Hollow Knight (2017)

So, a sincere question for the people who has already played this: will I get some sort of plot at any point?

The game looks gorgeous and it's not too bad to play, but I'm finding very hard to get interested on it when I have zero reason or explanation of what am I doing or why am I doing it beyond "look, an underground thing, stab everything."

I can finally go back to normal life! I beat the Nightmare King Grimm today. Long story short, I fought him about 100 times (probably not an exaggeration). I could have beat him in maybe half that time had I realized that I had enough time to heal in between phases. I know this sounds really stupid to say considering how many times I fought him, but he's not that hard, it's just super easy to make a dumb mistake and get hit 2 or 3 times real quick and lose focus. If you don't think you can heal, and can only get hit 4 times, you're going to die.

Now I'll get back to those new shelf pages I'm building (look here!!!!)

This game is such a rollercoaster between having a great time and being super frustrated...

Tough platforming segments packed with spikes or water or flying enemies had me really annoyed. The entire Soul Sanctum area is a nightmare in terms of difficulty spike and almost made me just want to quit the game. Trying to simply explore around for upgrades or visit shops to make everything easier has been pretty tedious. The area I’m deep into now I can barely see in some of the rooms—apparently you can get a lamp but how was I supposed to know that? And now it’s a pain for me to get all the way back out...

Nonetheless, I am really impressed with some aspects. The boss fight Mantis Lords was a lot of fun, exactly what I want out of the game. The City of Tears area looked amazing, with a cool rainy atmosphere that felt nice to zip around after spending most of the game in cave-like areas. The gameplay at the start is so restrictive but by the time you get the dash and wall jump, and the longer sword, it feels so much better. The general way that level progression works is similar to Bloodborne’s heavy shortcut focus and makes it paced well—though a couple areas have been a little annoying.

I saw some sentiment that this game is maybe too long. I am at 8 or 9 hours in and it feels like I’ve barely scratched the surface... I would love to be like halfway through right now but it seems more like not even 1/3. Crazy. Anyway it’s mostly fun, I’ll definitely keep at it next week.

Finally decided to give this a try after my boss prodding me to play it for the longest time. I'm about an hour with a couple of bosses beaten and having found but not beaten a third boss through jumping up some spikes with my nail (Mawlek, I think). Not sure how I feel about the game so far, to be honest.

I generally like faster paced games, more bombastic games over more methodical when it comes to action and/or adventure games. I'd much rather play Megaman X than Megaman, and I'd much rather play something by Platinum Games than something by From Soft. This feels decidedly more on the Megaman/From Soft side of the spectrum.

More specifically, I'm a little annoyed by having to buy all of the markers for the map individually. I really didn't like that Mawlek's counter attack acid/blood/whatever was the same color as normal enemy blood. Enemy design so far has been boring, but it's early, so that's to be expected. I'm a bit worried about the death mechanics and retracing my steps being an annoyance. Movement and combat is a bit slow for my tastes overall, as alluded to above.

I do like being able to attack in 4 directions with the nail and being able to use it for movement. That's cool.

Anyway, I'm mainly just writing down early thoughts to see if they seem silly as I get further in or not. Given all the praise for the game and that I like talking video games with my boss, I'll give it a few hours to grab me.