It’s through a focus on emergent gameplay from developers that really makes this work well. With a single playthrough runtime of over fifteen hours, this game packs so much into its cute and cartoonish story. What is most striking about Hollow Knight is the sheer amount of things to do and the replayability it provides. It’s reminiscent of Bloodborne’s health system and encourages a more attack minded approach. If you inflict damage on enemies, you gain souls and can retrieve health. Though, one of the saving graces for players who do struggle to adapt to these harsh but fair mechanics is the soul system that allows you to heal. These offer the ability to reach new areas, traverse with more efficiency and also offer a great deal of advantages when engaged in battle. Players will eventually have to combine these sharp attack skills with newly acquired powerups. It will require sharp reactions, precise timing and keen observation of enemy attack patterns to get through each section unscathed. It takes the simple sword combat from the likes of dungeon crawler Rogue Legacy and then ups the ante. The combat for Hollow Knight is very well designed.

It sets the player amidst a world of fascinating lore and story to uncover, with the visuals on offer being a huge motivation for players to continue on their path. Then this is coupled with the hand-drawn cartoon style similar to other challenging 2D platformer Shovel Knight. Each with their own unique style, hues and details to make them stand out on their own. You will find yourself in cold and dark caves, glowing fungal marshes, underwater utopias and hexagonally detailed beehive structures. The game has such a range in terms of environments to traverse. One of the most appealing aspects of the title is how it looks. The game aims to challenge the player right from the offset, setting the precedent that despite the cutesy art style, this game is no walk in the park. You aren’t jumping on goombas and gliding to victory in this 2D adventure. Hollow Knight pulls no punches in terms of difficulty.

This approach lends itself to the subtle storytelling and integrated mechanic tutorials. Though this game decides to go against the grain, offering a bunch of diverging paths, hidden secrets and lots of aspects that add to the story and in-game world that reward the inquisitiveness of players. This game could have easily been an atmospheric but otherwise linear 2D adventure, taking cues from Limbo or Inside.

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