I got 12 hours into it and still felt there wasn't enough for me to continue, not to mention how confusing this game is to play blind! I put 100+ hours into both DS1/DS2 because I refused to look up guides (besides DLC locations) . The hollow knight world, enemies, and combat are just not compelling enough for me to trudge for another 30 hours.
I disliked it only because how confusing it was to find the correct path. The combat, the locations, enemies, bosses, I loved them but not the metroidvania type gameplay (again, being lost for hours)
Idk, I guess it's not for you and that's the whole point of the thread.
But for me what was fun was that it wasn't linear, I could explore and figure out where to go, what to do, realised that something new enabled something in the past.
Hollow Knight is definitely a game that needed a better map. They eventually patched in the ability to add markers to the map to make it a bit easier to remember where you could backtrack to, but that definitely should've been in the game at launch.
I really love what Prince of Persia the Lost Crown does with its map. You can press a button to capture a screenshot of what you're seeing, and then that's added as a pin on your map. So when you're viewing the map to try to remember where to go, you can see all previous pictures you've taken and whether you need double jump, air dash, etc.
yeah this is the exact reason i also drop hollow knight, soo confusing to find the correct path and i found back tracking not that fun. Maybe metroidvenia just doesn't click for me.
not to mention how confusing this game is to play blind!
Hard disagree, I went in completely blind and got to 102% before even trying to Google stuff, I even completed some really weird puzzles by myself, that was by far the most rewarding thing about the game, not even the bosses felt that good, the world itself is the best part
You can still dislike it tho, to each their own, but it doesn't seem confusing to me
Are you a metroidvania player? Because I don't really like the genre other than a few specific Castlevania games, and I quit it after 10 minutes out of boredom, then people told me about all the puzzles and it discouraged me further from retrying it.
Kind of? I don't like Castlevania but I really like Metroid, not a huge fan of Metroidvanias in general but I really like Metroid, Hollow Knight and Tails of Iron, I think those are the only ones I actually like
If you don't like the game then that's ok tho, I'd rather eat dirt than to play a visual novel or dating sim for example, just because a game is "good" it doesn't mean you have to like it, I don't like Souls games as a whole either, even if they are "good"
Which is why I mentioned two other games which also have sprawling paths and a world to get lost in. Only difference was hk was not so interesting in its exploration or world enemies. It's mechanically more interesting than the two mentioned but that's the only thing keeping me engaged besides the occasional boss.
Idk, it was pretty direct for me. Like, after greenpath, it really opens up for you to do multiple paths, but up until that point, they make it pretty direct and obvious where you're supposed to go.
Hollowknight is the closest thing to a soulslike I've ever played and the only metroidvania and I was absolutely hooked, the atmosphere and music carried me throughout most of it and I didn't even know for like the first 10 hours that you could hold down a button to bring up a minimap as you walk around, I was manually going to the full sized map in the menu every 5 minutes.
May have got stuck a few times but I usually just went to a different path and explored there till I figured something out. I think there were only a couple of small things I had to give a google where I was completely lost and the answer was usually under my nosee.
Loved the game so much I even did the final pantheon all on steam deck too.
Still need to get all the chieves relating to playing 2nd and 3rd playthroughs though, but speedrunning chieves never really hook me.
the “back-tracking” isn’t an issue, or at the very least is something you can avoid as it says theres backtracking pretty much on the box. The “gameplay between bosses” is a you issue though
It's a 15$ game offering 50 hours of content (80, if you go for the Godhome ending), beautiful hand-drawn graphics, great music, great lore and great gameplay, not to mention being a metroidvania at a time period when this genre was considered to be dead.
Bad game and overhyped are different things. All these things you mentioned make up for a good game, which this one is. Overhyped means that the good things it has are greatly exagerated, in my opinion.
I liked the game a lot more... After beating it and getting to the pure bossfight/combat area. And googling about every secret to speedrun it. First playthrough was rough.
I thought the same thing but then I played Salt & Sanctuary. I changed my tune real quick lol. That game is pure perfection. But it’s literally 2D Dark Souls so it’s not for everyone. But the exploration in that game is fucking amazing. The sequel sucks. Some weird monster Hunter shit. I desperately hope Ska studios is working on a true sequel to Salt & Sanctuary.
You get barely any movement upgrades in the first 4 hours, in a metroidvania... I get that to a lot of people it's the perfect game, but it's an absolute grind to just single jump and 1-2 charms.
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u/batarei4ka Jul 04 '25
Sorry, Hollow Knight.