It’s really cool to see how sometimes games can be so popular and influential that they forever change how their genre is viewed from then on out.
Like, take how Hollow Knight influenced indie metroidvanias, for example. There are exceptions, obviously — and I can’t claim that I really know everything about the genre — but pre 2017 most of the prominent metroidvanias I saw were… primarily based on Castlevania, down to stuff like RPG-esque stats and gear (where you could walk over anything if you grinded enough) and a plot which… more than anything was mostly just a reason for your character to be walking around your castle sandbox. Enter Hollow Knight, with its mechanics primarily inspired by Dark Souls (which is at least a bit funny, given the degree to which Dark Souls was inspired from Castlevania even beyond the Metroidvania-like map) and suddenly every indie metroidvania after has bonfires as save points, an oblique plot which focuses more on putting individual bits of lore together to get a full picture, and combat that’s pattern based, punishing, and a lot more based on player skill than anything else. It’s a clear Before and After sort of thing, and Hollow Knight is the dividing line that’s basically come to define a lot of what’s around it.
And for good reason! Hollow Knight is a very good game!
The short of what you do in Hollow Knight is simple: you play as a little bug thing and you platform around the fallen kingdom of Hallownest, striking your nail at every single enemy in your way. Along the way, you pick up things like upgrades and items that give you the opportunity to access new enemies, fight its greatest foes, and figure out the mystery that lies at its core. You can also ignore all of that and do whatever you want — something I’ve learned this second go around is that if you already know what to do you can avoid bogging yourself down in the details and still have fun just exploring and going down your completion checklist. The benefit of Souls-like plots is that while there’s a ton of cool stuff to unpack if you’re interested in excavating through the vagueness… you can also choose not to opt into it and instead just pick a direction and walk. The world is open enough that you’ll still make progress no matter what random direction you go in, and generally the game’s good enough at signposting where you’re capable of going that you’re never going to be stuck wondering what you’re meant to do.
And there’s a lot you can do.
Like, seriously. I don’t want to act as if indie games aren’t allowed to have content or anything, but I’d honestly say that there’s more to do here than in games with dev teams twenty times the size. Hallownest is vast, and behind every corner is something for you to do, be it getting money or fighting a new boss or finding a new charm or item or spell or even just finding a cute little caterpillar for you to free. There are a lot of different stones to turn, and nothing ever feels like you’re repeating yourself — even by the end when you’re clearing old areas out you have so many new things at your disposal that its a far different experience than when you were going through it for the first time. Beyond that, the world is so pretty. Not just in terms of artstyle, but in terms of design: each little sound, each enemy, each biome you step into for the first time is so distinct from the last, and a lot of the joy you’ll have experiencing this game for the first time is just kind of uncovering this world and seeing what lies within.
Speaking of enemies, I love the combat in this game. It’s simple — all in 2D, and only one primary weapon, so you get used to your nail pretty quick — but there’s enough variety with all the different bosses and enemy types that allows for deeper appreciation of its mechanics. In addition, all the spells, Nail Arts, and charms you can find just through exploration of Hallownest each provide their own little dimension that allows you to create a build and a strategy for whatever might be facing you down. Finding a boss too oppressive to heal against? Pick charms that protect you and make your heal quicker so that you don’t have to lose the damage race. Striking a boss with your sword too unsafe? Just get a fucking army of little critters to chip away at them from afar and use the mana you gain from them to pepper it with spells. In addition, (most) bosses are… tough, yet ultimately simplistic in their design. While they can be tricky (yet also incredibly fun) fights, the focus on giving them tells and patterns means that you can learn their movesets sooner rather than later, and make sure that (nearly) no boss can majorly roadblock a player.
One last little thing in particular I’d really like to shout out is the way that Hollow Knight teaches players its mechanics. I’m a little bit hesitant to bring up… intuitive tutorializing, I think it’s called? mostly because every single time someone tries to analyze how a game intuitively teaches the player its mechanics all it really does is make the player look like a baby who hasn’t played a video game before, but I think Hollow Knight does it pretty well. This ties in with atmosphere, a little bit, because I think one of the coolest things the game does is not sacrifice its tone to tell the player something blatantly. There are in-game tutorials, yes, but they’re used sparingly, and have in-universe conjunction — you learn how to use special abilities at the same time the Knight does, as an example. Otherwise, you’re effectively alone in this huge, sprawling, dangerous world, and it's up to you tocheck the wiki figure out what you can do and how you’re meant to do it, and the game — particularly the tutorial area, with the doors you have to break down and the passive enemies and your first exposure to shortcuts — is really good at getting you to figure out a thing, solve the immediate problem, then let you realize how exactly you can reapply your knowledge later.
The game… isn’t without its issues, though. They’re small, but they’re present enough to make a negative impact, and keep Hollow Knight from quite being at the level of masterpiece. A lot of the bosses later on in the game (particularly the upgraded versions of previous bosses) tend to try and up the ante by making these bosses do double damage, which… I feel was not a great decision, both because the reduced amount of mistakes you’re allowed to make feel a lot cheaper and because oftentimes these refights bring enough new to the table that making it more arbitrarily stronger feels redundant. While I do appreciate the healing mechanic, binding it to the same mana meter as spells makes the latter feel obsolete even despite their potential strength — especially given how Nail Arts, as an equivalent, are freely usable and not bound to any sort of meter. While the map system is absolutely cool, I think things like the compass taking up an equipment slot and not being able to see where you are in an area until you have a map make exploration or going through the runup to a boss a little more annoying than intended. And speaking of that… yeah boss runups are here just like they are in the Souls games and they’re irritating — it feels tedious to have to sometimes traverse halfway across the area again and oftentimes taking damage makes you feel annoyed more than anything, as it means you’re that much weaker when you’re just hoping that this’ll be the try that you get the boss right.
But ultimately… those are just little issues in terms of what this game has to offer. Between the beautiful and atmospheric world, the simple yet complex combat, and the fact that you can go anywhere in this world and still feel like your decision was worth it… this game basically changed the perception of what metroidvanias could be in 2017, and for good reason. Five years, and two playthroughs, later, it still sets the benchmark for what one of these games should be. 9/10.
Like, take how Hollow Knight influenced indie metroidvanias, for example. There are exceptions, obviously — and I can’t claim that I really know everything about the genre — but pre 2017 most of the prominent metroidvanias I saw were… primarily based on Castlevania, down to stuff like RPG-esque stats and gear (where you could walk over anything if you grinded enough) and a plot which… more than anything was mostly just a reason for your character to be walking around your castle sandbox. Enter Hollow Knight, with its mechanics primarily inspired by Dark Souls (which is at least a bit funny, given the degree to which Dark Souls was inspired from Castlevania even beyond the Metroidvania-like map) and suddenly every indie metroidvania after has bonfires as save points, an oblique plot which focuses more on putting individual bits of lore together to get a full picture, and combat that’s pattern based, punishing, and a lot more based on player skill than anything else. It’s a clear Before and After sort of thing, and Hollow Knight is the dividing line that’s basically come to define a lot of what’s around it.
And for good reason! Hollow Knight is a very good game!
The short of what you do in Hollow Knight is simple: you play as a little bug thing and you platform around the fallen kingdom of Hallownest, striking your nail at every single enemy in your way. Along the way, you pick up things like upgrades and items that give you the opportunity to access new enemies, fight its greatest foes, and figure out the mystery that lies at its core. You can also ignore all of that and do whatever you want — something I’ve learned this second go around is that if you already know what to do you can avoid bogging yourself down in the details and still have fun just exploring and going down your completion checklist. The benefit of Souls-like plots is that while there’s a ton of cool stuff to unpack if you’re interested in excavating through the vagueness… you can also choose not to opt into it and instead just pick a direction and walk. The world is open enough that you’ll still make progress no matter what random direction you go in, and generally the game’s good enough at signposting where you’re capable of going that you’re never going to be stuck wondering what you’re meant to do.
And there’s a lot you can do.
Like, seriously. I don’t want to act as if indie games aren’t allowed to have content or anything, but I’d honestly say that there’s more to do here than in games with dev teams twenty times the size. Hallownest is vast, and behind every corner is something for you to do, be it getting money or fighting a new boss or finding a new charm or item or spell or even just finding a cute little caterpillar for you to free. There are a lot of different stones to turn, and nothing ever feels like you’re repeating yourself — even by the end when you’re clearing old areas out you have so many new things at your disposal that its a far different experience than when you were going through it for the first time. Beyond that, the world is so pretty. Not just in terms of artstyle, but in terms of design: each little sound, each enemy, each biome you step into for the first time is so distinct from the last, and a lot of the joy you’ll have experiencing this game for the first time is just kind of uncovering this world and seeing what lies within.
Speaking of enemies, I love the combat in this game. It’s simple — all in 2D, and only one primary weapon, so you get used to your nail pretty quick — but there’s enough variety with all the different bosses and enemy types that allows for deeper appreciation of its mechanics. In addition, all the spells, Nail Arts, and charms you can find just through exploration of Hallownest each provide their own little dimension that allows you to create a build and a strategy for whatever might be facing you down. Finding a boss too oppressive to heal against? Pick charms that protect you and make your heal quicker so that you don’t have to lose the damage race. Striking a boss with your sword too unsafe? Just get a fucking army of little critters to chip away at them from afar and use the mana you gain from them to pepper it with spells. In addition, (most) bosses are… tough, yet ultimately simplistic in their design. While they can be tricky (yet also incredibly fun) fights, the focus on giving them tells and patterns means that you can learn their movesets sooner rather than later, and make sure that (nearly) no boss can majorly roadblock a player.
One last little thing in particular I’d really like to shout out is the way that Hollow Knight teaches players its mechanics. I’m a little bit hesitant to bring up… intuitive tutorializing, I think it’s called? mostly because every single time someone tries to analyze how a game intuitively teaches the player its mechanics all it really does is make the player look like a baby who hasn’t played a video game before, but I think Hollow Knight does it pretty well. This ties in with atmosphere, a little bit, because I think one of the coolest things the game does is not sacrifice its tone to tell the player something blatantly. There are in-game tutorials, yes, but they’re used sparingly, and have in-universe conjunction — you learn how to use special abilities at the same time the Knight does, as an example. Otherwise, you’re effectively alone in this huge, sprawling, dangerous world, and it's up to you to
The game… isn’t without its issues, though. They’re small, but they’re present enough to make a negative impact, and keep Hollow Knight from quite being at the level of masterpiece. A lot of the bosses later on in the game (particularly the upgraded versions of previous bosses) tend to try and up the ante by making these bosses do double damage, which… I feel was not a great decision, both because the reduced amount of mistakes you’re allowed to make feel a lot cheaper and because oftentimes these refights bring enough new to the table that making it more arbitrarily stronger feels redundant. While I do appreciate the healing mechanic, binding it to the same mana meter as spells makes the latter feel obsolete even despite their potential strength — especially given how Nail Arts, as an equivalent, are freely usable and not bound to any sort of meter. While the map system is absolutely cool, I think things like the compass taking up an equipment slot and not being able to see where you are in an area until you have a map make exploration or going through the runup to a boss a little more annoying than intended. And speaking of that… yeah boss runups are here just like they are in the Souls games and they’re irritating — it feels tedious to have to sometimes traverse halfway across the area again and oftentimes taking damage makes you feel annoyed more than anything, as it means you’re that much weaker when you’re just hoping that this’ll be the try that you get the boss right.
But ultimately… those are just little issues in terms of what this game has to offer. Between the beautiful and atmospheric world, the simple yet complex combat, and the fact that you can go anywhere in this world and still feel like your decision was worth it… this game basically changed the perception of what metroidvanias could be in 2017, and for good reason. Five years, and two playthroughs, later, it still sets the benchmark for what one of these games should be. 9/10.