At a time when my taste in media feels extremely in flux and hard to place, where I always find myself trying and bouncing off old and new games alike, I'm happy to say that Hollow Knight still holds strong as one of my all-time favourites. What's particularly interesting, though, is my relationship with this particular playthrough - I practically played it to death a few years ago, which means the 'experience' - of exploration, of discovery, of soaking everything in - should have been well and truly shattered, yet I was still able to have an experience that felt as fresh as it could reasonably be.

And what's mostly to thank for that is the world itself. It feels like it focuses on the macro rather than the micro - while individual rooms aren't often that memorable, each area has a strong identity - both through presentation and general differences in their layouts - and enough landmarks to usually make it easy enough to orient yourself. It's a huge world, but one that wraps around on itself enough to where aimless wandering always feels like it'll land you somewhere interesting. Combined with the map only updating on a bench (this one's controversial? I love how the map works personally!) and the option to remove your compass, and it's incredibly easy to recreate the feeling of blind exploration - you'll still have a broad sense of where to go, but you'll have likely forgotten the routes through a lot of the areas themselves. And yet combining its mechanical intricacies with raw creativity let a replay give an extra shine to the world - I didn't know where I was going, but I *do* know how to get to that secret over there easier by pogoing off a Vengefly I lured from the other side of the map. It managed to add an extra layer of intrigue into a world that I was already surprised how much it still offered me.

It's far from a perfect world, though, and I noticed a lot more holes than I ever did before. While most collectible upgrades are pretty significant - something I do like - the size of the world means they feel incredibly scattered and awkwardly distributed; particularly, I noticed how many mask shards and charm notches are just directly sold to you, and how a good chunk of ore is just held behind rescuing grubs. Additionally, the endgame areas feel a bit weaker than the rest - Queen's Gardens feel uncomfortably linear, so many of White Palace's later challenges are just spikes on cycles coming out of walls, and I REALLY wish I didn't have to climb out of the Abyss *that* many times. The lategame also falls closer to explicit lock-and-key design, with the upgraded Dream Nail *only* being used to enter White Palace and shade walls existing, which feel videogame-y to the point where they almost feel immersion-breaking. (edit: I was being WAY too melodramatic here, I really just think they're ugly)

These are all nitpicks though, and if you've ever talked to me about this game, you'll know I could write hundreds of paragraphs nitpicking this game to the ends of the earth and none of it could take any of my love away for this game. What I *did* brush up against most this time, though, is difficulty. See, Hollow Knight is a pretty tricky game that gives you tools that can make it *incredibly* easy - I'm talking blowing up the final boss so hard it could only use one or two attacks per phase. And while it's easy to forget specific level layouts enough to stumble around in them like you did the first time around, it's *much* harder to forget how to equip Shaman Stone, Quick Slash and Fragile Strength and turn every combat encounter into paste. It's forbidden knowledge - you can't un-know it, and you also have to actively stop yourself from using it. I didn't want to police myself on any item usage (I've done that enough in the past!), which ultimately left me with a slightly uneasy feeling as the final boss, whose fight took me 10(!) minutes on my first win, barely even had the chance to fight back.

None of that's really the game's fault though, and if there's one thing to take away from that about the game as a whole, it's that it's good enough for me to even play it to that point! Hollow Knight's fantastic. It's a great experience with an immaculate atmosphere and a beautiful score, and it's also an incredibly gratifying game to grind down and learn to an exact science. And if there's one thing that *I'm* gonna take away from this, it's that I can't wait to break Silksong into tiny little pieces.