Story and Characters
-The story of Hollow Knight is a difficult one to discuss because it is very much put on the backburner for most of the game. There is a story and the game is full of lore, but it can definitely be hard to follow what is going on unless you look up certain things outside of the game. While I do wish that a bit more of the story would have been more obvious, I also did like some of the mystery that the game creates where you are really discovering this new land filled with all of these interesting inhabitants. So having the story be less important than the gameplay did not bother me as much here as it perhaps would in another game because this is a Metroidvania and the gameplay will always be what is most important.

-Similarly, the characters are given very minimal characterization as the character you play as never speaks and most of the side characters are not given much to do other than tell you a few lines of dialogue.

Gameplay
-The gameplay is the main strength of the game as there is a big emphasis on platforming and combat, with both of them being rather challenging at certain times. The gameplay is very simple at first with a very basic jump and attack, but as you keep playing, you unlock new abilities and tools to help you on your quest through Hollownest. The gaining of abilities over time keeps the gameplay constantly engaging as you are then able to go back and explore areas that you couldn’t access before or gain the skills needed to beat a boss that was previously too difficult.

-There are a ton of different enemy types in every region that you go to which is great because it keeps the game constantly challenging and keeps the player from ever getting too comfortable. Some of the enemies can be quite difficult at first, but as you play more you realize how to beat them more easily. This makes every enemy and boss almost like a puzzle in their own way as finding the weaknesses of the enemies is like solving that puzzle.

-The game is very challenging and certain bosses will kill you a lot. The challenge could be frustrating but it was also satisfying to finally defeat an enemy that you had been struggling with. There were some of the bosses that I found particularly frustrating because the save point where you would respawn was far away from the boss. This meant you had to travel a ways to get back to where you died which was sometimes annoying when you were dying over and over again.

Side Content
-The game has a decent amount of side content although sometimes it can be hard to tell what is optional and what you need to do to progress the story. The side content usually consists of getting additional money from hidden areas or unlocking new spells or charms that will allow you to change the way you play the game. It was very fun to discover new areas and new helpful items as the exploration in the game is very good and the side content helped you get more powerful.

-You also have the option to replay many of the boss fights or different variants of the boss fights that are even more difficult. There is an arena which is another place where you can test your skills through waves of different enemies and that is also very challenging. I am glad they have so much optional content and tough bosses for people who want to fight them, but I am also glad that much of it is not required if the player does not want to.

World/Level Design
-The world of Hollow Knight is gorgeous and I was very impressed how every section of the map was unique and detailed. Even though the game is a 2D style Metroidvania, they managed to make a really cool world that was very fun to discover. Every region was unique and the level design allowed for all sorts of hidden pathways and shortcuts you could find.

Graphics, Music and Glitches
-The graphics are obviously very stylized and hard to compare to a traditional AAA game, but everything in the game looks great and holds up very well.

-The music in the game is fantastic and every region has its own themes that play while you are exploring them. The music really adds to the atmosphere and elevates the game.

-I did not encounter any glitches while I played the game.

Main Positives of the Game
-Addictive gameplay and level design made me want to keep playing and wanting to discover all the secrets that the game offered. The game really has a skill curve that keeps you wanting to play because you want to get better and you do improve as you play. Bosses that were hard at first can be easily beaten as you become far better at the game.

-The large number of enemy types kept the game feeling fresh and the combat was very fun, despite the fact it can also be very difficult.

-The map and the world in Hollow Knight are gorgeous and every part of the map was unique and amplified by the music. The levels were all designed very well and made traversal constantly fun and interesting.

-The game manages to stay consistently good and never has what feels like a weak moment. I played for over 30 hours and still had a lot more stuff I could do which is a long time for a game like this.

Main Negatives of the Game
-The story is not bad, but it is hard to follow at times and while I like the mystery of discovering what is going on in Hallow Nest, I also wish a bit more of the story would have been focused on.

-There were some annoying bench placement areas where you had to travel for a while to get back to a tough boss and that got frustrating after dying many times.

-This is a minor thing, but the game gives you a lot of charms as you play that give you abilities to help you in the game, but you only have very limited charm slots. This forces you to choose from your collection what you want to use which makes sense, but I wish you had more charm slots as I really only was able to use two or three at a time for most of my play through. When you have roughly 40 charms to pick from, I wish we could use a bit more at one time.

Overall Score: 8.5/10

Story and Characters
-The story of Resident Evil 5 revolves around Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA) agents Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar as they try to track down a bioterrorist threat in Kijuju, a fictional region of West Africa. As you can probably guess from that description, this is not your typical Resident Evil game as it feels far more like an action movie in both its story and gameplay, even more so than the previous game, Resident Evil 4. The story is fairly simplistic, but it works well enough even if it does lean heavily into the cheesiness of a B action movie. The villains are very over the top and the story lacks the tension of some of the previous games, but it works well as a fun action game.
-Chris and Sheva are both fairly generic characters that don’t get a ton of development, but they have good banter together and I liked seeing them work together as a team throughout the game. They are both highly trained operatives at this point, so the focus on action makes sense narratively as well. It would be hard to believe that someone who has been through as much as Chris Redfield would still be scared by the virus so the lack of horror works, although I do wish the game had a bit more of it.

Gameplay
-The gameplay in many ways really works, but there are also many frustrations I found with the game as well. The movement uses a somewhat modified version of the tank controls from the previous Resident Evil games and while I found myself getting used to it as I played, it still doesn’t feel as good as regular modern games’ movement like the movement in the remakes. Not being able to aim and shoot while moving can be a bit frustrating as can not being able to reload while moving. The gunplay itself feels pretty good however, and I like the various weapons that the game gives you to allow you to change up your playstyle.
-The main point of contention I have with the gameplay is the inclusion of the AI companion and the inventory system in place. To be clear, I like Sheva as a character and I like the idea of having a co-op action game. I did not play this game with another person which may be why certain aspects of this game really didn’t work for me because the AI can be very frustrating. Sheva was actually decent in most combat situations as she was a decent shot and I liked being able to customize her weapons. The issues would arise at certain times when we had to separate and she had to fend off enemies by herself and would get killed fairly quickly. She also would occasionally shoot at enemies for no reason that couldn’t be damaged and would waste all of her ammo. The biggest frustration for me though was the inventory management. Each player gets 9 slots for their inventory at the beginning and you never have a chance to expand that. That may seem like a lot, but because the game gives you so many weapons and ammo types to carry, it fills up very quickly. You are unable to drop items on the ground and so I would have many times when I really wanted a health item, but I would need to discard ammo or grenades to pick it up. Sheva would also pick things up on her own which at times can be helpful and other times, can be frustrating. During one of the boss fights, I had almost no health and was trying to pick up a green herb, but my inventory was totally full with weapons and ammo I needed for the fight. So I tried to bring Sheva over to grab it, and instead she grabbed some grenades off the ground. You cannot discard items directly from her inventory, instead you have to swap items with her, discard the items from your inventory, get your items back and then have her pick up the new item. The game doesn’t pause when you are in your inventory so as you can imagine, trying to do all of this while having to do QTEs to dodge the boss’s attacks was very aggravating and I ended up dying and having to restart. That isn’t the only frustration with the inventory either as you can’t combine items from the ground with items already in your inventory except for ammo. So if there was a green herb on the ground when my inventory was full, I couldn’t just combine it right there with a red herb that I already had. Again, this means if I really wanted the health item, I was having to discard something to get it. Usually though, the red herbs were useless anyways because I would have Sheva hold the herbs because I was low on space and she would always use the green herbs as soon as she got them. Essentially, the AI companion and the poor inventory management systems make this game far more frustrating than it otherwise should be. Playing with another actual person definitely would’ve helped with some of those problems, but the inventory would still be annoying to deal with.
-Another aspect of the game that I found to be rather frustrating at times were the boss fights. In the first half of the game, they really weren’t too bad and while they could sometimes be a bit challenging, they were never overly annoying. That changed with the second half of the game and there were a couple fights that really annoyed me. The main issue that I had with them is that they simply go on for too long at times. There is one particular one in a lab where it felt like you had to do the exact same thing eight times in a row. Then if Sheva or you die, you have to restart all over again and you likely don’t have many health items because they get used so quickly. The bosses can also feel inconsistent with their QTEs where sometimes I would get a prompt to dodge an attack and other times I wouldn’t and I would just get hit. The only saving grace is the rocket launcher which you can spend a bunch of money on but it essentially one shots any boss.
-This isn’t really a gameplay point, but the game does not have skippable cutscenes and so if you die to a boss, you will have to watch that same scene over and over again with no way to skip it.

Side Content
-The main game doesn’t really have any side content as it is a linear game. After you beat the main game, you unlock a new game mode called Mercenaries, but I didn’t play it at all, so I cannot comment on whether or not it is any fun.

World/Level Design
-The level design is very different from any of the previous Resident Evil games as the game is set in Africa and takes place predominantly during the day. Having the game set in a city and exploring the surrounding countryside does make the game far less scary and the atmosphere certainly isn’t as creepy as most of the other RE games, but again, this mostly works as the game is far more action oriented. I really liked a lot of the locations, especially the town and the marshlands and they were fun to explore and felt very unique. There is a part of the game where you are exploring these ancient ruins and it feels almost like a Tomb Raider game which I enjoyed. The game does have far less backtracking than its predecessors and you are always moving forward with the story instead of going back to explore old areas. I kinda missed the backtracking as I think that it can be fun and help you really become familiar with a location, but I did also like how many different places you go in RE5.
-Now I should address this topic as it is usually at the forefront of any discussion about RE5, but the game is set in Africa and there have been many people who feel it is racist for one reason or another with certain depictions. Naturally, with the game being set in Africa, you are going to be fighting a lot of black people who have been infected. This may rub some people the wrong way and I could see how someone may feel the “white savior” trope is at play here, but I personally was not too bothered by this. The part of the game that does feel a bit more problematic is when you leave the main city and go through the marshes where you encounter many enemies in grass skirts and using spears while being incredibly tribal. Again, you could argue that narratively, it is the virus infection that is causing the people to act this way, but it does feel like an outdated depiction of Africa and one that was a stereotype for a very long time. How much this will bother someone will differ depending on the individual, but it is worth mentioning that there are some questionable choices here, although I don’t think the intent was ever to be overtly racist.

Graphics, Music and Glitches
-The game was released 15 years ago now, so naturally the graphics are dated, but they still hold up pretty well and for a 2009 game, it all looks fairly good.
-The music in the game was good and it added to the tension of the action scenes when it needed to.
-I did not encounter any major glitches while playing the game.

Main Positives of the Game
-The characters of Chris and Sheva are likable and they have good chemistry with one another.
-The game has some cool locations like the city, the mine, the marshlands and the ruins you explore and I like how different the areas all felt. Driving around the boat in the marshes to explore new areas was really fun and was the most open the game ever felt.
-The combat actually holds up pretty well and the shooting all feels good. I also like that they have the different melee attacks you can do when enemies are stunned.
-The visuals hold up pretty well despite this being a 15 year old game.

Main Negatives of the Game
-The movement can be frustrating, especially by not giving you the ability to move and shoot or reload. Running can also feel a bit clunky at times.
-Unskippable cutscenes were very annoying as you had to rewatch them every time you died.
-The AI partner is very hit and miss and will often do things you don’t want them to do. They will waste your resources and will get killed fairly easily if you aren’t careful.
-The inventory system is awful and lacks so many simple quality of life changes that would make it so much better. Being able to drop items on the ground, combine items between inventories, and being able to upgrade the size of the inventory would all be very welcome additions. In an action game like this one, I don’t even know why they felt the need to limit your inventory so much in the first place as the survival horror element of the previous games is not really in play here.
-Some stereotypical African depictions that could be seen as problematic. I don’t think this is as big of an issue as some other people do, but it is something that should probably be handled a bit differently if they were ever to remake this game.
-The story is so over the top that it comes off as pretty cheesy, especially towards the end. The Resident Evil games have always had outlandish stories, but this one feels like it still managed to go a bit too far.
-Chris Redfield does in fact punch a boulder while in the middle of an active volcano and whether or not that is a positive or a negative is up to you, but that summarizes just how outlandish this game can truly be.

Overall Score: 6/10