here we go: this is definitely my favorite game i’ve ever played. Maybe it just stands out as the first metroidvania that I really sunk my teeth into, but I think Hollow Knight is truly something special and, judging by the hype for Silksong, I know a lot of folks agree with me. The gorgeous hand-drawn art and hauntingly-beautiful soundtrack create a striking first impression. The initially-depressive atmosphere shifts to new moods throughout the game. The nuanced combat is reminiscent of Dark Souls, maybe the best game to make that translation to 2D. The “badge” system is a clever and streamlined upgrade system that lets the player shift playstyles almost on-the-fly.
And my favorite part: THE MAP (by which i mean both the game world and the map system)!!! Omg I know a Metroidvania is made or ruined by its map, and so all well-regarded Metroidvanias have a pretty good map. Simply put, Hollow Knight is just a cut above all of them. Like all Metroidvanias, the map does the cool thing where paths are locked off to you until you get new abilities that act as “keys” to open up new areas. Hollow Knight differs in that the game starts off linear, and then two abilities you get within the first few hours act as the keys to open up almost the entire game world. So as soon as you get your legs under you and you are getting the hang of the combat, you can turn around and go almost anywhere you want as long as you are down for the challenge. Accordingly, almost every player of this game has a pretty different experience, which is really unique for non-roguelike.
Regarding the map system itself: unlike most Metroidvanias, the map does not automatically fill in as you go. Instead, you don’t get any map for a new area until you find the traveling mapmaker NPC. Once you find him, you can buy his rough, incomplete map of the area, which is nonetheless invaluable. Once you buy the pen upgrade from the shop in town, you can fill out the unfinished map with areas that you have explored. However, the map only updates when you rest at benches (save points), so you still have to keep a mental map while you are exploring. And the pen does not work in an area until you find the mapmaker NPC (little ghost needs a piece of paper to draw on). The devs play with this - in some areas the NPC is pretty close to the entrance, but in others he is pretty deep into the area, so again you have to keep up a mental map for longer. And finally, the map does not show where you the player are on it unless you equip a specific one-slot badge (some badges take up more slots). Some players are frustrated by this, but it helps if you view that slot as like a bonus slot. Once you memorize an area, you can take that badge off to get a little extra power for a boss fight. In “exploration” mode, having that badge equipped makes you feel just a little less powerful, which adds to the tension.
Which segues into my final point: this game makes you feel like an adventurer exploring a forgotten kingdom, in a way that I have never felt in any other game, not even Dark Souls. The extremely open-ended design and MASSIVE game world mean that you the player will be constantly discovering new areas, even dozens of hours into the game. It just keeps surprising you over and over. This is why I like the map system described above. Many are turned off by the friction that the devs added to the map - they could have just given you an auto-updating map like every other Metroidvania. But the friction adds to the feeling that you are an explorer in a hostile land, and the tension you feel when you are exploring a new area without a map is unparalled. In Dark Souls, there are parts where you can choose where to go, but the game overall is pretty linear, so it rarely feels like you the player are driving the exploration. That sense of exploration, and the layers-upon-layers of mystery within the story, are why Hollow Knight remains my fave of all time to this day.
Side note: I suspect Elden Ring would give a similar feeling, given that it is Souls + open-world exploration. However, I have not played Elden Ring yet personally (i’m a patient gamer down to my bones). For folks that have played both: Are there similarities in Elden Ring’s sense of exploration? Is there any intentional friction in the map system? Or did From go with an auto-updating map like most games?
Regarding Elden Ring, I would argue it does the sense of exploration better than Hollow Knight, but only by a small degree. For every area, there’s no map at the start, and the entire map’s size is obscured since it only shows what you’ve traveled through. It gets bigger as you go, but it’s still obscured by a fog of war for areas that fit inside the map, but you don’t have a map fragment for. You can see on the map where you can obtain the fragment, but not how to get there. Most times you can just cut a straight line to it, but sometimes it’s a pain.
All that said, the thing it does better than Hollow Knight for exploration is a limitation of Hollow Knight’s map system. It’s split into different rooms, and each room has finite entrances and exits. Because you fill out the map through exploration, you’re going to know what you have and haven’t found.
Because Elden Ring gives you the entirety of the map, it’s both helpful and not. You can figure out (mostly) how to get from point A to point B, and you have markers for everywhere you’ve been. There’s two minor issues with that, though. It’s a 2D map for a 3D world, which means you end up with some locations not being properly shown, because they’re underneath cliffs. The second is that the map does almost nothing to show what places of interest there are. You have large buildings shown, but that excludes all the catacombs (dungeon areas) you can visit. There are areas on the map that are right there, but due to the topography you have no idea how to get there. Going by the map alone means you’re going to miss out on a solid amount of the content available.
It’s because the map is so limiting that it feels so good. You’re able to use it to figure where places are in directional relation, but you still have to look yourself to try and uncover areas. My first run, I prided myself on uncovering everything. I searched high and low, inspected the map to make sure I went to every corner, and really made sure I knew what was out there, and it felt amazing in terms of how much content there was and how much exploration you could do. I started a second run when the DLC came out, and found an area that, somehow, I had entirely missed. It took over a hundred and forty hours of searching, really searching, to get what I thought was complete, and it still wasn’t. It was a fantastic feeling on my second run.
Hollow Knight’s map is excellent. The gameplay is excellent, the exploration is rewarding and challenging. But the issue it has is that it only has those two dimensions to work with. Elden Ring really works to emphasize that third dimension when scouring for secrets.
Thank you for your write up! This has me WAY more interested in Elden Ring than I was before. I like Dark Souls a lot, but part of it is my investment in the lore. It’s not that I expect Elden Ring lore to be worse in any way, but it’ll be a new world to relearn so I have to work myself up to it. Reading your take has me way more excited to dig into it!
Love your write up. I feel similarly, and many many randomizer runs (Archipelago.gg is great for it), speedruns, and classic playthroughs later I still find the atmosphere and music incredible
I’d seen stuff about this game for years before finally deciding to play it and boy was I not disappointed. The art for each area is gorgeous, and the character design for ghost and hornet is right up my alley; I adore capes/ponchos and little spooky things that deal massive damage to enemies.
I die often, and probably won’t go for a steel soul run for my own health and sanity though I can see the appeal. The boss fights are unique and interesting, and my only gripe is when they’re too far from a bench. The treck through the soul sanctum was frustrating, and I was seething every time I had to fight my way back to the hive knight. There is a certain euphoria that comes with finally beating them though.
The weaversong/grubsong charm combo has been invaluable for the colosseum. Not every charm seems worth their notch cost, so there are some (quick/deep focus and fury of the fallen) that I hardly ever use. But finding the right combo for my play style and whichever boss I’m facing is fun.
Haven’t finished my first run yet, but am looking forward to what the white palace holds (aside from the freaking saws).
Other commenters have explained why it's good better than I can, so I'll just say: It's good enough that my biggest dissatisfaction is that my preferred playatyle (JUSTICE FOR NAIL ARTS!!!!) is unpopular.
Played it for a few hours but got bored very quickly when I didnt know where to go and just ended up running back and forth over the same areas over and over again.
I’m too baked to write a genuine answer rn but this is my favorite game. It isn’t my most played but it is certainly my most enjoyed. Something about its dance like cambat really appeals to me
Overall great, but the movement, mainly during all the backtracking, just wasn’t fun enough to carry it. You have a dash and that’s it, the charge dash is too situational.
It might not be Metroid with Shinesparks and such, but maybe up the default walk speed at least? The rest of the game wasn’t outstanding enough to make up for it either, besides the map being very open, even for a metroidvania. I like how there are 3-4 ways to enter the area with the Dream Nail.
First game I ever played where I was like “yo, I actively WANT to do the speedrun achievement, and the deathless achievement.” So, first game where I ever did those things. Maybe I’m just crazy, but I found them way easier than I expected.
Also, a prime example of storytelling through music.
Doki Doki Literature Club & Danganronpa Trilogy got me into VNs. I’m also playing Digimon Survive, games by Spike Chunsoft, & anime VNs (Evangelion, Death Note). PSP & DS era seem to have a lot
I was unsure if choosing a specific visual novel would make the discussion too limited, so I decided to go with the genre as a whole for this thread.
Still, I sneakily used my favorite visual novel as the image: Steins;Gate! It was my first game in the genre. I bought it on a whim for PS Vita, after seeing the glowing review headlines that applauded it for its great story and music. Little did I know that this meant only story and music: there was barely any gameplay! This together with the fact that some of the tropes felt really strange to me at the time (I was not really into anime culture) made me regret my purchase and almost stop playing.
But somehow the story got its hooks in me. Only a tiny bit at first, but day after day I became more engrossed and looking forward to my play session. I read it mostly during the night while in bed, and it really took over my life for some time. Eventually I finished all routes and achieved the true ending, which is one of my favorite endings and stories in videogames as a whole.
Since then I’ve played lots of others. Some quick thoughts:
-999: a bit disappointing, the story felt very contrived and not as great as others experienced it.
-Virtue’s last reward: a real step up from the previous game, complex and satisfying story with a very meta twist to it!
-Zero Time Dilemma: often described as the worst in the series, but somehow this story really grabbed me from start to finish. The stakes were extremely high and while the story was very convoluted, the payoff worked for me.
-Danganronpa 1 and 2: very strange and over the top, but extremely well written mysteries with great presentation and soundtrack
-Ace Attorney: the first game in the series. I played it on switch and liked it, but didn’t love it. The humor felt to childlike for me at times.
-Planetarian: fantastic little gem of a game. Most visual novels will demand dozens of hours of your time, but this can be finished in less than 5 hours. Absolutely amazing.
-Muv-Luv Extra: I am currently finishing all routes for the first game in this trilogy, as I have heard multiple times that the 3rd one is incredible. I liked it most when it was just funny nonsense (it can be quite hilarious at times). The serious parts really didn’t hit home for me and a lot of the content feels a bit problematic and strange. I suppose some of this is culture, some of it satire and it was originally an erotic game so that might have something to do with it.
A little surprised to hear Zero Time Dilemma is seen as the weakest game of the trilogy. I played them all in a vacuum, never really engaging with the communities around the franchise, and I would never have said that myself.
If I had to pick, I’d argue that Virtue’s Last Reward was the “worst” one, but I am not happy about writing that. It was a great game that I enjoyed start to end, but ending on a “this will only make sense when the 3rd game releases in X years!” note leaves a really sour taste in my mouth. The other two games are complete experiences, and when I am playing a visual novel, the last thing I want is a cliffhanger “join us next time to find out!”
That said I think I enjoyed puzzles and philosophical musings of it the most out of the three? So my opinion is more about what was bad than what was good and should probably be discarded anyway.
It was a great game that I enjoyed start to end, but ending on a "this will only make sense when the 3rd game releases in X years!" note leaves a really sour taste in my mouth.
Well, one problem with ZTD is that it completely ignored the teaser in VLR's epilogue. Actively contradicted it even.
I don't think the teaser made VLR feel incomplete though, since it was also completely disconnected from VLR's otherwise self-contained story.
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