Hollow Knight

Reviewing a game that I've never really stopped playing since my first time is difficult.

I had heard a lot of mentions about Hollow Knight before I ever picked it up. Despite how good I had been hearing it was, people wouldn’t get into why it’s so good. Eventually, I picked up Hollow Knight and jumped into the old kingdom of Hallownest. Without really knowing what to expect, I went into the game with an open mind about whatever I was about to experience. People say the game is challenging but rewarding, confusing but satisfying, huge but still connected. I was hopeful for a magical experience.

After playing through the game over a two month period, I looked back and considered whether or not I agree with the people who recommended the game to me. And my conclusion was that Hollow Knight shows the developers’ mastery of storytelling, world exploration, and challenge. Here’s why.

It’s hard to believe such a massive game has a team of people in the single digits. Every time I play Hollow Knight, I can always see the love that the developers put into this one project. Every little detail about every room is put there intentionally. At the edges of areas, where they are geographically next to other areas on the map, will blend together. Within the forgotten crossroads, in the hallway up to Greenpath, you can see the moss growing into the stone roads. Near the bottom of Greenpath where it connects to the fog canyon, you can see the bubbles rising out of the pit. In the royal waterways, where the left side attaches to the fungal wastes, you can see mushrooms growing inside the sewer tunnels. Small details like that are the things I notice and appreciate every time I play Hollow Knight, and I can always notice something new every time I do a playthrough.

I actually have fewer hours in Hollow Knight than most other games on this list. Despite that fact, I think I know this game better than every other game on the list. I’ve done so many playthroughs of Hollow Knight that I’ve memorized the exact route through the game, where almost all of the items and treasures are, where all the enemies are, no matter how minor any of those are. If I’ve just completed a game and I’m looking for a new one to play, I often go back to Hollow Knight for a few days in my free time. I’ve done playthroughs with mods, challenge runs, even raced some of my friends to the finish. In the special boss rush mode, I’ve spent dozens of hours trying to defeat all of the bosses in a gauntlet, with handicaps to make the challenge even harder. It honestly feels like I’ve played the game for way more hours than I really have.

Hollow Knight isn’t an easy game. I died plenty of times on my first run. The way the game teaches you combat is much like that of Dark Souls. It tells you which buttons do what, and lets you make mistakes and learn from them. I found Hollow Knight easier than Dark Souls, though. This is because Hollow Knight promotes the player always hunting for enemies to kill because of its soul mechanic. The player is at their maximum survivability and strength after killing lots of enemies. Every time you hit an enemy, you gain a resource called soul, which can be used as a weapon to kill more enemies, or to heal yourself. This promotes each battle having a rhythm of hitting, getting hit, hitting more, then killing the enemy and healing yourself. Ironically, you’re the most safe when you fight lots of enemies. Just running past them all will only get you hit, and you won’t have any soul to heal yourself unless you fight. This makes for a very fun way to live for a long time against strong enemies and bosses. As long as you can keep hitting them, you can keep getting soul to heal. My favorite way to fight bosses is to rush in and attack wildly, not worrying about how much I get hit, until I reach low health so I can leave and heal. Because I just got a bunch of soul by hitting the boss, I always have enough soul to heal back to what I was at before. Some players don’t worry about healing at all, because they rely on not getting hit. One of my favorite things to do in the game is try to kill bosses without getting hit once. I spent a couple hours getting this on every single boss. Hollow Knight’s skill ceiling is extremely high, and I always strive to reach the roof.

Hollow Knight is a game that always keeps me engaged, no matter how many times I’ve played it before. Whenever I want to chill out and play a game that I know is challenging, fun, but still an easy and rewarding experience, I can always rely on Hollow Knight to let me get lost in it again.