i have a weird situation with this game - while i enjoyed what bits i could from it, the game overall doesn't feel enticing to play. i really appreciate the amount of detail in this game and the worldbuilding it has, especially in the case of using its' environment to its' advantage like with having a nail be the size of a sword to peoples the size of bugs, but past that purely on gameplay, it didn't hook me. maybe silksong will amend my issues with the game, but unless i play again to the point of getting hooked, i don't know how much i'll want to revisit it. try it if you like metroidvanias or games with a lot of lore to offer and maybe you'll like it better

Wow, it is rare that I give up on a game due to not enjoying it, but hollow knight managed to make that happen. This is pure catharsis for me, so:

The platforming in this game is bad, and you have to do it to get anywhere. The movement feels sluggish and much of the features that make it less unbearable are hidden behind barriers in the game (this is a metroidvania, but if your advanced movement is going to be hidden behind barriers, your basic movement needs to be fun). The field of view is not wide enough for you to move across platforms and get around the map easily or quickly without memorising where platforms are.

A couple basic features are locked behind equipable items - for example, you have to use an inventory slot to view where you are on the map, which if you did not have access to would make navigation near impossible.

The game's tutorial is non-existent, and some basic attacking controls that are near necessary for some fights are never explained.

There are some things this game gets right - boss fights are largely enjoyable, and the audio and visual design is wonderful. However, the game does not give you space to take this in as the gameplay distracts you by being bad. I would not recommend this game.

i really wish i enjoyed this game as much as everyone else does (or people said i would).

for a game described to me as "metroidvania with precision platforming meets Dark Souls," it really comes out feeling like less than a sum of those parts. in terms of the world design and exploration, the game is great at matching the joy of breaking into every tiny crevasse to find secrets and lore that Dark Souls does. the characters and lightly revealed lore that's steeped in mystery is great. the platforming is serviceable, but whenever the game decides to flip the switch to try and turn into Super Meat Boy (sometimes quite literally with buzzsaws) it feels very disjointed and out of place.

the combat (mainly by way of the bosses) by comparison feels like a chore. even by the end of the game when i had gotten a lot better at maneuvering in fights, most of the boss fights were not engaging or challenging beyond "hope you get the good pattern that allows you to heal". in addition to this, why not be more generous with benches in regards to boss placements?

it's small decisions like this that continued to baffle me as time went on. you get more movement options as the game unfolds, but trekking between areas connected by stags still feels arduous enough to dissuade me from wanting to explore more. i enjoy the lore of the stags, but would fast travelling between benches break the game so much to prevent it from being included?

it's things like this that makes me feel like the game is bloated. this may be a problem of playing the game now that there's 4 extra content patches (give players a way to play the launch version pleaseeeee), but there's just so much in the game that feels like Content For Content's Sake. the game like a love letter to the old metroidvanias the developers loved that has been weighed down by AAA games' addiction to More. i can see the mechanics (literally) taken 1-to-1 from Super Metroid, but i don't see the tightly crafted world, simplicity, or elegance of it. i see a checklist of things to waste time doing rather than a curated experience.

I really don't understand why people enjoy this game. I like Metroid because of the movement upgrades that makes backtracking fun. I like Castlevania because of the RPG aspects that make you feel significantly more powerful with each upgrade and the variety of drops from enemies makes it fun to go back and see what you can get. This game has neither of those qualities. The way you move and attack at the beginning of the game is basically the same as at the end of the game. There are some RPG aspects like a currency system but there's no point where you feel powerful or any enemy weapon drops. I wanted to like it but sadly did not at all.