Hollow Knight Review

Hollow Knight is a 2017 Metroidvania video game developed and published by an independent developer, Team Cherry. Now I’ll be honest here and admit that this game was completely off my radar till now. 

I’m not saying it wasn’t worth my time but it was an eventful time for me. I was fresh out of college, finding a new place to live, starting a new job, getting married, and much more. Anyway you get it, I had a lot on my plate, and my time for playing games was stretched thin. 

Lately, I’ve been playing more challenging games, and that is how I found Hollow Knight. As the saying goes “Better late than never”. 

Gameplay 

The main protagonist of the Hollow Knight is a bug-like creature named “The Knight”. He wields a sword-like weapon that is called a Nail and you get to explore an underground place called the Hallownest. 

It’s a place filled with all kinds of structures and other insect-like creatures. Some of them are friendly and some of them aren’t so much. Those unfriendly ones can be divided into two categories: regular and bosses. 

Regular ones are spread all across the map and usually are easy to deal with but they’re known to mess with you when you least need it. When it comes to bosses, that’s where the challenging part of the game starts. 

The first couple of them were hard to beat but no major setbacks. The one that gave me the most trouble is Soul Master. He almost got me to the point of giving up on the game. And before you go and say “Oh you’re just a sore loser”, let me explain myself. 

I had no problems with a boss being hard, I don’t mind losing. However, what bothered me is what comes after. The game puts you back to the last save point aka the last bench you sat on. This means you gotta find your way to the boss again and hope you don’t lose again. After a dozen times of losing, it kinda takes its toll on you. But I’m happy to report that I prevailed. 

After beating the Soul Master, the rest of the bosses I fought along the way weren’t that challenging. Mostly because I was trying to avoid that wretched journey back to bosses. So I was very cautious, tried to take things slowly and memorize patterns, to the best of my abilities. And suddenly I found myself enjoying the game even more.

Graphics

I’m always amazed by the beauty of games like this one. They are working with a small team, usually it’s 3 or 4 of them and they do such an amazing job. I would even dare to say it’s better looking than some high AAA games with enormous budgets. All of that beauty mixed with amazing sounds from the game and you get yourselves an experience that is worth way more than what you paid for the game. 

Final words

Hollow Knight is definitely going on my list of favorite games. I had a blast playing it and maybe in the future, I could consider doing some kind of speed run. I know I don’t stand a chance of beating any records but it could be fun. But that would require enormous preparation and a lot of practice on my part but who knows, maybe one day. In the meantime, check out my other game reviews.

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