Hollow Knight

It's beautiful, it's harmonious, it has none of the inconistencies that the Shantae series suffers from, but a lot of the boss fights are just painfully hard, and there is no way to adjust the difficulty. If the rest of the game weren't absolutely perfect, I would have taken more than one star off just for the difficulty.

Hollow Knight is one if not the best Metroidvania ever. It is ultra asmospheric and its world invites you to know more about it. Having so much detail in quality in a handdrawn indie title is rare. Christopher Larkins music fits perfectly to the areas and helps to immerse. 10/10 must play!

Hollow Knight's gameplay doesn't live up to its presentation, nor does its difficult live up to its hype. Intricately beautiful backgrounds, characters indirectly telling a lovely story, the music is just great. The game is not all that difficult, just a series of respect checks. Strike a few times then back off, good for almost 90% of the content. Just a pattern to learn for the rest of it. Yes, the post game content is hard, but if that counts then Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy are series that present a real challenge: ridiculous. For that 10%: after dying you are transported back to your last save location, leaving you weak and with a few minutes of travel to do. This is made all the worse because the mapping philosophy sucks. I was virtually done w/ most areas by the time I unlocked the ability to map them. Maybe the game is considered hard because most people just become 'done' with the game and start playing awfully? The entire map remains relevant through the entire game. Sounds great, but the fast travel present isn't enough. 5 minutes for this NPC, to get to where you can use your new ability to unlock a new area, to get to the nearest fast travel station, IT. NEVER. ENDS. Platforming is eh. Hear a clink that tells you that you should be bouncing? 'Monarch Wings' ability shown to have gone off? Still lose points of health White is also overused for everything. You basically memorize, not see, where different obstacles hazards and platforms are in these areas as everything's just white (also becomes an issue during post-game content). With proper coding these sections would just be another screen in most 2d platformers, but becomes slog in Hollow Knight. A rather fine 12 hour game stretched on a rack to achieve a merely alright 40 hour experience. In short, still hyped for Silk Song, but would normally have quit this sort of game 3 hours in.

This is absolute favorite of mine and helped my get through the pandemic, it almost feels like theft with how much time I've gotten out of this relative to its price

very good game and entertained, not as complicated as it seems