Hollow Knight

It's got the makings of a great combat platformer, but I can't get past the fact that in order to play this with a controller ("highly recommended," and advertised as supporting controllers), I have to run the game through Steam Big Picture with controller input emulation on. This then breaks controller support for all of my other games launched through steam. Hopefully there's an update that fixes controller compatibility, but I doubt it, as the "official" fix is over on the steam forums to run either a controller input emulator, or steam big picture.

Hollow Knight delivers a traditional Metroidvania experience, with a touch of Dark Souls: you explore sprawling world, which opens up more and more as you gain access to more skills. Combat, while simple, is alright, and landing an attack and getting hit is impactful. There is also an overwhelming amount of content: it took me 30h to reach the true ending, while barely touching DLC content. My experience till I reached the “bad ending” was pretty stellar. Once HK opens up, you can access a lot of areas from the get go, and while you lack direction, whenever you go you are bound to find something interesting or useful. All areas are very distinct and map is really well design, making navigation effortless – be it from the memory or by consulting the map. While your move-set is rather modest, there is a generous amount of enemy types in the game, keeping the combat interesting, as you uncover new areas. I also liked various NPCs you get to meet. However, I must say I didn’t enjoy reaching the 2nd ending. Amount of extra steps needed reach it, is quite significant. While there is a fast-travel feature, I found it to be not enough in this final stage of the game, and completing necessary tasks (while consulting walkthrough! I can’t imagine having patience for it without one, as game provides little to no clues, as to what we might even look for) requires excessive backtracking. There is also an infuriating platforming section, and unfortunately WK floaty controls and zoomed in camera doesn’t support that kind of precision platforming. While impressed by amount of content in the game, I am also not terribly excited about it – there are many bosses to fight, and then harder versions of some of them for extra challenge, but due to simplicity of combat, I can’t say they feel terribly different from each other, even though they all do have unique art and move-sets. I just didn’t feel there was more depth left in the game's mechanics to explore.

Cons: - Easily the worst map system of any Metroidvania - Difficulty means you will die repeatedly unless you already love games like Meatboy - Punished for each death, unless you're into that sort of thing - You have to buy/level up a lot of features that make a game playable (ex: proximity collection of enemy loot) - You'll likely get stuck or waste time trying to figure out where to go next at some point (unlike other Metroidvanias) - I know I've already said it, but the map is really, really bad. Pros: - Combat feels right - Movement feels right - Power ups are well paced and feel rewarding

I love this game as a game. It's got a great map, controls are nice, and the combat is fun. Exploration is rewarded, and there's a lot of content to dig through. So why 3 stars? Because of the terrible, terrible performance. I am not talking about a hitch here or there. I am talking prolonged periods of framerates in the 20s, sometimes even under 10 FPS. Bear in mind I have an i7 6700k, 16 GB of DDR4 3200 RAM, and a Radeon RX 580. My computer is not the issue. I would expect I could run this game at a full 144 FPS, but I would be relieved if the game could even keep a stable 60 FPS. Considering how challenging this game can be, performance needs to be rocksolid. Treat this is an early access title--do not get it until the developers fix the performance issues. Once they do, my review will adjust accordingly.

I have hollow knight on ps4 and on gamepass and its just AMAZING 1. MASSIVE MAP witch is bigger than your MOM hehehe 2. charms = power = strength = good = thicc 3. haha nail go bRRRR 4. pogo = kill 5. phanteons hard = funi 6. im saying to buy it so buy it