Andrew Bringhurst

The entire game lacks a good pacing for those who just want something to play. If you want something that you can sit down and have fun with, you’ll have to go somewhere else and play a different game. The entire play through just felt like I was fighting the game and it wasn’t pleasant. Games like Dark Souls do a good job of rewarding the player for doing incredibly hard task, but only if the player is skilled and resourceful. Hollow Knight has some incredible scenery and an amazing sound track, don’t get me wrong, but it all feels a little repetitive after a while. I found myself not wanted to play it the next time I did and I wasn’t having fun. Hollow Knight has a few items and enhancements in the game that can assist the player, but a large number of them are practically useless in their nature. They’re only used once or twice in very specific situations and are thrown away immediately as soon as the player gets a hold of some specific enhancements. Then, the player will continue to use those same enhancements throughout the rest of the game, casting aside almost every other one they get from that point on. The lore goes deep, but only players that invest themselves incredibly into the lore will ever get close to the surface of the lore. The fan base practically praises this game for being almost a theatrical experience and having a character that you have to read the lore about to understand, but that’s a bit of a problem. The character has lore, but no emotion. There’s not even any significant things about the character. That’s kind of the point, but I mean it. The character is basically nothing. He’s hollow, but in an objectively bad way that hurts the game as well. The game also praises itself for being difficult and sort of kicks you while you’re down, but it’s not in a fun way. Games like Spelunky do a great job of being difficult, but only because it’s always the players fault for dying. I’ll die hundreds of times to horribly RNG in hollow knight before I just put down the controller. Learning boss fights is incredibly annoying and without looking them up, expect to fight some of the more tough bosses for a few hours and maybe a few days (for the untrained players). The final boss was kind of cliche and was just absolutely not worth it and the true final boss just doesn’t feel rewarding to kill. It takes someone days upon weeks to reach that point and it’s timed by absolutely trash RNG through the final experiences and the ending isn’t very satisfying. While the game has some good combat mechanics and sounds great while looking great, it just lacks other important key elements. It’s just a bit over hyped in my opinion.