“Slog” really is the perfect word for Hollow Knight. Thankfully you only have to buy the map icons once for each type of thing, but like everything else in Hollow Knight, it grounds the proceedings into a monotonous slog that feels more like a series of busy-work for the sake of busy-work chores rather than some kind of epic quest. It’d be like if Sean Bean was giving his “one doesn’t simply walk into Mordor” speech when suddenly a traveling salesman walks by and says “oh actually, you do. In theory that means the guy making the map is better at adventuring than the hero is, since he’s ahead of you and apparently making progress without a hitch. You have to locate this person in each different section of the game who will sell it to you and then separately buy from his wife the ability to see the things on the map that you’ve already passed by. The map is sprawling, but you don’t get it all at once. I was like “what is this super magical item they keep hyping that will completely change how I feel about this pretentious piece of shit?” A wall jump? A FUCKING WALL JUMP!? You mean that thing that’s been in games for thirty fucking years?Įvery aspect of the design is focused on maintaining the slow pace. Why? How is that in keeping true to the atmosphere? What about applying a badge to your armor requires the specific act of sitting on a park bench? Maybe I’m spoiled by games that thrive on making the player feel like they’re getting stronger as the adventure unfolds, but I just felt like Hollow Knight deliberately kept me in purgatory.įans built this up acquiring this to me so much. Oh, and you can only switch between the badges at the save points. In that time I also added only one single hit point to the initial five you start with, and one “notch” (giving me four total) to apply “badges” which provide things like showing where the fuck you are on the map. I didn’t get the ability to wall-jump until over ten hours into the game, and I didn’t get my first upgrade to my standard weapon until eleven hours in. Upgrades take so long to unlock that by time you get them, it’s no longer an exciting development. I’m curious if they mistook “bleak” for “slow”. If you need to make the gameplay less fun to make things feel bleak, you’re doing it wrong. See though, I’ve always felt the graphics and character design should be the primary thing that sets the mood. And then chose the not fun way because that would be bold and dark. As if the developer was given an option for every aspect: the fun way and the not fun way. The thing I take issue with for Hollow Knight is how it seems to be made specifically to be less fun than it can be. Let’s strip out all the (insanely gorgeous) art and (not really all that clever) writing and talk about the thing that should matter most in a game: the gameplay. When we eventually build a Klay Thompson statue outside the Chase Center, I want him to be posed like he is in that meme. What can I say? When you sit on the bench to save, it kept making me think of that Klay Thompson meme. I laughed far more at making this than anyone in their right mind should have. And not just in a “not for me” type of way. I didn’t want to be that person at the party.īut I am yet again. This wasn’t Press X to Not Die, which cost a couple of bucks and I could send it to friends as a sadistic joke. And besides, I bought Hollow Knight three times: twice for me (first on Steam, then on Xbox One), and once for my friend William. If you’re a moderately popular and influential critic and you’re not enjoying an overwhelmingly popular indie darling, fans of the game will believe the only rational explanation is you’re intentionally not liking it for the sake of being different. Taking that a step further, you especially don’t want to be that person because some assholes will swear you’re only not having fun for the sake of being contrarian. During my Cuphead re-review, I noted that nobody wants to be the one person not having fun at a party.
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