Despite being set in a kingdom in ruins, with dead bodies littered everywhere, I've played few games as teeming with life as Hollow Knight. The world of Hallownest has such a rich history, and every area you explore, each with its own distinctive, memorable ecosystem, is dripping in hints towards what came before and the true nature of what is happening now. As a piece of storytelling Hollow Knight is very subtle, but as an act of worldbuilding it feels so rewarding to experience and full of depth. It feels like it's impossible not to learn something new every time you return to Hallownest.
The characters of this world exude so much personality too, written with such clear, individual voices. Even minor side characters feel like they have their own motivations, their own history leading them to this point, and like they exist beyond this game and your interactions with them.
As far as gameplay is concerned, I've never before played a metroidvania that gives such a compelling sense of freedom to its players, letting them genuinely choose their own path through the game. There's a huge amount of the game you can explore without access to the majority of your unlockable traversal abilities, and only the gentlest hints of where to head next. The downside to this is that very little of the world map can truly push your ability to use these traversal abilities to their fullest since it's simply not designed with the knowledge that you'll have them all available when you reach any individual place (thankfully The White Palace exists for this purpose), but the huge upside is that it feels like your first journey through Hallownest is distinctly yours; so many moments you experience will feel like your own personal story because of the fact that you're given so much freedom as to how to approach things and what order to do things in.
The design of this world you explore is even more impressive due to how much it understands player psychology. Deepnest is the clearest example of this, inverting a bunch of things you'd been taking as givens in regards to gameplay in order to contribute to the oppressive atmosphere and feeling of helplessness, but this sort of understanding of player expectations and how to either play into them or exploit them is, on a subtler level, everywhere. I had to use a guide and have some slight hints for a few bits and pieces I missed throughout my playthrough as I wanted to find every major thing in the game, but considering how many secrets Hallownest holds and how vast it is I really didn't have to look up that much and in part that's because the game knows how to direct you towards its secrets without ruining the feeling that you were the one actually uncovering them.
Finally, whilst it starts out very basic, the combat grows to become something incredibly elegant and satisfying; there's a moment as you're unlocking movement abilities where everything just clicks as you float from one enemy to the next, and that moment is so satisfying that it is worth the slow build-up to that point. There are a ton of different approaches you can take to fighting, the charm system allows you a lot of versatility in terms of complimenting your play-style or even creating a new one, and the game is very good at forcing you out of your comfort zone and making you fight in new ways as its creative, thrilling boss fights ramp up in difficulty. I expect to spend a fair amount more time in Godhome before I finally put down this Hollow Knight, and I'm not someone who's usually interested in replaying boss fights over and over in games.
Hollow Knight is certainly far from flawless, but this game was just so good at making me feel things; the joy of exploration, experimentation and growth, the adrenaline rush of barely clinging on against the game's hardest fights, all the emotions that come from digging into the past of Hallownest and its residents, soaking in its atmosphere alongside its gorgeous soundtrack. A true joy.
The characters of this world exude so much personality too, written with such clear, individual voices. Even minor side characters feel like they have their own motivations, their own history leading them to this point, and like they exist beyond this game and your interactions with them.
As far as gameplay is concerned, I've never before played a metroidvania that gives such a compelling sense of freedom to its players, letting them genuinely choose their own path through the game. There's a huge amount of the game you can explore without access to the majority of your unlockable traversal abilities, and only the gentlest hints of where to head next. The downside to this is that very little of the world map can truly push your ability to use these traversal abilities to their fullest since it's simply not designed with the knowledge that you'll have them all available when you reach any individual place (thankfully The White Palace exists for this purpose), but the huge upside is that it feels like your first journey through Hallownest is distinctly yours; so many moments you experience will feel like your own personal story because of the fact that you're given so much freedom as to how to approach things and what order to do things in.
The design of this world you explore is even more impressive due to how much it understands player psychology. Deepnest is the clearest example of this, inverting a bunch of things you'd been taking as givens in regards to gameplay in order to contribute to the oppressive atmosphere and feeling of helplessness, but this sort of understanding of player expectations and how to either play into them or exploit them is, on a subtler level, everywhere. I had to use a guide and have some slight hints for a few bits and pieces I missed throughout my playthrough as I wanted to find every major thing in the game, but considering how many secrets Hallownest holds and how vast it is I really didn't have to look up that much and in part that's because the game knows how to direct you towards its secrets without ruining the feeling that you were the one actually uncovering them.
Finally, whilst it starts out very basic, the combat grows to become something incredibly elegant and satisfying; there's a moment as you're unlocking movement abilities where everything just clicks as you float from one enemy to the next, and that moment is so satisfying that it is worth the slow build-up to that point. There are a ton of different approaches you can take to fighting, the charm system allows you a lot of versatility in terms of complimenting your play-style or even creating a new one, and the game is very good at forcing you out of your comfort zone and making you fight in new ways as its creative, thrilling boss fights ramp up in difficulty. I expect to spend a fair amount more time in Godhome before I finally put down this Hollow Knight, and I'm not someone who's usually interested in replaying boss fights over and over in games.
Hollow Knight is certainly far from flawless, but this game was just so good at making me feel things; the joy of exploration, experimentation and growth, the adrenaline rush of barely clinging on against the game's hardest fights, all the emotions that come from digging into the past of Hallownest and its residents, soaking in its atmosphere alongside its gorgeous soundtrack. A true joy.