Hollow Knight

2022 hasn't done much so far for Zelda and Metroid, outside of two challenging updates for Metroid Dread. But this is the ideal time to check out some other games in the Action Adventure genre, where there are some real gems waiting for you. One of those gems is undoubtedly Hollow Knight, which is one of the most beautiful, challenging, and longest Metroidvania titles out there, but it also has a few elements that you would normally expect from a Zelda game, like villages with shops.

The title came out in early 2017 with several DLC updates to follow. The development of the DLC then led to a sequel, which was announced back in 2019 and will most likely come out next year. If this history sounds exactly the same as Breath of the Wild's, then that's because it is. The main difference is that we knew from the start what the sequel will be called: Silksong. That and the DLC updates were actually for free.

Hollow Knight and its upcoming sequel are the only major games by Team Cherry, a small indie studio from South Australia with only three developers. They were inspired by several NES classics, including Metroid and Zelda II - The Adventure of Link, and managed to create an instant classic of their own, where its hand-drawn art style and the smooth gameplay will stand the test of time. But let's take a deeper look at the experience...

The Depths of Hallownest

Labeled as a higher being, you descend as an unnamed knight into the lost kingdom of "Hallownest", a world of bugs and other insects, where many of them wear masks as their faces, including yourself. Some of them are friendly and you can talk to them, but the majority will be hostile. Slowly, but surely you will uncover the secrets about the kingdom and yourself by going deeper and deeper into the earth.

You can compare this to Super Metroid, where you start at the surface and then descend into the depths of Zebes. Early on in Hollow Knight you come by a monumental cocoon, where it's pretty clear that this thing has the same purpose as the statue in front of Tourian. But it's not clear at first what you need to do to open it, where it's part of the journey to find this out.

What also differentiates this from Super Metroid is the scale of the world, where it just feels massive in comparison. It also keeps expanding more and more from what you are initially expecting. You may remember what seemed like a secret in the corner of an already explored area and return there in anticipation of a hidden item or something like that, only to enter yet another large area. The game just keeps going, where it can easily take 30 hours or more to explore it all on your first run.

The progression of the game is almost entirely item-based, where it's quite linear in the beginning, but then starts to open up more and more. What makes this work is that there are usually two different ways into an area, which gives you a variety of options of where to go next with your current equipment. There are even items in the game that you can potentially skip, because of how it all comes together. It's quite interesting and makes every playthrough more unique, where the Metroid series could learn a thing or two here.

Sequence breaking is also possible, where the developers even left some intentional shortcuts, e.g. by bouncing off enemies to get to areas that would normally require the double jump. It's highly satisfying to experiment, which gives this game a lot of replay value, outside of doing the different achievements.

What's even more admirable is that Team Cherry is not afraid that the players might miss something. There are a ton of cleverly hidden areas, as well as a huge variety of optional bosses. Think about how many Metroid and Zelda games even have an optional boss fight to begin with. The bosses in the Palace of the Four Sword, the Hardhit Beetle from the Color Dungeon, Monk Maz Koshia, or Phantoon from Other M come to mind here, but these are rare exceptions and most of it only got added as additional content (though, the latter is the case for Hollow Knight as well). This game actually has more optional bosses than all Zelda and Metroid games combined.

For a long time Nintendo put great effort into designing their games in a way that won't you let miss anything major. Team Cherry on the other hand built a game that's full of secrets, where there is always something more behind the horizon and that something may as well be a new boss. Exploration is heavily rewarded in Hollow Knight, because you will often find more than just a chest full of money, though there is plenty of that as well.

A big part of the story is also told via the environment, so exploration isn't just about finding items and bosses. The game rarely has any cutscenes and certainly avoids to just blatantly tell you what's going on. You have find that out for yourself and put all the puzzle pieces together, where the lore of Hollow Knight is an entire topic for itself.

Stag Stations will make your way through Hallownest more convenient, where they are connected to each other via tunnels and can be used for fast travel. There are also benches as your typical Save Stations, but both are fairly scarce, so the game can get sometimes a bit exhausting when exploring new areas.

Maps are obtained from a cartographer, who you can find once per area, somewhat similar to Tingle in Majora's Mask. But unlike Tingle he will only give you a rough sketch and you will have to fill in the details yourself, where the knight does so whenever he rests on a bench, once you've obtained the quill.

 

Jump 'n' Slash

What makes Hollow Knight so good and addicting really is its combat and movement. You start the game with a single jump and a basic melee attack, where you will gradually unlock additional abilities. The execution is always kept very simple, but the resulting possibilities give this game a lot of depth, where Team Cherry shows how it's done.

The Metroid series has been struggling with this quite a bit, where the controls in Metroid Dread feel overloaded and unnecessarily convoluted at times. Like, you need to hold multiple buttons at once, while actions like Shinesparking require you to perform a series of different inputs. There is none of that in Hollow Knight. The Crystal Dash for example, which shoots you horizontally through the air until you hit something, is very similar to the Shinespark, but is simply performed by holding ZL while on the ground or while sliding down a wall.

And everything else is that simple as well, but also perfectly responsive. It already starts with jumping, where your jump height is intuitively linked to how long you hold down the button, like it should be, but you also have a high level of air control, letting you take corners. Progressing through the game will earn you a dash, a double jump, as well as wall jump and wall cling, where you can even effortlessly jump up on a single wall. But this is not just some neat trick, like it used to be in Super Metroid, it was made part of the exploration and even the combat.

While in the air you get to perform one dash and one extra jump, given that you have found the corresponding items. However, whenever you touch the ground, hold on to a wall, or bounce off an enemy or certain hazards, this resets and you get your jump and dash back. This allows for some very interesting platforming mechanics, where the game makes good use of them on certain ends, especially with the "pogo" move by swinging down with your nail.

Yes, you mainly fight with a nail, which is the weapon of choice for the bugs of Hallownest and works like a sword for the most part. So, unlike Metroid, this game is a lot more focused on close combat. The pogo is one of the most satisfying moves to pull off in this, where this is similar to the Down Thrust in Zelda II - The Adventure of Link, except that you have to keep swinging downwards in the right timing, you can't just hold the button.

Holding the nail button will charge nail arts, which release more powerful swings, including a spin attack. In addition, you will fight with spells, which is your primary way of attacking from a distance. There are three different spells, depending on the direction you're inputting before the cast, essentially like in the Super Smash Bros. games.

Spells require SOUL, which is mainly obtained from striking enemies. In the environment only some statues and certain rare objects will give you SOUL, so this is different from Death's Door, where you could refill your magic meter by destroying pots and alike. But this is not the only difference, because SOUL can also be used to slowly heal yourself by holding down the button. This renders you immobile and thus an easy target, but if you manage to find the right window of opportunity it can make the difference between life and death.

Whenever you get hit, the feedback is rather excessive, however. Rarely any game hits you this hard visually, where large black and white lightning effects will come out of both sides of you. Stronger hits even fill a good part of the screen with black effects. And the impact of the sound is quite strong as well. So, yeah, if you get hit in this game, it will let you know big time, where it's sometimes a bit distracting.

Your health is made out of masks, where you start with five, but will be able to expand this in typical Piece of Heart fashion via "Mask Shards". The containers work like in Tri Force Heroes, however, so there are no half or quarter masks of damage. It will always take whole masks, usually just the one, but heavy-hitting attacks can also cost two or more. But there isn't a lot of room for mistakes and healing yourself at the right time can be extremely valuable during a battle.

 

Over 160 Foes

And battle you will a lot, because Hollow Knight has a large variety of different enemies to offer. Each area has unique sets of enemies, so that things stay always interesting. Of course some enemies are technically just reskins of others, but for the most part you will keep facing new threats, where the enemies also offer very different mechanics. For example, your foes may split into autonomous pieces, spam projectiles, stomp around like crazy, and so on.

The real highlight, however, are the over 40 different bosses (with all the expansions), many of them optional, as already mentioned. In fact, in order to beat the game you have to roughly go through a third of them, which is more on the lines of your typical Metroid game. But there are special dream bosses that you can challenge (but don't have to), stronger versions of some of the previously beaten bosses, as well as various additional bosses that you will only find via exploration.

What all bosses have in common is that they can and have to be mastered. Similar to Metroid Dread, many of the bosses will prove to be fairly difficult at first, but you will be able to learn their patterns and there is always a way of dodging your enemies' attacks. The game can be very much overwhelming and demanding, where some of the most difficult bosses may take hours to master, but it's never really unfair. Victories in Hollow Knight are earned and it feels fantastic to do so thanks to how smooth and responsive everything plays.

Benched

If you die – and you will probably die a lot during your first playthrough – you will end up on the last bench and leave your "Shade" near the location where you have found your demise. Defeating the Shade will give you all your Geo back, the game's currency, but will also make your SOUL vessel whole again, which otherwise will be missing a third after a defeat.

So, this is somewhat similar to games like Dark Souls, where this feels needlessly punishing and may even trap you into going back to a place that just keeps killing you, because the battle is still too difficult for you personally, but you also don't want to give up on your Geo. In some cases the Shade will wait for you in a safe spot, but not always.

And you will also quickly miss something like the checkpoint system in modern Metroid games, which instantly lets you retry a boss. Instead, you will have to go through the road of "bench to boss" again and again, where the game loves to punish you with repetition, especially with some of the tougher challenges, which in return can lead to some frustration.

However, it is often part of the challenge in a very traditional video game sense and Hollow Knight miraculously manages to keep up your motivation despite all of its rather archaic practices. Often you will be able to open up shortcuts to get back to where you need to be. Later on you will find the Dreamgate ability to place your own warp points. And most of the very difficult bosses take place inside dream worlds, where you don't really die, so you can instantly try again on a failure. The game knows where it needs to offer some concessions to keep you going.

Collect and Shop

If you don't want to die, collecting Mask Shards to increase your health is usually a good idea. They are some of the few things that you will collect during your adventures by finding hidden rooms. It wouldn't be a good Action Adventure without something like that, but unlike Metroid it doesn't send you on a block-based hunt for tiny secrets. Usually, there are walls or floors that can be broken, which sounds simple and a little too obvious at first, but is often quite clever and fun to find.

The most common thing to discover are Grubs imprisoned in glass jars, where early on you will meet the Grubfather looking for them to return. Hee will then reward you with Geo and other useful items. As already mentioned, "Geo" is the game's currency and will be dropped by most enemies, but can also be gotten from ore depots. In addition, there are relics found all over the world, which can be sold for some higher amounts. The advantage of those are that they are not lost on a death, so you can just keep them in your inventory until you truly need the money.

And there is quite a lot of need for money in the early game, where you can buy maps, markers for your maps, useful equipment, and more. At first it will feel like you can never have too much money, but this will change later in the game, once you've purchased all the important items. But that's something all too familiar to Zelda fans.

You can compare this to the Mabe Village Shop in Link's Awakening or Beedle's Shop in Skyward Sword, where there are lots of useful items, which you want to have right away, but can't afford. You always have the option to grind for them, but you get enough Geo on your travels, so that it's fun just to explore and return to the shops whenever you can buy something good.

Most of the secrets in the game world will give you ore deposits for money or items that can be sold. Even the Grubs that you're rescuing just earn you more Geo in the end, so most of what you do in the sidelines is for money. Otherwise there are the already mentioned Mask Shards to collect, as well as Vessel Fragments for more SOUL, Pale Ores to upgrade your nail, keys to get access to certain areas, and – by far the most interesting – Charms.

Charmed

Charms give a variety of perks and can be equipped whenever you are resting on a bench. You can compare them to the Magic Rings from Oracle of Ages & Seasons, but you can actually equip more than just one, where it feels more similar to the Adventure Pouch in Skyward Sword and its Medals. The latter is also a better comparison, because you will usually have to think about what you want to bring on your next journey, since you can't swap your Charms in the middle of a battle.

But the Charms are a whole lot more interesting. There are over 40 of them in total and they offer a huge variety of different abilities, bonuses, or boosts. They can increase the speed, damage, and range of your nail. They can give you more SOUL in different ways and make your spells much more powerful. They can summon different creatures to aid, let you heal faster, obtain more Geo, enhance your ability, and more. There are even Zelda-style nail beams at full health.

There are so many good things to choose from here that you will always have a hard time to decide what to pick. You start with three Charm Notches in total, which can be upgraded to eleven as another thing to collect. Charms will use up a different number of notches depending on how powerful they are. The Quick Slash ability, which is insanely good, for example takes three notches. Some of the Charms seem unbalanced and cost way more than what they are worth, but for the most part it got put together quite smartly, so that you really have to think about your choices here.

And that makes for interesting gameplay options, because every player can find a very unique style based on their Charms. You can go with brute nail strength, you can focus on spells, or you can try a gimmicky summoning set. Charms can have synergies, where combined they can give you additional perks. For example, there is the Spore Shroom, which creates a poisonous cloud while healing, and the Defender's Crest, which adds a damaging stink cloud around the knight. Combine the two to make the poison cloud larger and slightly deadlier.

It's a lot of fun to experiment with different combinations and see what they might can achieve. Of course in the end you will most likely just settle for something that makes your nail better, because this will always be your most important weapon. It's similar to how you will just stick to the Red, Blue, or Green Ring in Oracle of Ages & Seasons. But it's still a lot more interesting than the Magic Rings were in the Oracle games.

The only bigger problem with the Charms is that certain behaviors that you would take for granted in an Action Adventure of this caliber are locked behind them. Hollow Knight really doesn't give you anything for free, where it starts with the fact that you can't see your position on the map by default. For experienced players this may not be an issue, because they know the world of Hallownest already in and out, but for newcomers this will be heavily confusing. And then they will need to equip the Wayward Compass Charm in order to see where they are. It only costs one notch, but whenever you are exploring this is one notch that could be used for something helpful in combat instead.

Then there's Steady Body. When you first play Hollow Knight you will immediately notice how striking enemies will make you recoil. This can be especially troublesome when in the air or on the edge of a platform and honestly takes quite some getting used to. Don't want that annoying behavior? Equip Steady Body! It's the single most useful Charm in the game, since it lets you put a lot more pressure on your enemies, and it only costs one notch, but that's still one notch that will be blocked for 95% of the time, simply because the default fighting behavior is so awkward without Steady Body.

Both the Wayward Compass and Steady Body can be purchased early in the game from shops, so it's not something that you may miss by any chance. But in both cases the player is simply off worse than you would normally be in a game like this and then needs these Charms to compensate... So, this leaves a bit of a sour taste, but at the same experienced players may take these drawbacks in order to equip something more useful for them, so it's still interesting.

Pure Melancholy

Before we get to the end, let's talk about the general feel of the game. And to make one thing clear: despite its cute visuals, Hollow Knight is not a happy game. It may not be the level of "misery porn" you get from FromSoftware, but it's certainly not the feel-good experience that you get from your typical Zelda.

The world of Hallownest has a distinct sadness to it, where you will come to grasp what has happened to the kingdom and what your role in all this is. Most of the people you meet are also tragic characters. There is the saying of "no good deed goes unpunished", where Hollow Knight really lives that out and often makes you question your choices. Why are you there? What are you doing? Should you really help that person over there?

Sometimes the things are exactly what they seem to be, sometimes they are quite the opposite. You can never be sure and for a small world of bugs Hallownest certainly feels very alive and many-faceted. It's an interesting journey, but one that will leave you a little empty inside at the end. But this is what makes Hollow Knight so refreshing and an unforgettable experience, similar to how Majora's Mask will always be remembered for its melancholic and dark tone.

And the music by Christopher Larkin really nails it. It's one of the most beautiful video game soundtracks out there with some very memorable tracks, like Greenpath or the City of Tears, and motivating boss themes, like Hornet's. Or the use of its rather sad main theme, especially in the finale, is absolutely fantastic. It truly makes sure that the experience sticks with you.

 

Endless Challenge

You've collected all Heart Containers or Energy Tanks, got the best weapons, breezed through the final boss, watched the credits... and that's it, you're done with whatever Zelda or Metroid game you've been playing. Sometimes there is an extra mile, like a boss rush or a 2nd Quest mode, but for the most part these type of Action Adventure games usually end right when you got the strongest and got really good at them.

Not so with Hollow Knight. Team Cherry really did their all to offer entertainment to those who are seeking a challenge. And when you first beat the game, you will instantly notice that this is just the beginning and not just because the normal ending may seem a little off. The endgame of Hollow Knight is huge and there is so much to do here that it can easily double, triple, or even quadruple the play time, depending on your goals.

Other than the many additional bosses, where some of them are fairly difficult, there is the Colosseum of Fools for fighting waves after waves of enemies. Then there is an entire area dedicated to tricky platforming, which includes the infamous "Path of Pain", a Kaizo-like challenge. The real final boss of the game is a big challenge of its own, which can take hours to defeat for the first time. And if you still haven't had enough, the game introduces "Godhome" to battle it out against all bosses, both individually and in different boss rushes.

There is also the "Steel Soul Mode", where will have to go through the game without dying even once. The game doesn't have a death counter, but for those who want to prove that they could do it with a shiny "000", there is Steel Soul Mode. Plus, there are achievements based on speed-running, and more.

For a completionist this game is a nightmare and may have a couple of checkboxes that will forever stay unchecked. But... it's so much fun to play that you will be up for the challenge. Once you get to the point where the ludicrous Path of Pain even becomes available, you will already have mastered the platforming of this game on a level where you're looking for something more. Or once you got good at defeating certain bosses, you may be looking for something more. And Team Cherry gives you more. And then some.

For a singleplayer-only game (at least without mods) Hollow Knight is truly masterful with a very high skill ceiling and can be taken seriously on the same level as most competitive games. It even has started a variety of Youtube careers based just on this single game. If you're up for it, Hollow Knight can entertain you for multiple months. And the game always manages to keep your motivation up, no matter how difficult it may get.

But most of the endgame challenges were added via the various DLC updates, where we will look at all of these separately...

Conclusion

If this wasn't made clear by the review yet: if you're a fan of Action Adventures like Zelda and Metroid, then Hollow Knight is an absolute must-play and might as well be the best of what the Metroidvania genre has to offer. It's a modern classic, which will lure you right in with its charming style and smooth gameplay, while it will keep you hooked for a long time with a variety of masterful challenges.

Needless to say that this blog will follow Team Cherry's future projects, starting with the long-awaited Hollow Knight: Silksong. But before that we will dive even deeper into Hollow Knight, starting with its four major expansions. Stay tuned!