It's difficult to phrase how I feel about Hollow Knight in a way that won't sound like I'm fabricating some sort of enlightening experience over a game that won't even text me back. Sure, from a design standpoint, this game is incredible. Team Cherry uses clever map and power-up design to blend the rewarding and full of intent nature of a metroidvania, with the sense of adventure and agency you'd expect from an open world game. Sections of exploration climax at tough boss battles that perfectly utilize the minimalist moveset and abilities of your player character. This game’s web of a map and high skill ceiling for movement makes sure that running back through old locations doesn't feel like a slog. Hollow Knight has a nuanced and surprisingly dense narrative that touches on regret and how that plays into our perceptions of dreams and our own ability to overcome a challenge. Ari Gibson’s multilayered hand-drawn backgrounds, adorable characters, and detailed animations make just viewing this game a treat. And this is all tied up by Christopher Larkin, with one of the most gorgeous and fitting scores I've heard in a video game.

This all contributes to how well-rounded the game is, but there's something beyond Hollow Knight's immediate substance that I don't think I could formulate into words, nor do I believe is shared. Something about playing this game made me feel so infinitesimally small in the grand scheme of the world, yet made me feel so undoubtedly my own. Maybe through more bi yearly replaying I'll find what it is that makes me feel the way I do, but for now, it sits at my #1 spot and it's inception by such a small team will forever be beyond me.

I'm basically saying team cherry put their whole cherussies into this game. May Silksong come soon, and may it alter my life the way I'm sure Hollow Knight did.

“ Then again, a meandered journey still has meaning. It is, after all, from a journey we find our purpose, though a stop is more than just a stop. And my if those stops can't be lovely things, wouldn't you say? Transcendent plateaus, distant sandy lands, vast ancient kingdoms. Yours was not the first, nor will it be the last, but it's a unique and special thing nonetheless. “ - Mister Mushroom