Yeah, I will say that I think some of your complaints are pluses for me. The different areas in the game all have different color schemes. Yeah, they’re all dark and moody, but some can still be colorful. But they’re definitely all very unique and fitting to the premise of the location. And I can see how the dialogue is vague, but what it results in is a game that’s painted like a watercolor wash, not a sharp neoclassical portrait. It doesn’t tell a story as much as paints a place and a mood. I can definitely see that that’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I think if nothing else it’s very deliberate and well-executed for what it’s trying to do.
The times when they had benches far away from bosses just made me bonkers because I think it’s such an easy problem to solve. I hated working my way up to Soul Master as well. And it took me at least half a dozen tries with him–he’s tough. But I recall the fights themselves also being quite a bit of fun (unlike one of the bosses in the mines). There’s so much great stuff in that game, though, it would be a shame to quit now!
I, on the other hand, have no idea how to beat the final boss, so that’s where I’ve left the game.
And, of course, three attempts after my complaint, I took him down. His patterns were really throwing me off and I just kept falling for his fake-outs. That, plus the run up was a recipe for frustration. But now I’ve got a new traversal ability, and I’m already excited to go through the maps again looking for opportunities to use it and find where I should go next.
Hopefully, wherever that is, there are fewer teleporting enemies.
Despite experiencing a very annoying glitch, I have been enjoying my time with this game. I like its atmosphere very much. The one part of the game I am sad about is that their jump mechanic (arguably one of the toughest part of games to get right) is totally over the place.
I could live with that, excepting I am in a part where the game pays an awkward homage to Mario and such. This is terrible.
At least there aren’t instadeaths, but it is so sad to see such a brilliant overall design and all the interesting ideas of the game marred by something as essential as one of the basic controls.
Other folks took issue with the jumping but I had no problems with it. It felt very finely tuned to me! There was one place that constantly frustrated me, but that was a level design issue and it was really a problem with the dash (dashing between two platforms with spikes above and below so you couldn’t jump… and I kept coming up short of the edge of the other platform and falling).
Well this game is fantastic, I’m completely surprised by it. I think my biggest shock is it’s size, I assumed it would be a handful of zones each with a boss and take around six hours. I’m twenty hours into this thing and am no where near the end, it’s huge!
It does have some frustrating stuff. But every time I’m getting tired of it, I find a new area to explore or something new to do.
Happy you are enjoying it, I need to get back to it, I’m up to the metal ball bosses.
It may be fantastic, but I hate this game.
All the bosses in this game wreck me. I think I’ve only beat three of them so far, and there’s a ridiculous number in here. The Mantis Lords was a fun one, but the Soul Master made me cry.
Related to people confusing Shovel Knight and Hollow Knight, I just realised I’ve been confusing Salt and Sanctuary with Hollow Knight this whole time. How do those two compare?
Note to self: name next project The Knight’s Sanctuary at Salt Hollow.
Salt and sanctuary didn’t click with me, much prefer hollow Knight
Same here. If Hollow Knight had a save system similar to Ori and the Blind Forest, it would be my favorite MetroidSoulslikeVania by far.
Wait, Ori and the Blind Forest is another one of these things? I had no idea there was so many. How does it’s save system work? And what else makes it interesting?
Ori and the Blind Forest is more of a platformer than a Metroidvania, but it’s amazing. As for the save system: you usually save at save points. You can save anywhere if you want, but you must use at least part of the energy you have for special moves, so there’s a risk/reward system in place to prevent you from save-scumming. It works really well, and I appreciate the ability to save anywhere when I feel I need to.
I was enjoying Hollow Knight a great deal, but its save system is not exactly friendly for me. Looking for benches to save can be tiring and time consuming, and sometimes I need to save pronto, and HK doesn’t let me.
I’m a little more on the action side so I preferred Salt and Sanctuary over Hollow Knight. I’ve been able to resist Ori so far!
I do wish you could exit Hollow Knight, and when you came back the complete game state was preserved.
Frankly, none of the other Metroidvanias released in the recent years come close to what Hollow Knight is offering in my opinion. It is one special game.
I don’t think you’re wrong. I just wish it had a better save system.
I wish I had known you could cheap it, back when in-game finances were an issue and when my ghost got teleported some odd places!