule that you reveal your key first to the other party (assuming they already have done a lot of trusted trades). My first experiences were all super nice, people are very friendly and supportive, it's like this community of game collectors who like to find good deals and help each other play the games they want to play. I highly recommend it!

        I am at 9 successful trades right now, since joining a few months ago! (my profile to give you an idea: https://barter.vg/u/a46a/)

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  • Overall great, but the movement, mainly during all the backtracking, just wasn't fun enough to carry it. You have a dash and that's it, the charge dash is too situational.

    It might not be Metroid with Shinesparks and such, but maybe up the default walk speed at least? The rest of the game wasn't outstanding enough to make up for it either, besides the map being very open, even for a metroidvania. I like how there are 3-4 ways to enter the area with the Dream Nail.

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