My next pick is a preeminent gem of two celebrated genres. The first genre, with roots in Metroid, is among my favorite game styles. The second genre - The “Souls-like”, in which Elden Ring, Bloodborne and of course Demon’s Souls all hail, typically not so much of a personal favorite. Gothic horror and grinding difficulty aren’t generally draws for me
But apparently, I’m down with masochism and the macabre if everyone is a bunch of little bugs.
Hollow Knight (Switch) - 2018
I was nearly three years late to the Switch after a half decade exile from gaming due to life experiences - including marriage, moving cities, changing careers, and fatherhood.
Breath of the Wild was my first game back to the hobby once my wife gifted me a Switch having navigated all of the above. It was practically therapeutic, and thematic, returning to the world of a post-apocalytlic Hyrule following so much personal upheaval in my own real world. There is a certain amount of zen in exploring the sparse and nearly barren open world of BotW, if not entirely challenging.
If it was a challenge I was seeking, my second game delivered a return to my NES hard glory days in spades.
Hollow Knight is hard. Consistently so. There’s no real warm-up bosses or training wheels. You’re dropped into a desolate and cursed land with little more than a rusty nail and a dream.
Good luck little Knight. You’re off the edge of the map now.
Here be Monsters
Ooooh, eerie.
Of course, maybe part of the draw for the dense gothic narrative for me when that typically is a turnoff is the very fact that it’s basically one big subversion of the trope. Literally, at one point when I was reading the complex and sad history of Hallownest and how the Knight’s dark lore connects to it all, I said aloud and a bit confused “but they’re just bugs.”
That spun me into a minor existential meditation as to why the story would be any more meaningful if it were about the fallen kingdom of human knights and wizards, but that’s beside the point.
I found it invigorating being presented an overwrought grimdark story and simultaneously given license to not take it seriously, but still totally taking it seriously.
Look at that: for seemingly no reason, there’s this totally standard enemy peacefully gazing on the lake as if wistful or meditative. If the Knight leaves him alone, he’ll just stand there not attacking or engaging. Nothing special happens if you leave him alone. Nothing special happens if you attack. It’s just a thing in the game that is equal parts contemplatively mysterious and absolutely adorable. Essentially, it’s open to the player to provide context, or ignore it completely.
I feel Team Cherry brought a similar approach to the game design. Typical Metroid-like games have a standard formula of exploration gated until an item/ability is discovered or boss is defeated - and there’s certainly an amount of that in Hollow Knight. But there’s also a large degree of flexibility, as locations typically have multiple paths to reach them, many bosses can be taken on in a variety of orders or skipped entirely, and there is rarely a choke point in which progress halts entirely until you accomplish X. These means the supreme challenge never becomes overbearing.
Well, except maybe the Path of Pain
And The Radiance can kick rocks.
In all, Hollow Knight was the first game in a long while to remind me what it meant to be fully captivated and enthralled by interactive art.
Hornet’s a cool character too. Team Cherry should really make a sequel starring her. Just an idea guys.
