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In Hollow Knight looks can be misleading. A sad little town lamplit can hide the entrance of a beautiful buried kingdom. An imposing knight could turn out to be a sad little thing in an oversized armor. A green beast that tumbles can actually be a small creature disguised by a pile of leaves. And a simple 2D action game can unfold slowly in one of the great adventures of the game.
Hollow Knight was released on PC in February 2017. The platform game of D & # The side scrolling action was successful even though it flew under the radar of some websites (ahem) during a spring that featured the launch of a new console. Nintendo and an abundance of fantastic games. Some people, including myself included, decided not to fire Hollow Knight before launching it on the Nintendo Switch notebook this year. That day finally arrived a few weeks ago, and I have been obsessively playing it ever since.
The adventure begins with you under the control of the mysterious Knight, a masked and sexless warrior who arrives in the desolate town of Dirtmouth. quest to explore the ruins below. From there, you descend to Hallownest, an ancient buried kingdom that is accessible only through the town of Dirtmouth. It soon becomes clear that Hallownest does not work on a human scale. It's actually a tiny kingdom of insects, and even in desolation, remains sparsely populated by talking arthropods at six and eight paws. During your travels, you'll meet a firefly merchant, a mystical butterfly, a merry mollusk selling charms, and a rhinoceros beetle smith, among others.
Hollow Knight is another in a long line of "Metroidvania" Games, a popular side-scrolling subgenre that combines elements of classic games such as Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night . There is a great map that you can explore freely, tackling the challenges in the order you want. There are areas that you will not be able to reach until you get some improvements – maybe a wall-jump, or an air-dash, or maybe something more exotic. The more you play, the more powerful and agile the knight becomes, and the more the card becomes available to you. The joy of these types of games comes from the gradual discovery of new areas of the map and the mastery of their many challenges, and Hollow Knight has a lot of joy.
In fact, it's one of the easiest journals I'll ever write. Hollow Knight is excellent. I've been under his influence for nearly 60 hours, the last ten of which I've spent wanting to be able to relive it from the beginning. I am surprised that this was done by such a small team – it was mainly developed by two people, although the credits have a handful of additional names in supporting roles. I am also impressed by the fact that a game that modestly raised less than $ 50,000 on Kickstarter worked well, given the number of much better funded projects. Hollow Knight is one of the most rewarding games I've played for a long time. I recommend it with enthusiasm
Back of the box quote
"This game has a lot of bugs."
Type of game
Insectoid Metroidvania
liked
Fantastic controls; rewarding challenge; charming art and music;
Did not like it
Takes a few hours to reveal how good it is, which is actually a strange thing to say I did not like. In truth, I loved almost nothing in this game.
Platforms
PC, Nintendo Switch
Release Date (s)
Feb 24, 2017 (PC); June 12, 2018 (Switch)
Played
Reaches a 99% completion rate Over 58 hours, 38 minutes, Braved the White Palace, defeated the Radiance, laid a flower at the grave of the traitor, saved all the larvae, but has not yet beaten the fool's lawsuit,
to Hollow Knight did not immediately catch my attention, and his hours of d & # 39; The initial area, the Forgotten Crossroads, is dull. The knight responds promptly to button presses and willingly goes into the air with the help of a generous amount of aftertouch, but their initial set of shots is limited: players can only jump and cut their "nail", which represents a sword in this world of bedbugs. The first enemies you face are not so interesting, and the first two bosses are difficult without offering very exciting rewards. This is not bad or something, but it's a noticeable contrast with the richness of the game after a dozen hours, as you regularly unlock interesting abilities, discover fascinating secrets, fight new combinations of the 153! )
However, these slow opening hours are essential to understanding what is so good about Hollow Knight . This game establishes what it is in those hours, and as it develops and develops these ideas over time, it never really deviates from that basic identity. Hollow Knight deals with a thoughtful refinement of a set of basic ideas, rather than daring experiences and unpredictable course changes.
When you set off for the first time in the Forgotten Crossroads, you'll have to climb into new areas without hitting the spikes. You will try to swing your sword against the enemies without letting them hit you. You will defeat the bosses to open new areas and updates. You will talk to non-player characters to discover the background of the kingdom. You will slowly win the currency of the enemies you defeat, sparing to buy upgrades for the Knight. Forty hours into the game, you will continue to do all these things, but thanks to the way the game's developers have embellished and elaborated on their core concepts, each pursuit will have become much more interesting than it seemed to be. ;be. 19659003] The Hollow Knight Map is a marvel, full of hidden secrets, shortcuts and diabolical jump challenges. Each of its 16 regions is connected in various interesting and often logical ways, with trams and lifts linking some of the old quarters of the kingdom and others only connected by broken corridors and aqueduct tunnels. At any time, you could cross a ruined wall and find a new cavernous area to explore.
You can also travel quickly from one area to another using the "Stagways", a series of previously booming, now-defunct tunnels borrowed by the giant Stown beetles from Hallownest. The only surviving Stag is happy to take you on your adventure, offering nostalgic comments about the area surrounding each new Stag Terminal that you unlock. Hollow Knight could easily have linked his fast journey to a series of magic panels or other inanimate object. Team Cherry's decision to instead offer a surprisingly moving talking transport, with its own questline and storyline, encapsulates much of what makes the game special.
credits rolled I found myself unexpectedly charmed by actors like Cornifer, Bretta, Sly, Salubra, Quirrel, and even the terrifying termite Leg Eater. I also found myself wrapped up in the history of Hallownest, which unfolds gradually over the course of the game. Although it contains a lot of fallen kingdoms / mysterious mysteries chosen, I'm waiting there after years playing games Souls this gives them enough distinct flavor that I became invested in the end.
is not new in the quick and ruthless fight of Hollow Knight . The game shines once again in the refinements and clever little ideas that adorn its nervous and nervous core. The jumps and the air jumps seem to me intuitive and fast, and after so many hours spent to overcome so many ruthless challenges, I am able to jump intuitively through the flocks of enemy fireballs with a fluidity that I would never have believed capable
Attack with the knight's nail is quick and immediate. Reaching a hit has a physical effect, repelling enemies and the Knight from the point of contact. This means that landing several shots against an enemy forces you to constantly make small adjustments to your foot, most of which are micro-calculations that you probably will not even realize. Jump from a platform and attack down on an enemy to bounce in the air. Slice a second enemy in the air to your right, and you will push slightly to the left. Take a hit from a third enemy, and a low-pass filter crunches on your headphones as the game world momentarily goes dark. The first time that happened, I thought the knight was dead.
Hollow Knight's simple but complex healing system summarizes how the game takes the basic concepts of video games – in this case, you can choose to spend the mana tip to heal – and refines and s & Extends on them. The magic energy of the knight is called "soul" and accumulates in a glass container next to their health bar. Every time you touch an enemy, you get a little soul. You can use Soul to cast a small handful of offensive spells that you will unlock during the game, but you can also use it to perform a move called "Focus," where you can wave the Soul to heal. a hitpoint. Focusing your Soul so that it heals forces you to stay still for a few seconds, and if you cancel the Focus Shot at any time, you lose the Soul that you spent without receiving anything. in return.
At any point in the game, you may be faced with several decisions: do you use your attention on a remote attack, or register to heal it? Is healing worth the risk? Is it best to avoid the boss and try to recover health, or attack and build your soul so you can heal more health later? Can you be smart enough to choose the right time to heal? Several assimilable charms that you discover add extra dimensions to the focus / health regeneration system, allowing you to have even more possible play styles. What begins as a simple healing mechanism is quickly refined into something distinct, interesting and malleable.
Each of the Hollow Knight Lock Systems presents the player with a set of risk-reward proposals, and the key to success is to be able to intelligently make these calculations on the fly. . Usually, caution is the wisest option, but there are times when bravely fighting is the only way to survive. The game's many boss battles push things even further, and the complex charms system opens the door to all sorts of experimental strategies. You could equip charms focused on escape and quick damage, quickly reducing boss HP while avoiding (hopefully) damage. Or maybe equip charms for a defensive build, eating more attacks but healing faster? There is a spell that deals damage to your enemies each time you hit a spell, a spell that gives you more health but prevents you from healing, and a spell that increases. spell damage. An agile and attacking boss quickly can counter the recovery-focused charms, while a slower boss may require faster and more powerful attacks.
Each of the many Hollow Knight bosses is a test, dexterity, skill or aggression. This is never more the case than with the "real" final boss of the game, an ultra-hardcore challenge that only becomes available after completing a long string of mysterious optional objectives. . This fight was without a doubt one of the most difficult things I've ever tried in a video game, a pure final pattern memorization exam, fast dodge, situational awareness, mental endurance and right reflexes. Although some of the other bosses in the game reach such a level of difficulty, I still found myself frustrated by a few of them, and still looking for more charms to unlock more strategies [19659033] All this jumping and cutting is wrapped in a nice aesthetic package. Each hand drawn character tells a story without saying a word, from the nerve intuition of the beetle to the sad and stoic Gray Mourner, alone on the periphery of the realm. Check your card, and the knight pulls a card from their pocket, reading with you. The lamps of the City of Tears attract the light of the fireflies that are there. break a lamp, and the fireflies are released. The elegant musical score of composer Christopher Larkin skillfully defines the melancholy tone of the game, while blending perfectly with his wonderfully daffy sound design. A terrifying nest of rustling spiders will give way to a gaping crystal cavern or a peaceful, reverberating lake, and the background music of each region adds layers of instrumentation as you get closer to his heart. You may hear a woman perform an aria on the soundtrack and then meet a spectral moth playing the same song.
Despite his ambitious scale, Hollow Knight is unified by an unusual degree of artistic focus. Maybe because it's basically the work of a few people – Team Cherry's Ari Gibson and William Pellen, with Larkin on the sound and a few others in technical roles – almost nothing feels moved or stuck. Each character, region, and piece exists for a reason that relates to all other characters, regions, and parts. While I was exploring City of Tears, a fellow traveler explained to me that he had heard that the constant rain of the city was in fact water flowing from the water. A lake somewhere above. Later, I found this lake, and I remembered his words, once again marveling at how easy it was to believe in this world of make-up insects
Team Cherry continued to work ] since its launch last February, he has created free patches and DLCs that add new dialogues, characters, enemy behaviors, bosses, narrative abilities and missions, which greatly expand the world of Hallownest. Many of the bosses I've defeated on Switch were not in the game at launch, and only in one case – a hive area where the trek from the backup room to the boss room was too long and treacherous – was the addition quite inelegant. I've since polished almost everything in the main game apart from a couple of collectible charms and a handful of optional rematchs against the juiced-up versions of the main game bosses. The Cherry team is working on more free DLC for later this year, which will add even more new bosses, enemies, zones, characters, and even a new game mode. I can not wait.
The world of video games has a pronounced bias towards the new. Every year, it seems like dozens of games push things both technologically and creatively. Hollow Knight is not part of these games, and systematically avoids pursuing innovation for its own sake. He does not reinvent; he is refining. He does not rebuild; it polishes. It contains few ideas that I have not seen in other games, but it still feels fresh because of the care given to every character, every battle, every frame of the game. animation and every square inch of its tiny underground. civilization.
To swell humans like us, the Hallownest kingdom would appear as an insignificant mound of earth. We could span a dozen of these kingdoms on our way to the office, perhaps seeing a fair one long enough to blow it up or trample on some of its residents. Hollow Knight is a reminder that things are not always as they first appear, and that great rewards await those who are not afraid to dive beneath the surface. Look further, he says. There is magic under the ground, if only you are ready to dig.
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