Hollow Knight is a long game. Therefore, it needs a long review. For your extreme convenience, I have organized this review into three parts, the overview, the play through, and the conclusion. You can access them below.
By the way THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS, so if you don't want to know what happens in the game don't read this review.
The Overview
Overall, this game is pretty awesome. It comes free with Xbox Game Pass, it has a number of additions, it runs smoothly, and the graphics are crisp and unique. Not to mention the music, which is quite satisfying and certainly helps build the "feel" that the game has.
The game is expertly designed, and the game reflect the title very well, it is just that, hollow. Now, the world isn't hollow. It's got many interesting things to explore and wack (yes, this is one of those games where you can wack almost anything), but the only life is few and far in-between. After an hour and a half of gameplay, I had only come across 4 beings that weren't bugs.
But the overall feeling that the game brings, that's full of sorrow and emptiness. The colors are grey and dead, to the point where the game is almost black and white. The sounds are empty and have a lot of echo to them. Most of the bugs don't even seem to have something in their head, they just go back and forth, back and forth, until you come and slay them for coins.
The movement feels good. I had a hard time figuring out that you had to hold the jump button instead of just being able to press it, so for a few minutes there I wasn't able to progress due to my lack of understanding the controls. Overall, the movement is crisp and sharp, as I'm able to make quick turns easily.
The whole point of the game was - a little tough to understand. The cut scenes at the beginning were a little hard to tie together, the most I could make of it was: "there is a giant orange-eyed thing waking up and a tiny guy with a skull on his head fell into a ditch."
Needless to say, I was I little confused. But that wasn't the end of it. As I got the map, and I walked into the caves, I thought that this might be a side quest. My theory was solidified more solidly when I bought the map from the cartographer husband, and I saw just how small the caves really were. So I tried to continue above ground but I couldn't. I spent like an hour figuring out that the map I had bought wasn't actually complete and that I needed to upgrade it so it would show more stuff. By then I had pretty much figured out what was going on.
The Playthrough
Having created a new game on the Xbox series S, I watched through the cut scenes, and got rather confused by the man with the skull helmet. After the cut scenes ended, I took control of the man with the skull helmet and moved around with the left joystick. I quickly realized that you could attack with the X button, I continued to the right of the starting point. I also noticed and fell in love with the parallax scrolling effect, which gives the game more depth.
After coming to the first jump and trying it, I realized that I would never make it, because I had not known you had to hold the jump button, you couldn't just press it like you usually did in other games. Other than me wasting 5 minutes of my life trying to make that jump because the game didn't tell me I had to hold it, this is an awesome mechanic that really lets you have more control over your character.
I easily destroyed the enemies waiting for me until I got out of the entry area and made my way into the town. I explored a bit, sat on the bench to heal, and made my way into all of the houses. It was here that I encountered the first NPC in the game. I talked to him, and was startled by the voice over mumbling that accompanied his speech. It wasn't bad... just a little... unsettling. After that I made my way into the crossroads. I started whacking everything I could see and made my way to the right of where I fell down.
After passing through a few chambers I came across the giant bug head that you can go into. I went into it, and talked to the guy staring at the giant egg-ish thing. After realizing that this room wasn't important and was really just a waste of space, I was thankful for the short loading times. Another game that I was recently playing, Sneaky Sasquatch from Apple Arcade, has tremendously long loading times of almost 2 seconds for each area I go into. Granted, I was playing on an i-phone and I'm playing Hollow knight on an X-box series S, but never the less, I was extremely thankful for the short loading times.
Continuing my adventure, I made my way into the boss fight. It was here where I figured out what happens when you die. Turns out the bosses are really strong. But I now knew that benches act like checkpoints, you spawn there when you die. I continued exploring for while after that, and eventually came across the Cartographer NPC. I bought the map from him, and proceeded to adventure around. As I have explained in the Overview, I was rather confused by how small the map was, but that didn't stop me!
After another 45 minutes of wandering about, I had accomplished some stuff, such as rescuing a worm-thing and finding a steaming spring underground. I then proceeded to make my way up to the surface, where I found out that the map shop had opened! I should really read NPC text more carefully! I quickly realized that the shop was where I had been supposed to go for some time now, so I set about getting enough money to buy all the items on the map. But I accidentally got into a boss fight, losing all my money and really putting me down in the dumps.
Following me dying, I tried again. Except I was a little less greedy, and went for the cheapest items first, and then the more expensive ones. After 45 minutes of grinding, I had gotten myself the Quill and the Wayward compass. After achieving these two items, I killed the boss that had lost me all of my money before, and rescued a shopkeeper, who will sell me a number of ridiculously overpriced items.
After that, I collected 50 coins and unlocked the fast travel system. I thought the riding on bugs idea was rather clever, and thoroughly enjoyed the the realization that there were many more places to explore on the map besides the caves. I couldn't use the fast travel system to get to the other places, though, so I went exploring, trying to find a way into the depths of the cave. Sadly, I failed to do so. After giving it some thought, though, I concluded that the giant boss sign on the middle of the map must be where the game wanted me to go. So, using my map and Wayward compass, I made my way towards the boss.
The boss was divided into different parts. If you did enough damage in the part, then you can progress to the next part. The boss fight was really hard, and I spent nearly an hour doing it over and over again. Finally, I beat the boss, and completed my play through. There was still more stuff to do in the game, (much more stuff), but I had already spent 6+ hours playing this game, and didn't feel like beating the entire thing so I decided to only do the first bit.
The Conclusion
In conclusion, I really enjoyed playing Hollow knight. It was a fascinating platformer, and although it's story was a little confusing, the gameplay and art really made up for that. I would highly recommend playing this game, especially if you have gamepass for Xbox and can get it for free.
Great job to Team Cherry on this game, if they're reading this, they should know that they really outdid themselves with this game. It was really fun to play and review. Thank you Team Cherry for this experience!
If you would like to play this game, you can download it on Steam for 15 dollars USD, buy it on XBox for 15 USD or get it with the GamePass, get it on Nintendo Switch, get it on PS4, buy on Gog.com, or get it on Humble Store. You can also purchase 4 expansion passes: Hidden Dreams, The Grim Troupe, Life Blood, and God Master.
You can also play a game similar to this on Scratch here. This is nowhere close to the actual game, and is a lot shorter than the actual game, but still has the music and similar art styles to the game. It even incorporates the same jumping mechanic.
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