For some reasons, at one time I abandoned this game, and how I regret that I did not give her a second chance. But the game gave me the very emotions that I could not feel for several years. After passing, the feeling even appeared that the game impotence was just the effect of the Mandela and it never existed at all.
So I believed that I was no longer able to feel all the notes of the plot, atmosphere, anal pain from the passage of difficult bosses, the farm of the intra -game currency and other gaming mechanics.
However, I downloaded Hollow Knight, launched, and these were one of the most beautiful 100 hours that I spent in games in recent years. I was so carried away that I opened all the ends, I did everything that could and knocked out all the achievements in this game. And now I will share with you my thoughts and emotions from the passage of this game.
Tune the lute, put on pink beret. The tram goes to the Kingdom of Hallowest.
ATMOSPHERE
The atmosphere in this game is what sets the tone throughout the history of the gentle knight. Hallowest is the once prosperous kingdom in which all events take place. But the main character of the former aesthetics did not find, and all that will meet you in the way is darkness, danger and death. The developers conveyed it so well that, even being in the main menu – you understand that you are not waiting for a colorful fairy tale, full of rainbow, unicorns and fun, but a cruel story of the deceased world, mired in madness.
This concept permeates the whole game with a thin needle. The further you move the plot, the deeper you will plunge, and this is not only a metaphor. You may notice that Gryazmut is already a gloomy place, the point where your adventure will begin, there is no comparison with the local Nadir. If at least some semblance of light accompanies you upstairs, then below is complete darkness. And that tempting deep light, which seems to be something good in such a dangerous place-nothing more than a threat under the mask of hope.
The game as your insignificance shows and how it rises above you. Most opponents are more than the size and painfully beat, you must adapt to everything, adapt to the conditions and situations in which you will put you. You are nothing. Huge, gloomy, cruel world – all. But even in such a world there is light. And this light is you.
PLOT
With the mood that will accompany you – figured out. Well, what about the plot?
In short, you are a knight who arrived in Hallowest. Yourself, without understanding, you become part of its history and gain the goal, namely, to stop some evil.
Each of the locations in the game has its own small story, like each of the characters. And these stories match the world – gloomy and harsh. Even in terms of the story of Hollow Knight is strict in relation to the player. You will not be on a saucer to bring the plot, and wait until you lumber it, and la sommelier. No, instead, you yourself must obtain fragments of history, reflect on the meaning of the KAT scenes (of which there are not so many here), listen to the NPC and independently glue the existing pieces into a single plot.
Yes, all this at first glance looks vague and not clear. But even I who did not delve into what was happening – caught the essence of the game. However, the fact that the plot here is presented in a similar way does not mean that it is not interesting. Sometimes I was so interesting to find out the story of some characters that I turned to Wiki for this universe.
Here people will find a https://goldspincasino.uk/login/ place for themselves both who do not want to think very much about what is happening, as well as lovers to delve into oddities, compare the facts and understand even the smallest details.
Gameplay
And now to the most interesting. The largest and main part of this game is gameplay.
It is a classic metroide-platform with a side view.
You need to go to point A, but you don’t have a certain ability, you go to point B, but to get to point B you need a key, where no one is telling you, of course, maybe you will give it some NPC, or maybe you will not climb it without a lantern, and then you remember that you saw some kind of lantern. You go back, and along the way you notice a bunch of passages, which well look very tempting, go there and forget why you were going. As a result, you grab it from the boss, which you stumbled upon, I can’t and resurrect on the bench. By the way, preservations occur on it.
Let’s talk about the mechanics of death in more detail. In Hollow Knight, a geo – local currency for which you will buy everything will be bought with enemies. And if you die, then you lose all your belongings. But still, the game has a drop of mercy and you are given the opportunity to reach the place of his death and kill your own shadow. However, if you do not reach her, which happens quite often, then you will lose your savings finally. Then, of course, you will open up the opportunity to put your geo on a savings account, but with a limit by quantity and already further than in the second half of the game. And there you will be too lazy, or you will forget and will be just like me with a bare ass to whine because they didn’t spend 3 minutes to do this and now we must again farm these unfortunate gears.
Speaking of murders. Due to the fact that this is a platformer, the whole fighting here consists in blows, jumps and jerks. There is also a parish, but you will most likely beat off attacks by accident, because it is difficult and it is unlikely to become your game style. 3 – 4 actions in battle may seem mean enough, but do not let yourself be deceived. As soon as you encounter a boss, which will spawn a bunch of small flying creatures and besides the fact that you need to fight off from them on a platform, for which you barely cling to a coccyx, you need to damage the one from whom they get out – you will begin to pray that it all ends as quickly as possible. Now imagine that you will do this over and over until you memorize all the attacks, do not remember all the timings until you win. And some bosses are ready to humiliate you again and again, for them it is a balm to the soul, and each time they ecstasy will send you to the bench, from where you will go and die until psychic abilities wake up in you. And only then, having understood this world and the essence of things, they are no longer locked in the room with the boss, but the boss is locked in the room with you.
But until the philosophy of this game, you will feel a phantom nail in your ass, which will scrap you from the inside. And in order to soften this acute pain – there are amulets in the game. Amulets are objects that you can wear and which give you certain bonuses. Total of 40 pieces.
Some of them increase your damage, some endurance, others accelerate the reloading of skills, and one generally exudes a wonderful aroma of manure. Some amulets synergies and strengthen each other. There are fragile amulets that break when you die, but do not worry, they can be repaired, or strengthened. In a very doubt way, do not go into details, some things are better not to know. But, all amulets can’t be worn, there are some restrictions in the form of amulet slots, and even each amulet occupies a certain amount of, so to speak, underlines. Thus, with the help of simple management, you can collect builds for your play style or under different situations.
Also in the game there is such a mechanic familiar to the genre as collected items. You will receive keys, rotten eggs, pale ore to improve a nail in a blacksmith. But not what is in your ass, but the one that the main character uses as a weapon. You need some items for the plot and improvements, others in order to earn gears.
Let’s not forget about another important mechanics – platforming. I won’t say much here, I will only say that people like me, who catastrophically played the platformers in principle – they will feel some kind of discomfort, so that you will wake up in the cold at night, because you dreamed how you jumped up the platforms for an hour in a row, but then your finger lingered at the key to half a second long ago, you were ripe. unhappy brick and fly to the very bottom, along the way, looking at how much you are new upward up.
I think you already realized that Hollow Knight brings the players a lot of suffering. But brings even more pleasure. I will explain now. If you went through the local bosses on the first attempt or maybe it would be too easy for you, then you would simply not remember this game, it would not have been impressed with you. And when the game makes you sweat, forces you to concentrate in tense battles – for you the victory is already a reward, besides it is a way to show the cruelty and scale of this world, and that there is no place for the weak here.
Also, in addition to the feeling of superiority after the victory over the boss, the game rewards the user for researching the world. You open new places, benches, stations for quick movement, meet new NPCs, get new objects, consumables and amulets.
As a result, the gameplay turns out to be harmonious, everything is in moderation here. Of course, I had situations when I was strictly stupid, I did not know where to go further, but I always helped me a short break for half an hour – an hour, and this is a problem not a game, but just my inattention.
Oh yes, I completely forgot. If you think that the torture of the bugs inquisition is ending on this, then no. After passing the game, you are opened by another mode called Steel Soul. And then the most interesting begins. At first glance, nothing remarkable, you start the game again, already run to the first boss, miss a couple of strokes, but kill it, be healed on the bench, go to the second, this time you miss too many blows, die, and … start the game again. Yes, in this mode you have only one life for the whole game. And if you want to get all the achievements, then you will need to go through Hollow Knight in this mode by 100%. Good luck.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Since I went through the game by 112% and closed all the achievements, I think you can talk about it and about it. I’m sure there are people for whom this is also an important part of the game. For me, unfortunately, Hollow Knight in terms of closing the game was 100% not as favorable as other aspects. Personally, I am very bored with playing the game several times, which is not adapted to this, and even more so to go through the game in the game at all, it does not bring anything new to the second and subsequent passages. Namely several passages and require an achievement from the player.
The point is corny that during the first passage I already looked, I did all and did everything, and all subsequent passages become torture for me, because it is necessary to do the same with minimal and rare changes, but at a higher level of difficulty. And here I have a question to the developers, why it is impossible to immediately open access to various levels of complexity to players, and they should go through the game several times, and so inattentive as me, are generally forced to do it 3, or even 4 times.
If you look at this picture from the distance, then we get artificial stretching of the game and game content. Is it annoying me? Of course yes. Is it bad? This is another question. Hollow Knight, first of all, indie project with a limited budget, and then filling in the game that we have – now even large companies are difficult to make. So I think Team Cherry did everything on top, and the problem of achievements is purely mine and my internal perfectionist. In any case, no one forced me to close the game by 100% and I definitely won’t become an assessment of the game for this. But this remark has a place to be, because achievements in this game exist and they are created so that people perform them.
However, in the upcoming continuation, I’m about Silksong, I will pay attention to it much more seriously, and this will affect the general perception and evaluation, because the studio gained experience, the budget also became more, the developers received feedback from the players, and I really hope that the continuation will come out much more, large -scale, will bring a lot of new things, and also take into account the already done things that need already done in refinements and improvements.
Soundtrack
Before making the final verdict we will analyze another very important part – musical accompaniment. Here the game is so good that even if I wanted to complain about something, I simply would not have found something. I shake my hand to everyone who is involved in the sounds in this game. From menu to credits – everything is fine here. The music has grown so much with this world that you do not notice it, but at the same time, without it you seem to be naked. This is the part of the game that shows how much it is a whole product, and with which warm developers carried Hollow Knight in their binary womb.
Results
We will summarize. Hollow Knight is a fierce ass gap, but at the same time an excellent and worthy adventure in which I left 100 hours of my life and I do not regret a drop about it. The game is rightfully called the classic of the genre, and I really hope that this project will become an example for other indie developers what a high -quality game should be.
I have not talked about the tenth of what awaits you in this game. For example, about the fact that here you can choose the topic of the main menu, that in two years the developers have released 4 free DLC, that in addition to the classic and steel soul there is another third mode, and there are still many such examples. But I think what I was talking about quite enough to understand whether you want to play Hollow Knight or not.
That’s all. Since this is my first review, I want to ask you to write a comment, tell us what you liked or did not like what you would like to hear in more detail about how you need such a format, whether you need a review to continue Hollow Knight, and just write your thoughts.