Hollow Knight Review (DNF)
This game has great atmosphere and a great soundtrack. The audio of the characters is really charming. I just can't bring myself to keep playing it because it has a lot of padding and is really, really slow. It has a similar issue that I find in the Dark Souls games where you'll wander around for a long time, find a boss, get killed immediately because you don't have any clue what their attack pattern is yet, and then get launched way too far back to the last checkpoint. The core gameplay is really not interesting enough for me to keep engaging with it. I've played tons of metroidvanias and action platformers and this is the only one I've not wanted to continue playing. 7 hours is a pretty honest playtime for me, and there were parts where I did get a little invested, but it's just not enough to keep me playing.
If there were a way for me to unlock all of the abilities and play through the game like that, it might be a bit better. It really seems like a lot of the expanded kit should have been the default moveset and then some extra stuff could be added on top of that. It's hard to blame Team Cherry for this though since this is the first thing they created and it was only by a few people. It's good to start small, but the issue is that the world is so much larger than it has to be for how little options you have for combat and traversal. There is a mismatch there, and it really should have been like half the size or less.
I have no doubt that this is a good game with a lot of appeal, but you really have to understand that this is going to be an extremely slow-burn game with elements of Soulslikes. If you are cool with that, then you'll probably enjoy it. If you're not, you probably won't. For that crowd, I would recommend something more like Axiom Verge or Touhou Luna Nights as far as Steam games go. Metroid Dread/Super Metroid/Metroid Fusion, and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night are much better picks for the kind of gamer I am and that you may very well be too.
I have no intention on returning to continue playing the game, but it may very well happen down the line. I have heard stories of people putting the game down and then coming back later and really enjoying it after that. Even my roommate, who wanted me to play the game as it is his favorite, did that. So, who knows.
