Support NeoGAF

[EruditeHobo]

I'm not stroking myself about how there's insects and uh I don't know there's a deep lore apparently? I mean it isn't in the game...

So you didn't read the trilogy of Hollow Knight novels, and watch the streaming series?

Oh wait... none of that exists! So the lore probably exists somewhere in the game, I guess. Right?

Queen's Garden comes to mind as having some difficulty bumps in movement...

Yeah, that's the only thing that comes close in terms of platforming.

I loved Hollow Knight, but I also found map navigation to be a major problem. Having the freedom to explore is nice, but when the overworld map is so elaborate and has so many branching paths, it's practically essential to have some kind of waypoint indicating where to go to find the next story beat or key unlockable.

I think it's wonderful that Hollow Knight invites you to keep track of what you've done and breadcrumb your own adventure, with your pins. It just draws you in to the world that much more! But I get that at times it's inconvenient, mostly because it's very much at odds with the extreme handholding that goes on in many/most modern adventure/RPG games.

Personally I consider that a strength of HK. I wish more games would encourage exploration, focus, and player engagement with the map in the way that HK, Elden Ring, and even something like BOTW all do.

 

[The Fuzz damn you!]

There are very few places that take more than 30-60 seconds to navigate to once you’ve unlocked the relevant fast travel nodes / shortcut abilities. If it’s taking you longer than that, it’s because you’re having difficulties with the enemies along the way. Those enemies are there to train you to deal with attack patterns that the bosses you’re heading towards will throw at you, so take some time to keep ploughing through them and perfecting your strategies and movements, and those boss fights will become much easier.

As for losing money as bosses, in most cases you can grab your dropped coins and run away to safety pretty easily. Sometimes, yeah, you just end up losing everything, but that’s part of the tension that makes the game so rewarding.

I suck at the game, but absolutely adore it all the same.

 

[Punished Miku]

I hated it.

 

[scydrex]

I stopped playing it. The map and the fast travel suck. Tried to finish it but it's not for me.

 

[Danjin44]

Don’t force it, if you are not enjoying the game then the game isn’t simply for you….that’s all there is to it.

 

[Clear]

Did not click with me either.

Experience as a game mirrored my feelings about the art-style; well done but not my taste.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

Colours are gay actually.

 

[Batiman]

It’s frustrating for the first little while then everything starts to flow more smoothly and it’s you having a general idea which areas you should be tackling.


I find it similar to Metroid in that sense. Everything just slowly starts to come together as you progress. It feels very rewarding.

I love the game but I do admit the map was frustrating at first. I guess I loved it enough to push through the first times of being lost. It’s worth it IMO. Awesome game. Hard as fuck. The arena was ridiculous.

Can’t wait for the sequel

 

[Valkyria]

it took 2 tries actually to star playing seriously. Main grip, no automap. Pushing for a little longer that issue was solved.
I did not do every secret content, because there are lots, but I have fun doing the normal ending and exploring a lot of the map.

 

[SALMORE]

Hollow Knight is the Ana de armas of video games ! it impossible to hate

 

[EruditeHobo]

Hollow Knight is the Ana de armas of video games ! it impossible to hate

 

[rabbity-thing]

So, I'm asking you, how did you manage to enjoy this game?

Might as well ask me how I manage to enjoy a delicious slice of pizza.

I dunno, man. It's pizza. It's delicious.

 

[Kataploom]

It really bored me, couldn't make it click, I left it at 9 hours but I plan to give it another chance later

 

[Sitheral]

I didnt and I knew its not for me before playing it, that's important assessment regardless of hype, especially if you played a lot of stuff, but even being smartass that I am, sometimes I'm wrong so I gave it a go. I don't know, I even like metroidvanias. Kinda. Some of them. The artstyle does have its charm... Mmm, just no.

There are tons of perfectly fine, cool people out there everywhere you go, doesnt mean you need to hang out with them all, right.

 

[midasmulligan]

Didn’t, despised the traversal system and dropped it

 

[lyan]

Well then heres what you were missing out. Go to the timer:



It took me a lot of swearing and a lot of patience and a lot of raging and a lot of sweating but god damn was it satisfying as fuck once I did it, like you cant believe it until you feel that achievement. Shame.

Anyway maybe give this a try

Its as difficult as HK but it also has an easy mode afaik.

Find platforming in Megaman Zero series on GBA (or without the accessibility options in the legacy collection) far harder, this just got the sections dragged on longer.

 

[SolidQ]

Its as difficult as HK but it also has an easy mode afaik.

It's more difficult than HK. HK is super easy game, except Radiance give some challenge

 

[Robb]

It’s been a bit too long since I played it but I can’t remember being annoyed by backtracking. The difficulty of the bosses was probably my biggest issue.

Can’t wait for Silksong.

 

[Moonjt9]

Greatest game of my life, had me from the moment you break the wall to get back on the main path at the very beginning.

 

[nikos]

Tried it a couple of times, didn't like it.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

I can see the frustration with a couple bosses and th length of backtracking if you are completely lost and haven’t been using the fast travel points. It wasn’t hard at all for me to love it, second best Metroidvania of Al time (after Prime 1).

 

[TheDarkPhantom]

By playing it

 

[kubricks]

Honestly the game is a slog before you get more movement abilities like Wall bounce and extra jumps.

 

[Hudo]

I never finished it.

The traversal become too much of a pain in the ass to deal with. Even having the map and fast travel points, actually getting back to boss rooms was annoying.

Cool art style though.

This is my experience as well. Also never finished it. But it made me finish Super Metroid (again).

 

[Hellraizah]

Tried very hard to like it but ended up playing less than 10 hours. I felt like I was going nowhere. I don't have that much time to lose on a game. If playing feels like a chore, I'm out.

I love Metroidvanias when they are well done. Ori 1 and 2 were far superior to this.

 

[ChoosableOne]

Its optional but mandatory for the true ending and true boss fight. If you want a more easy experience both ori games are amazing, the second is a lot more metroidvania than the first.

Yes, I completed the first game, and my Game Pass membership had expired halfway through the second one. I didn't extend it; I'll finish it one day. I actually enjoy challenging games most of the time. Currently, I'm playing Darkest Dungeon, and its combat system is even more ruthless than this game. However, in that game, even if you lose a character due to mistakes, the enjoyment isn't diminished because you can create and develop a new one, quickly returning to the most fun part, the turn-based combat. In this game, though, you die after a boss or tough platforming section, and that's when the real struggle begins. You spend several minutes just returning to the same point to probably fail again. This situation dampens my desire for exploration. Going back to the surface/spending money, reaching the place you died shouldn't be this difficult; otherwise, the game isn't very challenging apart from these aspects. Rather than being difficult, it's boring.

 

[Dr. Suchong]

Play sotn instead.

 

[MirageMew2]

GOAT Metroidvania, GOAT indie

 

[V1LÆM]

I didn't. It's overrated trash.

 

[DelireMan7]

It's my second favorite game of all time just behind Dark Souls.

Love the music, storytelling, world, combat...

I didn't really had a probably with the map exploration. You have a fast travel system. There's only few areas which are deep below and difficult to come back because the fast travel point isn't accessible easily. But this is on purpose to add to the oppressive atmosphere (Yes I speak about DeepNest).

After the geo recollection is very "Dark Souls" like. I see how it can be frustrating.

Maybe it's not for you. It's fine It's rather a demanding game.

 

[b0uncyfr0]

I enjoy it on and off. The difficulty was too much for me sometimes. Also the backtracking gets old quick.
The story was janky - its all over the place. I couldn't piece it together and gave up much earlier to focus on exploring and killing bugs.

I hope the second is a bit more focused.

 

[Exentryk]

I enjoyed it despite the annoying souls-like elements. The world was unique and immersive and that kept me going.

 

[Kupfer]

How did you manage to enjoy Hollow Knight?​

I didn't. Played for ~2 hours and gave up on it.

 

[Ev1L AuRoN]

Never finished the game, I actually love the game very much, but I find it frustrating to explore, the map doesn't help, I lost so many hours backtracking the game, it felt like wasted time.
The game is too big to navigate, and the map isn't very clear.

 

[Thief1987]

I didn't manage to enjoy it. It's mindbogglingly tedious, dull and laughably overrated game.

 

[brian0057]

Skill issue.
"Git gud", as the young ones say these days.

 

[roxya]

I didn't like that you "needed" to use a charm slot to see where you are on the map, and the game doesn't feel amazing at first but once you start to unlock fast travel locations and more combat abilities, it gets a lot better. Especially the basic dash, before that it feels quite stiff. Even better when you get double jump (quite a bit later unfortunately)

I was overly worried about losing geo, but before long you'll have more than you need, hardly worth worrying about

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

I seem to be one out of like ten who love this game but Axiom Verge 2 is a more recent Metroidvania that fired on all cylinders for me. Beat it three times already.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Several hours at a time. I love a good metroidvania. But I have no problem saying that HK is too much of a good thing.

One page without a "git gud" comment? I'm proud of GAF today.

 

[Shakka43]

Metroid figured out putting Save Stations right before each boss room 3 decades ago. It's so frustrating that so many modern Metroidvania developers can't follow this very basic rule all in the name of artificial difficulty and game length, gotta slap that "souls-like" tag at their games I guess.

 

[Big Baller]

If you dont like the genre thats too bad. Cant say Im hyped about Silksong tho.

 

[Dacvak]

Hollow Knight is easily one of the most annoying games to talk about online. For as incredible as it is, it has some serious flaws that people aren’t willing to acknowledge (at least on reddit). Instead, it’s praised as this “perfect game”, which worries me, because I want to make sure the devs address a lot of the issues of HK before Silksong comes out.

For example, it’s bafflingly fucking stupid that the game forces the player to waste a valuable ability slot for a player MAP MARKER. I have spatial memory issues (due to years of chemo) and I simply can not visually memorize the layout of a map, and so a player map marker is mandatory for me to even make my way through the game.

Charm slots should be used for gameplay enhancements, not QoL enhancements. It’s unreasonable that they lock features like magnetic coin collection and a map marker behind the charm system, since those benefits don’t change the difficulty of the game so much as the time you would otherwise have to waste drawing a map/collecting scattered coins.

Don’t get me wrong, Hollow Knight is one of my favorite games. But it has some really stupid flaws that it needs to iron out before Silksong. I swear to god if I have to waste another charm slot just so I can have a map marker, I probably just won’t play the game. Or maybe I’ll use a mod.

Sorry, rant over.

 

[ssringo]

I like the genre a lot and replay the ones I like frequently (Bloodstained last week and Dread this week up until Blasphemous 2). Tried Hollow Knight on at least two occasions and the game doesn't click for me. Might just be the art style or setting though. There's a couple other similar games that I also didn't enjoy.

It's in a small group of well regarded games that I simply don't get. Ori and Undertale for example.

 

[GymWolf]

I didn't, bailed out after a while.

Almost as overrated as botw.

 

[Psychostar]

Hollow Knight is in my top 10 favourite games for sure. It's a game I have played many times over and even tried speedrunning. It's a game I bought several times because I wanted to play it on different platforms as well as to gift to others.

That being said, when gifting to others I quickly learned that it is not for everyone. I've gifted this game to 3 people and all 3 were unable to get into it. The one other person who I recommended it to ended up putting it on his top 10 list too.

I do remember that before I first played the game, I watched a review that did talk about the start of the game being a little slow, and that the game kicks in around 4 hours of gameplay so I guess I was 'prepared' but that being said, I don't recall ever feeling put off when playing it. There was a certain charm to the game that kept me intrigued as I kept playing. I loved the character art and the backgrounds, the sounds all the npc's make. how each place felt like it belonged in the game in it's own way and how deep the game felt from a lore perspective as you progressed.

The difficulty felt just right and beating some of the endgame bosses felt incredible. When you mastered a fight you really felt like you were on fire. It's just generally fun to replay bosses too. Comparing how I would have handled a fight prior to today, the difference in skill definitely shows and brings with it a good feeling.

I personally really liked the charms system too. I liked the rewards for exploring and how I got to experiment with my kit as I progressed. I feel like it was done well, without ever being unnecessarily over complicated or cumbersome.

I think out of all of this, the best sequence I got to enjoy was something called the Path of Pain, it's a hidden area towards the end of the game which many might miss entirely, and it offers you one of the best platforming sections ever crafted in a video game. This section alone would lead me to replaying the game 2 more times over.

I don't know what to tell you - I guess you either like it or you don't. I've always enjoyed metroidvania style games. so this really clicked with me. We live in what feels like the golden age of gaming so if this game doesn't feel like a hit for you, definitely try something else and don't feel bad about missing this one.

An alternative game to this which you might enjoy more, which also plays a bit like a metroidvania but provides you more direction would be 'Ori and the blind forest' and I strongly recommend that and it's sequel. They are also wonderful games! I think the main difference between Ori and Hollow Knight is that Hollow Knight doesn't hold your hand much so you can easily get lost exploring, whereas Ori feels like a story to play through with a direction to go in all the time, taking away the time you would spend feeling lost or confused.

Have a nice day OP!

 

[K2D]

"How did you manage to enjoy Hollow Knight?"​

I stuck with because I knew it was my cup of tea and the artstyle and the mechanics clicked with me 1/3 of the way through the game.

 

[ChoosableOne]

UPDATE on my story!

Although the game was challenging for me at the beginning, I couldn't bring myself to quit and surpassed the 10-hour mark. This is the second game that was able to pull me back in repeatedly, despite being so frustrating(the first one was Demon's Souls). Once I upgraded my weapon, found more meaningful charms, and grasped the logic of exploration, letting go of this game is truly difficult. I can't wait to go home and continue from where I left off.

The beginning of the game is probably the toughest/boring part. The first hour was really good, but I got so irritated to the point of considering quitting until around the 5th or 6th hour. Right now, everything is progressing very well. I'm constantly discovering new things – new charms, new places, new enemies, new moves... The game has completely captivated me.

I'm sure they'll make this initial part more player-friendly in the next game. Otherwise, as we're seeing here, many people will give up after the first few hours, once again.

 

[BbMajor7th]

I never finished it, though I definitely got a good long way in. There's an awful lot to like about the game, but the design has a spitefulness to it that I can't get along with. It strips away all the basic functions of a game like this and then sells them back to you as rewards - once you've bought them, you realise it only ever reaches the baseline of most games like this and doesn't go much further. Most of the late-game upgrades (for which you'll pay through the nose) do little to change things up.

By then you'll be walking around with thousands of Geo in your pocket and nothing to spend it on. With nowhere to store it and nothing to do with it, you'll eventually lose it all and you won't even care. It's at that point you'll realise how little you're invested in the whole thing because while games like Dark Souls present a depressing world with nothing to hope for, Hollow Knight presents a depressing gameplay cycle with nothing to hope for. That's what made me put it down eventually: I got stuck on the

Spoiler

the second encounter with Hornet

and while I'm normally of a mind to persevere and beat a tough boss (it took me months to beat Sword Saint Ishin) with Hollow Knight, I didn't feel like there'd be much waiting on the other side.

 

[GrayFoxPL]

Play sotn instead.

Yeah. When I played Hollow Knight, I didn't understand all the praise it got. Not for me. But others enjoy it, so more power to them.

I'm more of Castlevania Symphony of the Night type. Maybe it comes down to age.