Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight was one of those games that people kept talking about for a very long time. I guess there was a kickstarter project for the game back in 2014. It was released in Feb 2017. There were 4 free DLCs developed for the game the past couple years. "Godmaster" DLC was the last one developed in August 2018. They still plan to develop one last paid-DLC with another playable character. The game still advertises for $15. During the month of October, it was marked down to $10. There sure was a lot of content for such a little game.

The good news of the game is that most of the content is available for you to explore as part of your leisure. Every now and then you will see an area that you just can't reach. That is when you add a little marker (included in the "Lifeblood" DLC) to your map and come back to it when you find the ability or key to continue. Though it will seem like money is tight in the beginning, there will be plenty of opportunities to stockpile or even retrieve lost "geo". The game does a wonderful job making you think there are only a few areas when it really has about 15 zones to explore. This doesn't count the various "dream" zones.

The lore is rather consistent, for the most part. Most of the time you will have to piece together the story of the game from talking to npcs and reading the various inscription riddles. One major drawback of the npcs is that most of the additional dialogue is highly situational. If you talk to a captain while wearing a king's charm, he might tell you about the previous king. If you don't meet a certain little bug in that one spot in the middle of nowhere first, you might not see them later on. If you don't visit one little miner, you might miss them gradually going insane. Gaining one ability before others might have you skip certain events. In my run-through, killing a certain boss initiated an event before even learning about what caused it from another area. Let us not forget about using the "dream nail" to reveal what the bugs are thinking about. I guess if you are really curious, you can always check out the wiki for stuff, like all the spots you can find the traveling companion.

I did enjoy all the various bosses. In fact, you can revisit them in the new "challenge-mode" Godmaster DLC. I did manage to complete the game with 100% completion (112% possible). My problem was the fact I didn't find how to access Grimm Troupe, Godhome, or even the "True" Ending without looking it up. And that is kind of a bummer. Even after finding out about the additional content, I found some of the challenges went beyond any sort of patience I might have had - I'm looking at you Nightmare King Grimm and Delicate Flower.

Summary: For $10, Hollow Knight far exceeded my expectations. The mechanics are "nailed" down, the bosses are interesting, the encounters are fair, and the secrets are exciting to find. The story might be a bit on the scary/depressing side near the end but gives a good feeling of accomplishment once finished. It took me 30 hours to complete and that means it is good.

 

11-7-2018