Review:
I am, perhaps, more mixed on Hollow Knight than most. Hollow Knight is, in many ways, a masterpiece, don't get me wrong. Its atmosphere is great, its music is spectacular, its a beautiful game, its lore is super intricate and interesting. It has gotten a reputation as one of the greatest games of all time and I believe, objectively speaking, that reputation is more than deserved. But I also think the early game is incredibly rough, the difficulty often seems like, rather than naturally curving, it starts as an insurmountable cliff and then plateaus out once you climb it. There are too many design decisions that I am not super fond of that make this game lose points with me as well. The reliance on the geography being hostile in a game where death is a high consequence is something I'm not fond of, I felt a lot like I had to play the floor is lava in the early game so I didn't die. There are a couple points where I think the signposting for what the player has the ability to do is pretty poor. And the way this game handles its maps? Awful. I hated it throughout my playthrough. But after 8 hours I really found myself enjoying this game and slowly grew to both respect and really like it. There's genuinely a lot to love about Hollow Knight, it's just kind of annoying to get to those parts. 8.3/10
Diary:
12/16/25
This playthrough was a long time coming. I've been talking to friends about eventually playing Hollow Knight since, like 2019. Back then I thought I was going to be a game collector, bought fully into the "physical media is imperative for game preservation" stuff. Which is ridiculous in hindsight, I wasn't going to be uploading ROM files or whatever to do actual worthwhile preservation work, I was just sitting on my hoard like a dragon. I digress, my playthrough of Hollow Knight was thus put on hold until I could find a physical copy. Then the pandemic hit, I couldn't afford new games anyways, so Hollow Knight was perpetually put on the backburner until I could either afford a copy or it was given away for free. I sort of got the latter, as Hollow Knight was included in my Amazon Prime subscription through Luna! What a pendulum swing this is, in 6 short years I've gone from "forever physical" to "game streaming". Unfortunately this does mean I kind of have to marathon it, as its only actually available until the 4th of January. RIP me. But I think playing it at all is more important, you know?
I adore the atmosphere so far. I've really grown an appreciation for the Soulslike "dark fantasy" stuff in recent years, I was kind of a hater for so many years but now I love it. One of my favorite games of 2025, ENDER Lilies, really won me over with it. Hollow Knight is very serene and melancholic, a world lost to time whose labyrinthian halls are untouched by the world outside of them. But it's also twisted, impure. Like something horrible is around every turn, some entity awaiting you just out of sight. It's beautiful and terrifying all at once. The music helps it a lot too, being very ethereal and atmospheric, establishing a find mood but not being distracting. It's super well done, especially since like Hollow Knight kind of invented this language for Metroidvanias. The idea of combining the dark, atmospheric, environmental storytelling was, if not invented, at least pioneered by Hollow Knight, and it's amazing how good it is out the gate.
I also love the art style for Hollow Knight. These very minimalist sprites are super cute and contrast the very dark atmosphere very well. It's such a beautiful little game. To be honest, I'm finding myself underestimating a lot of enemies because of how cutesy they are, I'm getting hit A LOT by enemies I should be dealing with easily. But it also makes things that much more unsettling when they are genuinely creepy. I found "the Hunter", a massive void of eyes who gives you the beastiary and the encounter was genuinely kind of spooky. Our little Hollow boy meeting this massive, unknowable creature who identifies only as a killer. It's a very well done art style that communicates so much about the game. And also all the little bugs are just adorable, I like 'em.
However, I don't know if I really like playing Hollow Knight so far? I am, admittedly, only a couple hours in so this may change even by the next time I play. At the point I'm at though, I haven't really been feeling it. There are two reasons why I'm struggling so far, the first of which is the combat. I find the combat to be pretty basic and repetitive right now. Like, bosses are fun, because it's the whole "memorizing patterns and knowing when to dodge and when to go out for attacks". Those are working out so far. But fighting regular enemies is just kind of boring to me? It feels like every enemy encounter is the same, you just slash them until you win because your knockback is enough to let your slashes recharge, maybe occasionally having to run from an enemy mid encounter because they have some sort of counterattack. It's mindless to me, but not in a way I find endearing, I'm just kind of annoyed having to fight anything. Also I know the Ducktales pogo thing is a big deal in this game, bouncing off enemies, I just cannot do it. The fact that it is a slash and not a thrust, meaning I have to time it means I just keep getting hurt trying to do it.
The second thing is that I am not liking the map system even a little. I am pretty reliant on maps in games, I don't memorize landmarks and paths very well and I often need a spatial marker to tell me where I am and where I could/need to go. So the map system is pretty bad for me, actually. Like, you don't automatically fill in maps, you have to go purchase maps to then get half a map which then you have to fill out the rest with anyways. But finding the person who will sell you maps is not well communicated so you may just be roaming an entire area without ever finding them. But then the map is kind of useless anyways because it does not tell you what room you are currently in, forcing myself to backtrack or push forward until I find a room with a recognizable landmark. I totally understand why this map system would be good for others, I'm sure once you really get into Hollow Knight it's very natural. For me currently, it is less than useless.
12/17/25
I figured out the map situation. I'm not fond of the fact that I effectively have to permanently eat up an inventory slot to make the game a little bit more playable but at least I can now track where I am on the map. I get that like being intentionally obtuse is the point of the game, it's way more Soulslike than other Soulslike Metroidvanias, but man. This is just like "basic good game design" that the game is going "well if you WANT to have the option for our game to have basic features, you have to eat up resources AND remove one of your precious few inventory slots". But it's fine, I knew this game's design was obtuse going into it, I have the ability to do it, whatever. I may not think that this should be a feature the player has to earn but that's the way the game pans out. It is however playing back into the idea of "I love everything about Hollow Knight so far except having to play it".
That being said, I am getting more of a feel for the combat. I'm not like "good" at it by any stretch, I'm still dying a lot. But I'm understanding how to engage with the systems better. Learning how to do the pogo jump in particular opened up a lot of possibilities. I'm still not good at pogo jumping by any stretch but I'm consistent enough to where it's helping me out. Hornet was a very big turning point for me in terms of the combat, it's just such a fun boss fight. She has such clear patterns that are easy to learn but hard to master. I love the little audio cues especially when she's about to throw out a particular move, it's super fun. It took me way too many tries to beat her, I think like 6? Y'all ever have that thing where you do a cracked first try where you almost beat the boss no problem, die, and then suddenly you're dying in the first couple hits? Yeah, that was me! It happens in almost every "hard game" actually, it's kind of a problem.
I lost 1400 geo at once. Permanently. I'm not going to mince words, I hate the field of view in this game. Like it's infuriating to me that a game that has so many places where you can fall down and just get hurt for no reason also has the approximate screen crunch of a GBA game. So what happened was I was trying to explore through Greenpath and I got to one of the dead end corners. It's a room where boiling water has collected, so if you fall in, it'll hurt you. What you're intended to do is platform over the water, using your newly acquired Dash ability from Hornet to clear any larger gaps. The problem is that this room is very vertical, a lot of the platforms are underneath you. And Hollow Knight really doesn't do a good job with communicating when a platform is underneath you. It feels a lot like you're flying blind if you have to drop down onto a platform at any point. So I died in that room and then, because the ghost spawned over the water pit, I died again attempting to retrieve it, losing literally like four hours of Geo because of one missed jump. And wouldn't you know it, the bank was RIGHT AFTER I did this.
Hey so like why is the Bank this far into the game? Like, I can understand not wanting it to be given out immediately, you want to teach your players they need to be careful and deliberate lest they lose all their money even though you're going to just pit death pits everywhere so that any missed jump can just make them lose everything anyways. But why is it after the second major area of the game. Why not put the bank right after the first boss? Because, spoilers, me losing as much money as I did is now a sizable roadblock. I don't have access to the fast travel system without walking most of the way out of Hallownest anyways. I can't purchase a map for the new area I've unlocked, meaning I'm fully flying blind from here on hoping that I can find my way back to the map guy when I do have the money. I can't even actually afford to pay the fee to open a bank account at the bank. Like, I've played Soulslike Metroidvanias before, one of my favorite games I played in 2025 was ENDER Lilies. But those games tended to have EXP systems, when you died you lost experience which, even if you permanently lost the experience because you died before you retrieved it, you still could find your way back to where you needed to be because you know where to find loads of EXP. Losing all your money to a mistake, meanwhile, feels way too cruel in a game where basic features are locked behind spending money for them. Losing everything in Hollow Knight does not make me want to earn it back, it makes me want to stop playing the game!!! And the worst part about it is there's not really an answer to this problem because Hollow Knight seems to be made with the intention that players will just "git gud".
I'm kind of already feeling about Hollow Knight like I do about Ocarina of Time. In my opinion, you cannot overstate how good or important of a game Ocarina of Time is. It basically invented the language for modern 3D action, action-adventure, adventure, and RPGs all at once. It's a truly groundbreaking, landmark title that gaming owes everything to. I also think it's exceedingly boring and unfun to play, and that it got outclassed the moment any other 3D action-adventure game that took notes from it came to replace it. That's how I'm feeling about Hollow Knight. Hollow Knight invented a genre, it's a truly important and meaningful work of art and a groundbreaking piece of gaming. So many games owe literally everything to Hollow Knight, its legend cannot be overstated. So far though? I kind of hate playing it. I'll give it more time, I want to at least get to the part where the map truly opens up and I get to explore but idk y'all. If you asked me now how I felt about it, I'd say that Hollow Knight is making it on the worst list this year.
12/23/25
So I took like a week long break. Part of the reason why I did this is that I wanted to finish my Top Ten list for the year. I started it in like late November/early December after realizing I was going to be playing Radiant Historia, assuming that I would be spending the remainder of the year on that and maybe finding time for another game. So knowing that I would get maximum 3 games done for the rest of the year and knowing, at the time, what games I was playing at the time, I knew most of my top 10 list was set in stone by that point, I decided to prioritize finishing it. But also just like, I didn't want to return to Hollow Knight at that time, to be honest? I hate to be this way, but losing such a massive amount of money to falling into a death pit did actually make me not want to play it. At the end of my last play session, and for the days following it, my opinion on Hollow Knight was that I was going to shelve it. But I persevered, I wanted to at least give it ten hours before I bounced which meant at least doing one more play session.
Wouldn't you know it, it happened again? I promise that this section isn't going to be me complaining about how much I dislike the level design decisions again, it'll end after this paragraph. So I lost another major cache of Geo, about 900, in the wall jump room getting into the City of Tears. I love that this game has a wall jump, I cannot get used to how fast the Knight turns in midair. I'm so used to "kick off wall and then change your direction when you meet the other wall" from a lot of the other games I've played, like, wall jumping is a set action that you don't control really once it happens. So the fact that I just fly back to the same wall if I'm still holding that direction? Wild to me. And like, if that was the main reason I died there, that'd be no big deal, I'd just be like "this is on me for having trouble with the mechanics". But this whole room is over a pit of boiling water so it's like "oh cool, there's an overly harsh punishment for the first room in the game where I really have to utilize wall jumps to progress". I'm not hugely fond of the platforming, if you couldn't tell.
That being said, I'm starting to realize that money isn't as big of an issue as I thought it was going to be when I started? Losing 1400 in the early game was devastating because other than some miniboss enemies I have a lot of trouble fighting, nothing gives out ANY Geo so saving up 1400 of it was kind of an accomplishment. And, indeed, losing a bunch of money at once does suck, I did feel locked out of a bunch of things and like I needed to grind as a result of losing it. Especially as I was entering a new area and I was in desperate need of a map and a fast travel point as such. But now that I'm past the "beginning areas", I have both a safety net (the bank), and the ability to trade things for cash, so it's a lot less of an issue now. The only thing is remembering to periodically fast travel back to Queen's Station so I can save up some money, which I'm very bad at when I'm deep in exploration, but it's been better since unlocking that option. I even finally saved up for the lantern, which I'm stoked about because lord knows this game needs more light.
Since I unlocked the Wall Jump, you can gather that I went through the Fungal Wastes and into Mantis Village. The Mantises are such a cool little civilization for this world. An entire society that has managed to avoid the infection by becoming brutalist. Violently murdering anything that comes near and claiming their exoskeletons as trophies. It's a neat little bit of lore to add to this universe and I really liked having to storm their city to gain the ability to wall jump, like I had to prove myself to them in order to gain their treasure. And yes, I DID try and fight the Mantis Lords. It's a really cool boss fight with an absolute banger of a theme but I am not good enough to beat it at this point. To be honest, unless it's a required fight to beat the game, I don't know if I'll ever beat it, those ladies are SCARY. I got through the first phase relatively painlessly and I think that's enough of an accomplishment for me.
City of Tears was a huge turning point for Hollow Knight for me. City of Tears was actually like THE thing I knew about Hollow Knight before I started, my friend Sab back when she did covers did an excellent take on this theme. I was just taken aback by how beautiful this place is. Hollow Knight is a very good looking game in general but it is clearly built to match its theme more than anything, it exists within in an oppressive, closed quarters underground world. City of Tears exists as a gorgeous juxtaposition to this, a city where it's always raining due to some water source above that drips down onto it. It's a place that makes you realize what you're fighting for, that you're not just here to adventure through Hallownest and defeat the monsters within. This is a world you're meant to save and, moreover, it is a world worth saving. Even in the midst of a horrible plague which corrupts and mutates, there is a beauty here, there is something worth it all. It's the point that made me decide "hey, maybe I want to see this through".
Unfortunately while I am pretty invested in the atmosphere and world of Hollow Knight, I'm kind of indifferent about the lore? It's not unlikely that a huge part of it is that I was just kind of indifferent about the game until about halfway through my third play session so I wasn't, like, getting in deep with its environmental storytelling. But so far I've kind of just been pretty "whatever" about all the lore bits I keep finding. I'll find a stone with some lore on it and I'll read it but then it kind of bounces off. It's unfortunate because I do like this world and like its atmosphere but it feels a bit like I couldn't care less about what happened in it. And now it feels like because I wasn't taking care to note what I've been told/shown so far, it makes it harder to get invested in it moving forward because it feels like I just need to go back through from the beginning if I want to get into it. Complete and total me problem. That being said, I do find Hornet super interesting and while I don't think I will play Silksong myself because I haven't been loving Hollow Knight, I can totally see already why so many people willingly waited so long to find out her story.
I do find the Soul Sanctum pretty interesting though. Like clearly this was some sort of cathedral where they conducted both prayer and research. It appears, to me at least, they were trying to find some sort of methodology on how to achieve immortality and, in doing so, they likely caused the corruption. Their remnants show they were running a lot of experiments with captured energy not dissimilar to the energy used for the Knight's magical powers. The enemies in this area are all seemingly ghosts, they float and teleport around and fire raw concentrated energy as an attack. Presumably the energy being souls, hence "soul sanctum". In the end, though, they too could not avoid the corruption and now spend immortality being a part of it. I hate every enemy in this part, for the record, they are really obnoxious. Love an enemy that can just infinitely teleport until, seemingly on a whim, it decides to stay still and attack you. But I like what they seemingly represent narratively.
I'm also starting to get into the Metroidvania thing where I'm finding all the secret tunnels between areas. While this game has a fast travel system that I'm likely going to use way more often than all the branches, it's still nice to have. I think this is my favorite part of Metroidvania design, the logic that's put into the world. Like, it can't just be a series of disconnected areas, not truly, because there needs to be a reasoning for each area to exist. The geography matters so much that you more or less have to find a way to connect an area under another one to the one above it in order for the map to work. It's satisfying to find all the connections, if nothing else, even if I'm more mixed on this game than most, the world design is top notch.
I don't know how I feel about Hollow Knight right now. Like, I'm more into it now than I was for the first couple play sessions, a part of me does want to see this through to the end. But like, I already have such a mixed opinion on it that I also may very well bounce before I get through it. It made a real bad first impression and while it's kind of winning me back, I'm still like cautious around it. It's disappointing to me that I'm so mixed on this game. Like, a lot of people have this idea that I'm a contrarian, that I take some sort of pleasure in disagreeing with the common opinion. But I really don't, I would love nothing more than to just like everything people like and not get into situations where I'm the dissenting opinion on things. But I'm also just not going to lie about my feelings so like. But yeah, I could finish Hollow Knight, I could drop it, it's still up in the air. Guess we'll see!!!
12/24/25
Kind of a short one this time around because I only got to play for a couple hours and a lot of that time was just trying to get out of a dead end. For starters, if you're keeping track, I lost another huge cache of geo!!! This time it was 1100. It's not a problem anymore, this one was entirely on me for not taking advantage of an easily accessible save point and pushing forward anyways. It's always Hubris, always. So I went through the Royal Waterways and once I beat the boss from it, I decided to check down first. Because going up from where the Royal Waterways leave out puts you back in the City of Tears so I was like "oh this is just a shortcut back, I must go the other way". MASSIVE mistake, huge mistake. Not only is that area, the Ancient Basin, currently a dead end, but getting back up out of it? A nightmare. There's just walls upon walls of spikes on your way out of it, not to mention having to cross a massive room of writhing metallic worms that you can fall into at any time. The fact that I lost geo given my limited skillset was basically guaranteed and I should've saved once I successfully got out of there.
I'm so mad about my performance against the Dung Defender. I died three or four times to it and each time I was mad at myself because this boss is actually really easy! Like this boss is just Mole Knight from Shovel Knight with even fewer attacks and I've fought Mole Knight 4 times already. It's so embarrassing to me that I just lost the first few runs when of the bosses so far, Dung Defender is probably the easiest. Like I got the Soul Master on my second try, it was no problem at all, Soul Master was much harder than Dung Defender. I will say, part of it is that while Luna works well enough, it does lag at some points. A lot of my deaths in this previous section were due to this lag, I think I need to figure out an Ethernet solution, lol. But yeah, Dung Defender, real bad for me for no reason, felt like such an idiot.
I enjoy that the deeper underground you go, the more horrifying the creatures you face are. It feels a bit like the infection is altering the Earth itself, mutating creatures into horrifying abominations of stone teeth. It makes sense there are so many spikes set up before you get into the underground proper, it's clearly to deter anything from down there before they get into the City. You also have some city guards still patrolling the corridors into the Ancient Basin despite their zombified state, implying they last were sent down here by the city to do cleanup before they, too, were infected. Lord knows the city needed protection from the writhing masses of seemingly metallic insects that lie below, monsters that can literally fire the infection at creatures corrupting them. Not looking forward to going back down there when I have what I need.
I enjoy that when you return to the City of Tears, instead of just facing more guards, you actually face the citizens.
12/24/25
Kind of a short one this time around because I only got to play for a couple hours and a lot of that time was just trying to get out of a dead end. For starters, if you're keeping track, I lost another huge cache of geo!!! This time it was 1100. It's not a problem anymore, this one was entirely on me for not taking advantage of an easily accessible save point and pushing forward anyways. It's always Hubris, always. So I went through the Royal Waterways and once I beat the boss from it, I decided to check down first. Because going up from where the Royal Waterways leave out puts you back in the City of Tears so I was like "oh this is just a shortcut back, I must go the other way". MASSIVE mistake, huge mistake. Not only is that area, the Ancient Basin, currently a dead end, but getting back up out of it? A nightmare. There's just walls upon walls of spikes on your way out of it, not to mention having to cross a massive room of writhing metallic worms that you can fall into at any time. The fact that I lost geo given my limited skillset was basically guaranteed and I should've saved once I successfully got out of there.
I'm so mad about my performance against the Dung Defender. I died three or four times to it and each time I was mad at myself because this boss is actually really easy! Like this boss is just Mole Knight from Shovel Knight with even fewer attacks and I've fought Mole Knight 4 times already. It's so embarrassing to me that I just lost the first few runs when of the bosses so far, Dung Defender is probably the easiest. Like I got the Soul Master on my second try, it was no problem at all, Soul Master was much harder than Dung Defender. I will say, part of it is that while Luna works well enough, it does lag at some points. A lot of my deaths in this previous section were due to this lag, I think I need to figure out an Ethernet solution, lol. But yeah, Dung Defender, real bad for me for no reason, felt like such an idiot.
I enjoy that the deeper underground you go, the more horrifying the creatures you face are. It feels a bit like the infection is altering the Earth itself, mutating creatures into horrifying abominations of stone teeth. It makes sense there are so many spikes set up before you get into the underground proper, it's clearly to deter anything from down there before they get into the City. You also have some city guards still patrolling the corridors into the Ancient Basin despite their zombified state, implying they last were sent down here by the city to do cleanup before they, too, were infected. Lord knows the city needed protection from the writhing masses of seemingly metallic insects that lie below, monsters that can literally fire the infection at creatures corrupting them. Not looking forward to going back down there when I have what I need.
I enjoy that when you return to the City of Tears, instead of just facing more guards, you actually face the citizens. Like the infected, zombified citizens are still wandering around their residential district, still dressed to the 9s, it's super neat. I love media that depicts this kind of corruption, this zombification I've been calling it, as if it taking place causes them to be stuck on loop. Living through the normal events of their lives over and over instinctively until prey comes into their view. I know at this point it's an overdone trope, it's literally the backbone of the classic "people imprisoned inside a mall" storyline that a million stories have done. But I like the commentary it brings, actually, the idea that we are already in effect zombies, that our modern lives mundanity has rotted our brains in life to where we continue our habits in death. Also it's just a really clever way to do the classic trope of "stronger versions of early game enemies", having the enemies be literally upper class variants of the surface dwellers.
12/25/25
Merry Christmas!!! I spent a lot of this play session on a single sidequest and didn't even finish it!!! I probably shouldn't be doing that, it kills a lot of time I don't really have!!! I wonder if the fact I feel this pressure to finish this game because it's close to leaving the platform I can play it on is impacting my playthrough at all. Like, if I'm subconsciously like "stop wasting time and just get through the game", idk. I don't feel like I'm pressuring myself but maybe I unknowingly am putting this sort of foot to the pedal. That being said, unironically, spending most of a play session on a single sidequest made this one of the best play sessions I've had so far. Though I don't think I can even complete the quest yet? I think I'm lacking the thing to get into the area I need to go to. We'll see, I guess.
I made it to the Resting Grounds, which means I've finally started the "main storyline" of Hollow Knight. Here we finally meet the Dreamers, three ancient beings who sealed away the Hollow Knight, a warrior who fought off the infection long ago and eventually brought it all into itself, long ago. The Dreamers do not take kindly to the protagonist's journey, feeling that they have already gotten too far into their quest and attempting to stop them before they once again awaken the Hollow Knight. And so they imprison the little knight in a purgatory state, trapping them in a realm between the waking world and death to deal with them. Luckily, our knight is led back to the world of the waking by the last member of the Moth tribe, a tribe that protected the Resting Grounds so that travelers could pay their respects.
It's here that we gain the Dream Nail. The Dream Nail is an important tool because it allows us to not only commune with the dead, but commune with the living. Using the Dream Nail on enemies or NPCs will not deal any damage but will allow you to see into their thoughts, giving you cool little lore tidbits. But the primary focus is actually just putting the dead to rest. Throughout Hallownest, there are graves of fallen soldiers, soldiers who due to the infection have not been able to rest. Our little knight buddy, now having the ability to commune with the dead, can find their souls and "convince" them to move onto the afterlife. Already on my journey, in my attempts to complete the sidequest, I found the grave of a bug who was killed after he tried to invade the Mantis Village. He believed for so long the Mantises were brutal savages, murdering indiscriminately. But after we beat him, he comes to accept that he likely had succumbed to the infection, that he attacked them in a fit of madness, and, most importantly, that he is dead, allowing his soul to move on.
I do want to shout out how gorgeous Spirit's Glade is real quick. Spirits Glade was just such a beautiful little nook, I'm glad I went out of my way to come back and unlock it. The Spirits Glade is a graveyard where the spirits of various warriors rest eternally, protected by the Moth(s). It is tranquil, a brief but notable respite from the chaos outside of it. It's a very poignant little moment, in a world where so many creatures are forbidden from the rest they deserve, you have this little grove where bugs can truly rest. The thing I'm loving most about Hollow Knight so far are these beautiful little moments, I swear, this and my first time getting into City of Tears are the highlights of the playthrough so far.
If you saw "spending the entire playtime trying to complete a sidequest", you probably know exactly what quest I'm talking about. I found the Grey Mourner. I really like this guy, this giant tragic... weevil? Is it a weevil? I don't know. Speaks entirely in middle English so while the dialog is decipherable, it looks very wrong. What a cool character. I also love this sidequest, having to walk all the way back through the map without getting hit to deliver a flower to the grave of their lover. This is the kind of fun challenge I can get behind. Even though I'm pretty confident that I cannot currently access the area where it needs to be completed at. I thought I just had to go to Mantis Village because the mourner talks of their lost love being buried by the Mantises. It only occurred to me after I finished this last play session that I've never seen a graveyard in Mantis Village. I really hope that I don't have to fight the Mantis Lords to complete this quest, though. I'm not strong enough.
All this being said, while I do think the sidequest is really fun and interesting, I don't like that it can infinitely be redone. The Mourner makes such a big deal about how the flower is one of a kind, a flower that took them a long time to cultivate for this one specific purpose. And while I respect that failing once doesn't lock you out of the quest, especially if you find the quest as early as I did and now can't complete it, this is weirdly a part of the game where I want more consequences? Like maybe because it's side content or whatever but I would like there to at least be a time that needs to pass before the mourner has a new flower for you to carry. It's amusing one time going back to them and them having a spare ultra rare one of a kind flower, but the joke runs its course pretty quickly.
I think I'm really "getting" Hollow Knight now. This is going to sound weird, I think I like the process of talking about Hollow Knight more than I like playing it. Like, in the moment, as I was doing this previous play session, I was like "this game is kind of boring, I'm just kind of bashing my head against a wall because of a miniboss, I'm feeling more and more like dropping it is the correct decision". But then I came to write this section and now it's like "here's a million things I liked about this section". Which, you know, it tracks, I admit I like the atmosphere and world of Hollow Knight much more than the gameplay, and I think I'm starting to really find my place in the story too. Quick aside, to explain the whole "boring" thing, I think I fundamentally miss the part of playing a difficult game where beating an enemy makes you want to try again. When I was playing Cuphead back in like 2018, and I hated it a whole lot, a big reason being the difficulty of Cuphead, but not for the reason you think. Like I wasn't getting frustrated at Cuphead, that wasn't the thing. It's more like, when a game is difficult, like a Soulslike, I tend to respond to difficulty as if it's a card trick which I already know how it functions. Like I've seen this before and it doesn't get anything from me. So when Hollow Knight gets in this situation where I'm just doing the same fight over and over, I get less and less invested in said fight.
12/27/25
I beat the Mantis Lords finally. I was honestly expecting a third phase to fighting them because there are three of them, so my literal thought process was "okay, so round one is one, I don't have that much trouble with that one, but then round 2 is two of them, so clearly there's going to be a round 3 where you have to face off against all three". But the boss fight just ended after I beat the other two. I was very proud of my performance in it, actually, I got to the point where I could get through phase one without taking any damage. I realize that's not like a huge deal for most people, I'm sure I'm well below the average it terms of combat proficiency, but it's a huge accomplishment for me. I am, famously, bad at combat in most games so actually succeeding in a small way is big news for me!
In this last play session I made it up through the Crystal Peak. I didn't find this area particularly interesting outside of a singular interaction I had with an NPC at the top. It's a mine, you know. I've played Donkey Kong Country before. Some of the level design with the conveyer belts was neat but otherwise nothing too crazy. But at the top there was an NPC who was looking out onto the world, noting how small it seemed, how the problems of the people of Dirtmouth, those problems that seemed so huge on the ground, are now so small from this perspective. Oh also, RIP the little mining bug who was trying to get into Crystal Peak in the early game. Like he's not dead, that would be a kindness in this game. No, he's now eternally forced to mine as the infection slowly consumes him and rots his mind. I love being able to use the dream nail on persons who are only recently infected because you get to hear their internal narrative and see them trying to fight the infection as it keeps putting violent thoughts into their head.
After that I got very lost before I ended up fighting the Mantis Lords. Like, I didn't know exactly where or how to progress into any of the areas that I needed to get to, so I kept looking for potential dead ends I could get to with my new ability, the Crystal heart. This led to me spending a frankly absurd amount of time trying a platforming challenge that I really failed at, oh man did I fail at it, before I finally looked up a guide. As a quick aside, I have usually praised guides in these playthroughs, I'm a big proponent of old school GameFAQs guides in particular, but Hollow Knight is modern enough to where the main guides you have available are like IGN guides. I hate IGN guides so much. Like, first of all, they want you to pay to use their ONE good feature, the checklist. They put everything on its own page because on top of encouraging you to pay, they're also trying to skim ad revenue off you. Because they're terrified of spoilers, their advice is usually unhelpful because they don't want to tell you what happens in the game lest your experience "be ruined", making the guide useless. It's the worst. Like it's still more helpful than a video guide because you can't Ctrl + F a video guide, but it's so much less helpful than a lovingly created GameFAQs guide, I swear.
Eventually I did find my way to Deepnest, though. A game like Hollow Knight having a spooky area is wild to me. The whole game is kind of spooky, you know? It's very tense and atmospheric and in close quarters, the very limited field of view makes you anxious about what is around you. But Deepnest is the "spooky area" and yeah, they sure made it spooky!!! I admire how clever their logic was, you want to do a spooky area in a game about bugs? Spiders. Spiders everywhere. An entire civilization of spiders. There are even spiders that are inhabiting the bodies of other bugs, only taking form when you kill the host!!! That's terrifying to a lot of people, actually, not just bugs!!! I am curious about something off of this, actually. So the first Dreamer, Herrah the Beast, is like the Queen of the Spiders right, the queen of the weavers. But like, all the other weavers are monstrous, they move and act like spiders. But Herrah seemingly is just a person? Like she's just an actual person. So like, I've noted the infection is warping insects in the past but is the implication that beings born under the infection just never become people at all? That they always are monsters?
I also love that the Weavers, despite their infected state, are still choosing to protect Herrah. It may be the infection that trying to protect itself, mind, if Herrah remains guarded then no one can ever awaken the Hollow Knight and purify the infection. But I choose to interpret it as Herrah's children, the weavers, are still protecting their mother in spite of their infected state. That protecting her and finding sustenance for her as she sleeps is significant to them, and that they know not that she is already dead nor can they process this information anymore. There's a really cool, really creepy scene where a bunch of "Weavers" all just offer you a seat. A point to rest. You've been going through this nightmare area for so long after all, maybe you should rest. But they aren't really there. They are simply being puppeted by the weavers, luring you into a false sense of security. If you go to the home in the Weaver village underneath, you will find a set of identical corpses to the people urging you to rest. Such a cool little detail, frfr.
Herrah herself is such an interesting character to me. Like, she has the name "the Beast" and, given she's the queen of the spiders, you almost kind of expect her to be a brutal warrior queen. Like despite her wisdom, a wisdom so respect by Hallownest that she was chosen to help seal away the Hollow Knight, you expect her to be vicious/ But then when you meet her, she's calm. She wants to accept her fate, wants to peacefully drift off into the afterlife. She no longer wants to be sealed here, her purpose has been fulfilled. It's so interesting to me. I know why she's like this, I don't think I'm supposed to know but you can't really look up info about her online without finding out that Hornet is her daughter and she has, in a sense, already chosen to do something proactive about the infection. By the way, finding out Hornet is a spider? That makes me irrationally upset, why is she called Hornet.
And with that, I ride the train to my next location. I left off fighting the Broken Vessel I think it's called, a character who I can only assume is, if not related to our protagonist, is someone else who tried to undergo the journey to end the Hollow Knight. I'm liking Hollow Knight more and more as I go on. I don't think I'm ever going to "love it", the early game just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and if I want to play this style of game, I have so many better options at this point (hi Ender Lilies). But I am actually enjoying it, which is a dangerous prospect because it means I might be talked into playing Silksong in the future. It's creeping up there, I joked last night that I think Hollow Knight is a 7/10, I think now it might be more like a 7.5/10 for me. Officially a 4 star game. I don't think it'll get much higher though, me enjoying it now is great but again, like. The first 6 hours of this game were miserable for me, I can't just ignore that. But I think finishing it is in the cards. Here's hoping, I only have 8 days to finish it at this point, lol.
12/28/25
I spent two hours fighting Hornet II. I'm not sure if I'm beating this game, y'all. Like, for starters, don't like the fight. It's a shame because I did really love Hornet I, it's one of the few fights in this game where I'm like "okay this is actually pretty fun". But Hornet II is really just highlighting how bad I am at the game's combat. Like she just requires such quick reaction time that I don't really have and she makes the battlefield itself hostile. I don't enjoy fighting her at all and like I said in a previous section, when I come across a boss I have to bash my head against the wall to beat, I don't find that compelling. I find that design element boring. And knowing I'm running out of time to beat this game, I'm more and more like "maybe I should stop here instead of having play sessions devoted to just beating this one boss".
More than that, okay. So I've been kind of using Hollow Knight to stress test Luna. I figured it's a pretty simple game, surely it wouldn't be that bad. And for the most part it has been perfectly playable. A little lag here and there, some dropped frames, but nothing too terribly bad. But the Hornet fight is just kind of unplayable, if I'm being honest? Like, keep in mind that I don't have the option currently for an Ethernet solution. It's just not in the cards, I'm working off wi-fi which is ill-advised. So I have to just kind of push through any problematic frame drops, and that has been fine. But Hornet II is a boss that requires quick reaction time. In this case, playing on Luna is causing me to lose a lot of fights, either by frame dropping right when I need to be proactive or getting me out of a flow for the fight through a problematic frame drop. Like, I don't mind game streaming, I think if I could have an Ethernet solution I wouldn't be having these problems. But right now this is something problematic that I'm having to deal with and I think it might kill the run.
The worst part about it is that if it does kill the run, there's like a 0% chance I'm ever returning to Hollow Knight if I get a copy. Like I've been very mixed on the game so I just want to say that I do like it. I don't love it, but I'm settling into like an 8 out of 10 placement. I think I definitely like talking about it more than I like playing it, you know? But I do enjoy this game absolutely. But I am also 20 hours in at this point and having to start over any game after 20 hours is just an absurd request even if you are enjoying it. Heck, I could be discovering my new favorite game of all time here and I would still be upset if for some reason I just had to stop playing it and to start over I had to completely reset all my progress. It seems like finishing Hollow Knight is just not in the cards, unfortunately. I'm going to try again next play session but like. if I spend another couple hours and don't see any progress, I think I'm going to call it.
Outside of fighting Hornet II, I didn't do a whole lot this session. I got the double jump, I guess? I beat the Broken Vessel and received the Double Jump. I don't think I really like how the double jump works in this game? Like there's this weird slowness to it that I'm not super into? And it doesn't give me the height I would want out of it. It's a nice tool to have, don't get me wrong, I adapted to how it worked pretty quickly. It's just in most games, getting a double jump is a super helpful platforming tool that naturally flows into gameplay, whereas this feels more like a recovery option in Smash? The double jump feels like its purpose is just to correct missed jumps more than it is to add new platforming capabilities? Maybe that's kind of a testament to how good this game design is. I've not been super fond of the gameplay but I do appreciate how it seems designed around the idea that you can sequence break and still make it around everywhere? If you're doing everything the "intended" way, of course, you need the double jump to bypass certain obstacles but once you're in areas you can navigate pretty well with just the basic moveset, I've found?
Kingdom's Edge is such a pretty area. I love how they chose to do a "snow area" in this game, it feels so melancholic in a way I think really captures the snow area well. That the "snow" is actually the shed skin of some giant creature who lived above the area, It reminds you of how much loss is in this kingdom, how the things that once lived here are decaying into nothing, leaving behind empty shells of what once was. There's a sadness here that consumes the area, but also a beauty in that sadness. The world is returning to nature, with even the citizens of the old world now contributing to its beauty. It's a really solemn beauty, I like it a whole lot. Don't know why there are so many bees here though. I don't mind it because bees rule but like. Why are bees in the snow area? By the way, did find my way to the Colosseum, I don't have a lot of interest in doing it though.
I think I'm going to do a quick run through of a bunch of areas next, see if I can find anything that may help me in fighting Hornet. I'm missing a lot of charms and stuff so maybe if I unlock those and rethink my build I might have it? I don't know. If I feel like I'm not making progress I will probably call it, which would suck to do as I'm literally so close to the end. That IGN guide I've been using says there are like 6 segments between Hornet II and the final boss of the main game, having to give up this close to the ending would be depressing!!! I want to finish this game now, I feel like I "get it", you know, so having it potentially stopped by a wall that's out of my control would make me sad. We'll see, I guess. Next update might be the last? Here's hoping if it is, it's because I beat Hornet and then marathoned the rest of the game.
12/29/25
I beat Hornet on, like, my third try last night. I think a part of it was that I was playing at a more beneficial time, I had far fewer frame drops last night than I did the previous night? Game streaming is a wild thing. But yeah, literally all I had to do was go back around the world, get some new equipment, rework my strategy, etc. Probably could've gotten even more done but I ended up throwing myself at a boss I found that I was like "this seems easy, I got this" and then I didn't, in fact, have it. I mean, I probably would've, the Watcher Knights were incredibly easy compared to most bosses in this game, I just figured "whatever I need to get for Hornet would also prove useful here". But yeah, beating Hornet no problem was genuinely a huge accomplishment for me. Two hours of attempts where I was struggling to get past her first phase and then on the runback I beat her in only a couple of attempts. Maybe I am good at combat after all(I'm not, I'm really not).
I'm surprised it took this long for them to do a Chozo statue reference. Like, usually indie Metroidvanias, if they're doing the Chozo statue, get out of the way ASAP because it's such an iconic piece of symbolism for the genre. It's something you usually want to go "we all know what I'm doing so let's get it out of the way". Hollow Knight puts its "Chozo Statue" near the end of the game! It's actually a very nice way to do it that doesn't feel out of place. Instead of just doing the Chozo statue, it's instead this fountain down in the depths of Hallownest. The fountain brings forth the souls of those who fell in battle and did not get put to rest, flooding the area in their souls and creating an ocean of shadow. In the same way that the moth tribe on the surface protects the souls of those who got a proper burial, some sort of civilization once existed down here to stop the lost souls from escaping this reality. Should one bathe in the fountain, they will gain the power of cloaking themselves in shadow, allowing them to access areas once blocked from them.
The lore implications of this area are also really cool. Hornet arrives when you are exiting out of this area and states that this is the little Knight's home. I don't know if she means this literally, as if this is where the Knight was originally originally from, but it is seemingly where the soul of the Knight originated. From the shadows, there arises a seemingly endless stream of lost souls, referred to as "the Siblings" in your bestiary. All of them look identical to the little Knight's soul, albeit less formed and lacking in its strength. What I have to imagine is happening is that knights are arising from this darkness, from "the Abyss", to try and succeed where the current king, the titular "Hollow Knight" has failed. They must arise to try and contain the infection, finding lost husks to make themselves corporeal as they go on their quest to fulfill the Pale King's wishes. And all these souls that arise from the darkness are trying to reclaim the little Knight, bring it back to where it belongs in a sense. It's neat, I high key enjoy talking about and finding videos about Hollow Knight and its lore than I do playing it.
I was honestly expecting the Dreamers to put up more of a fight? Like, I wrote that thing about Herrah the Beast and how cool it was that she just went out without a fight. But I made it up to Lurien the Watcher, the second of the three Dreamers, and he also didn't put up a fight. Just accepted his fate. I guess the idea is that, while they were chosen to seal away the infection to protect Hallownest, they now see that their plan did not work at all and that their best shot of course correcting is the little Knight. Lurien's tower was super neat, as an aside, I liked being able to look down on the City of the Tears from his telescope and it was very cute that his butler is still at his side in spite of the infection. Anyways, the third Dreamer is probably going to be a very problematic boss fight that walls me when I get to it and I'm going to eat my words immediately about these three wanting to end it.
In my quest to prepare myself for Hornet II, I saw the outcome of unlocking the Hollow Knight's seals and man. MAN. The Infected Crossroads are not some horrifying area, other than the introduction of one super aggressive enemy they're basically the same as the normal Forgotten Crossroads. Maybe just a little more difficult. The upsetting thing though is that now the area is super inconvenient to navigate because there's no longer a shortcut between the fast travel point and the badge shop. It's cool to do this, don't get me wrong, especially as you have to come back through the Forgotten Crossroads at some point to face the final boss. It makes sense to redo the area after a certain point and make it a harder obstacle, it IS the final area of the game. It just, you know. Made the area incredibly inconvenient for me as I had to go back through for a very specific thing. I guess that's on me though for not buying badges I should've obviously bought my first hundred times through the area, lol.
I'm very glad I did this run back through of the world, actually, because I found a couple really cool things on the way. Going back through the Mantis Village was a really nice experience, for instance. Defeating the Mantis Lords gained the respect of the Mantis tribe, so now as I walk by they all just bow to me. It's a very cool little detail that I like a lot. Even if you go aggro and kill a Mantis, they won't go back to attacking you because, hey, they value strength don't they? My biggest embarrassment, the Dung Defender, is still alive. Glad to see him still kicking, he's not like my favorite character or anything but he's such a jolly fellow with this over the top persona, y'know. The best little thing I found though was Marissa, the Songstress. It's one of my favorite things I've encountered in this game, to be able to sit and rest while hearing a beautiful rendition of City of Tears with such a powerful vocalist. I've had the ability to unlock it far sooner than I have and I regret not accessing it earlier.
I think I'll likely beat the game by the next time I update this. I know I have more than I think I do, I still haven't explored Fog Canyon which I now have access to. And I haven't even been to the area I need to go to for the third Dreamer, it's a completely untapped chunk of the map. And maybe I should make an attempt at the Colosseum because I think I need it for my next nail upgrade. Don't love that idea, to be honest. My opinions on Hollow Knight have gotten more positive as time has gone on, I like this game quite a bit now. But I still don't love it. I think my comparison to Ocarina of Time was apt, even though I definitely like this game a lot more than I do Ocarina of Time. Hollow Knight is a great work of art and an incredibly important and influential game, it's more than understandable why it ranks among the best games of all time. I would concur with that sentiment, I think objectively speaking Hollow Knight is one of the best games of all time. I just think that the games Hollow Knight influenced are kind of better than it. Me liking it does mean that I might play Silksong in the future though, so maybe I'll really love that game, who knows.
12/31/25
I did not beat the game. I was kind of worried to commit to anything that intensive because I've actually been having internet issues a lot lately. They are (hopefully) resolved at this point in time but, you know. Could always go south pretty quickly. The unfortunate thing about just playing most games nowadays but ESPECIALLY if you're streaming games is that you just kinda need to be online. Even in the midst of not having access to this service, I couldn't play most of the games I own because I usually needed to download them. Something something old man yells at cloud, I think genuinely I've kind of gotten over the "forever physical" mindset. Like I said at the beginning of this. I am perfectly fine with even going so far as to stream games now, having the experience of this work of art is more important to me than owning it. But I was wishing that everything I sought to play was physical during the outage so that I didn't feel like I was racing against the clock to have it turned back on.
So, instead, I mostly just explored. Got to places where having frame dips or shakey internet wouldn't be that much of a problem. Filled in some loose ends to the map. Just casual stuff, you know. I made it to the point I could find the third and final Dreamer, I made my way through Fog Canyon and into the Queen's Gardens. Big mistake, I don't think I really have to go to the Queen's Gardens and it's scary there. Like, I struggle with the Mantises as is, no matter how late in the game I got, the Mantises always posed a problem for me for some reason. So you can imagine how well I'm taking an area with "the mantises but stronger". I also didn't find the map so I have to go back into that area blind to find my stuff. Not that it super matters, I had already lost a lot in this play session, I took on a problematic platforming challenge and lost like 3000 geo at once. I'm so bad at this game.
Otherwise I just kinda wandered. Found a couple Nailmasters and learned their techniques. They're super cool but I think they're a bit too slow for the combat of this game? Like the point I would use these more powerful charged attacks are in bosses, who often are very quick. Made my way up to the Howling Cliffs, the only part of Hallownest that is outside and thus subject to the elements. The world seems caught in a harsh, endless winter. one that makes the outer reaches of this world inaccessible. I found Joni's Repose! That was a beautiful little area, seeing all these lifeblood Butterflies around, surrounding this deceased butterfly who gives you a charm to turn your health into the special additional health you can gain. I think that's kind of important for a sidequest. Like I said, it's nothing too grandiose, I was mostly just filling out the map. I'm at a point where I'm already like "I'm done with this game". I have this weird thing with Metroidvanias where I will go all the way through 100 times to find as many secrets as possible, but put me at a point where I'm about to fight the final boss and all my desire to keep playing the game is sapped and I just want to stop. Next time I definitely will have beaten Hollow Knight.
1/1/26
Happy New Year, y'all!!! How fitting my first game clear of the year is going to happen on the first day of the year~ Full disclosure, at the time of typing this, I have yet to beat the game. I could've, I likely should've. I meandered too much in the Queen's Gardens, the area I left off at last time. I don't know why, 100%-ing the game isn't really a goal of mine so I should've gotten out of this area ASAP but, you know. I like exploring. I just figured I should update since I took a break for dinner, don't want to forget anything y'know.
The Queen's Gardens are beautiful. As much as I'm like "I probably shouldn't have spent as much time in this area", I'm very glad I did. For such a hostile area, being the kind of post game area with stronger versions of the already pretty inconvenient Mantises, it's rather peaceful in the Queen's Gardens. I haven't really commented on the music that much, other than a tracks It's not that the Hollow Knight soundtrack is bad per se it's just that I don't find most of the music to be something I latch onto. But Queen's Garden is an amazing track. It perfectly embodies both the hostility and the tranquil beauty at play in the Queen's Garden. Like, even if I'm bad at platforming and this area took me a bit to get through, I was always happy to be here. There's even this magical little moment where you find a bench overlooking the Garden itself, at least where the garden originated I imagine before it overgrew, And in a rare moment of levity, a little gramophone pops down to play the save room music. I destroyed that unfortunately so now that room is silent.
I found the final Stag Station!!! I'm very glad I did, another reason why I'm fully okay with going through this area I didn't technically need to do. Connecting all the fast travel points so our stag buddy could remember his way home is a highlight of the run so far, actually. I swear the highs of this game are consistently really high. Venturing into this realm where the stags, these giant bugs who used to carry people across Hallownest, and seeing them all seemingly gone is sad. But as you explore the Station, you find stag eggs. And some of them have hatched. Our companion, who once believed himself to be the last of his kind, senses that his people live on. Finally freed from the servitude that bound them, free to roam and explore to their hearts content. And although our friend cannot join them, staying with the Little Knight until the end of his journey, he is overjoyed that the stags live on.
Figuring out what the deal with Quirrel is was a genuinely shocking moment to me. I haven't mentioned many of the characters I've met multiple times throughout the journey, there's a bunch of NPCs who will kind of meet you at various points in your journey and talk with you for a while. Quirrel is the most notable one, an aged knight with a mask he doesn't even wear who feels compelled to venture down into Hallownest. He has lost his memory in his old age and is driven by something that will, hopefully, restore it. From what I can gather, he is one of the more popular characters and it's not difficult to see why, he's very odd in the context of Hollow Knight. Most people are very cold and dismissive, even the allies are rarely kind. But Quirrel is always happy to see you and regale you with his adventures. So getting to Monomon the Teacher and finding out his deal? Super fascinating.
After fighting the boss in Monomon's sanctum, one of her many electricity experiments to seemingly try and stave off the infection. She was clearly working on a way to purify things through electricity, leading to her capturing several bugs and experimenting on them to some success. Anyways, you discover that Quirrel was once her knight. His mask he wears, the mask that always sits as a visor rather than as a mask, belongs to Monomon and, when the time came, she would use the mask to call out to him to allow the person who could fix this to find her. The Dreamers, who had seemed so hostile when you first met them, attempting to imprison you in the sleeping realm forever actually wanted you to save the world. Quirrel aids us in allowing Monomon to pass on and, with that, we can finally move on to the Black Egg Temple. Finally face the sealed warrior within. Battle the Hollow Knight, the king of Hallownest. I'm looking forward to it, I have grown to really like Hollow Knight but I will be glad to have this done and dusted.
1/2/26
Alright, I beat the Hollow Knight. This will probably be a pretty short update because like, what do you even say about just the final boss of a game. I did do a tiny bit of exploring, there was a hanging thread I wanted to fill out before I fought the Hollow Knight. There's an area called the Tower of Love that has been locked off to me for a while now. And whoever was behind that locked door was laughing each time you approached it. So naturally I was curious to go through the door, see who was laughing behind it. The key to the Tower of Love was in the Queen's Gardens so I doubled back to solve the mystery, there was a boss that I was uninterested in fight, the Collector, a woman cloaked in shadow who summons other creatures from her "collection". Something really cute is that if you die to her, she imprisons your shade in a glass jar as part of her collection. I liked that. Didn't finish the boss though, and honestly, good that I didn't. I would've ruined something very special if I did.
So, the Hollow Knight fight. I want to first note that the game saves before you enter the fight and does not save again. Unlike every other point in this game, it does not autosave after each death to prevent the player from save scumming, if you lose the Hollow Knight fight it doesn't mean you potentially lose everything. In fact, unless I am mistake, you cannot reclaim your shade from dying in the Hollow Knight fight. It just floats above the entrance to the fight, never activating. As if it knows that whatever happens next, the soul of the little Knight should not be involved with. It's a neat little detail that I appreciated now when I'm not playing, and hated when I was. You lacking your shade means that you only can store half the magic when you push forward next, and since you can't exactly reclaim the shade, dying once means the fight is just permanently harder. It's fine though, I beat it without too much trouble.
The Hollow Knight is a great final boss. His theme, The Sealed Vessel, is fantastic. I love how he's kind of a culmination of every idea you've had put forward thus far. Like each one of his attacks is just a stronger version of one of the attacks of another boss. In particular he takes notes from Hornet and the Mantis Lords, two of the most memorable boss fights in the game. I love how erratic the Hollow Knight gets as the fight goes on, relying more and more on infection based attacks, a stark reminder that you aren't actually fighting the knight but rather the infection that plagues Hallownest. Obviously the most iconic moment of the fight is when the Hollow Knight has brief moments of lucidity and tries to aid you in your conquest of him, stabbing himself relentlessly. Only to then have the infection warp his body, commanding the living corpse to slam face first into the little Knight. It's just one of the best final boss fights in gaming, narratively, gameplay wise, thematically, it all rules so hard. All the parts of this game's combat I didn't super like was leading up to this masterpiece of a boss fight.
I did not get one of the good endings. I just didn't have time nor did I have the want really. I enjoy Hollow Knight, if I had more time to play it, I may put it on the backburner to at least get the ending where you fight the "true final boss". But I'm fine getting the main story ending, the ending where the Little Knight absorbs the infection into himself and seals himself away, replacing the Hollow Knight. It's something that I believe more and more as I age, that getting the best ending isn't always the best for you. Games are done when you are done with them. And I'm good to wrap up Hollow Knight here. I put 27 hours into it to get an ending, that's a game, that's a longer game than I normally play. Also, most importantly, if I don't end it off here then I will ruin the fact that I finished the game with 69% completion, let's go.
Hollow Knight had its ups and downs for me. I am forever grateful that I didn't balk on it when I felt like maybe I should. For so long into the game, about 8 hours or so, maybe 10, I really wasn't feeling it. A lot of the design decisions it makes aren't super to my taste and in ways that were very impactful to my experience. Sticking with it, I found a very good Metroidvania that I love a lot about and hate a lot about. It's difficult not to be disappointed by Hollow Knight at least a little, it is such a legendary and important game and I objectively think it has earned its place as both one of the best Metroidvanias of all time and one of the best games of all time. But it has too many negatives for me to really say it's one of my favorites. Honestly I think I feel about it the way that I feel about most Metroid games, an experience I almost really love if not for one very big glaring thing about the game that severely negatively impacts my experience. I enjoy talking about it more than I enjoy playing it, I've been on a lore rabbit hole and I've grown to love that part about it. It's a great game, I wouldn't be surprised if it hangs around this year's best list for most of the year, I'm not the biggest fan of it though. 8.3/10
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