Game review: Hollow Knight (Nintendo Switch)

The combination of action-heavy platformer and exploration-filled adventure created the sub-genre known as “Metroidvania”, as games like Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night established the norms copycats would eventually adopt. These games give you a large map to explore filled with dead ends and obstacles that you can’t progress beyond until you find an item or upgrade that gives your character the abilities required to access these areas.

In the early 2000’s, as gaming shifted from 2D to 3D, the Metroidvania genre faded into relative obscurity. However, indie developers have brought it back to its former glory in the past few years.

I recently stumbled across Hollow Knight due to the high praise it received from fans of Metroidvanias. On seeing it go on sale in the Switch eShop, I decided to see if this game was worth the hype.

It absolutely was.

^{Image source: Hollow Knight Press Kit}

In Hollow Knight you begin the adventure as a nameless hero who arrives at Hollownest, the world Hollow Knight takes place in. After a brief winding path that gives you a basic tutorial on movement and combat, you arrive in the hub town of Dirtmouth. Here, you’ll speak with the mayor of the ghost town and prepare for your descent into the world of Hollownest below.

Your player begins the game equipped with a simple sword, known in this world as a “nail”. As you explore the first area of the game, you’ll quickly get overwhelmed by the scope of even this first stage. Though with a bit of perseverance, you’ll come across the tools you need to get your bearings. As you explore, you’ll encounter benches that allow you to rest and recover your health. Resting at benches also add areas you’ve explored to your map. While this is helpful, your first goal upon reaching a new area is finding the map maker. He’ll sell you a map of each area, which makes navigating the game much easier.

^{Image source: Hollow Knight Press Kit}

Combat in Hollow Knight is fairly basic. You have a simple forward slash, and you can also attack overhead and below (when you’re in mid-air). Striking down creates a pogo effect, which is often helpful and sometimes required to pass some of the game’s tricky platforming challenges.

Later in the game, you’ll find Nail Masters who will teach you “Nail Arts”. These are additional melee skills you can use in combat, which can be extremely useful in certain situations. In addition, you can upgrade your nail up to four times by meeting various requirements.

In addition, you will find a handful of spells that can be used as a projectile, an upwards blast or downward smash. Using these spells costs ‘soul’, which is essentially your magic meter. Soul is stored in your soul vessel next to your health bar and you gain soul by striking enemies with your nail, plus a few other ways.

Hollow Knight uses a clever system for healing your character. Your health is represented by a number of masks in the top left of the screen. Soul is used to heal damage, where you ‘focus’ to convert your soul into health. Focusing requires you stand still and charge, which puts you at constant risk of being hit unless you’re in a safe area. Knowing when and where to heal is extremely important. It also creates a risk/reward system -- do you use your soul to heal or go on the offensive with your spells?

Exploration is a huge part of Hollow Knight and many areas of the map will be inaccessible to you early in the game. As is common in other games in this genre, you’ll need to find items that give you additional skills if you want to reach or pass the obstacles that block off these areas of the game. You’ll eventually gain abilities to bounce off walls, dash through enemies and even fly.

^{Image source: Hollow Knight Press Kit}

As you explore the world of Hollownest, you’ll find charms that allow you to customize your character. Charms are the meat and potatoes of building the type of character you want to play. Charms are locked into ‘notches’, of which you have a set number, and each charm takes up from one to four notches. Balancing what charms you equip is something you’ll juggle throughout the game — do you focus on prioritizing your melee attacks, your spells, movement abilities, passive skills or even summoning familiars to fight by your side?

If that’s not enough, some charms add extra perks when paired correctly. For example, one charm allows you to spread poisonous spores while you’re healing; when paired with another toxic aura charm it turns your spores into a poison cloud that does more damage. There’s just so much to explore and experiment with and discover in this game.

^{Image source: Hollow Knight Press Kit}

The world of Hollownest is filled with insect-inspired creatures. During your adventure, you’ll fight enemies based on beetles, worms, flies, spiders, mosquitoes, grubs and more. Some are basic critters, while others are more human and evolved in appearance. Each enemy type is unique and requires you to learn their behaviors, movement and range to avoid taking damage.

Then there’s the bosses. Wow, this game is filled with them and each is unique and memorable. From the grotesque, screen filling Flukemarm to the noble Dung Defender, each boss fight in this game is a treat. The fight with the Mantis Lords is one of the most memorable boss fights I’ve ever experienced and now ranks among my all time favorite bosses.

Now for the pill that’s hard to swallow. Hollow Knight is hard — like really, really hard. Many bosses are extremely difficult and some of the platforming sections require extreme precision with little room for error.

While I don’t feel its truly a negative towards the game, but it does raise the bar as to who can reasonably enjoy it. There’s no training wheels, no easy mode; just the game and what it expects from you. I was able to finish Hollow Knight, but I’m still struggling with some of the challenges from the included free DLC expansions. These end game scenarios raise the bar from hard to punishing, but they’re still amazing in their own way.

^{Image source: Hollow Knight Press Kit}

While Hollow Knight isn't pushing current-gen hardware to its limits, the game is breathtakingly beautiful on every level. The world of Hollownest is a dark, somber place with a haunting atmosphere. You'll explore a world that's long past its glory days and on the verge of fading away forever. This was once a regal, fully-functioning society and the evidence of its glorious past are around every corner, with beautiful architecture, remnants of gorgeous cities and elements like trams and couriers that tie the sprawling world together. The art style is a wonderful combination of harsh gothic and delicate art nouveau themes and its all hand drawn in loving detail.

^{Image source: Hollow Knight Press Kit}

The creatures never utter a word in English, but are bursting with personality. Your hero is a silent protagonist, while the world is filled with helpful characters and challenging enemies that are unique, highly stylized and animated with finesse.

The sounds and music are on the same level as the artwork, with a fantastic soundtrack that perfectly conveys the somber and dark atmosphere of the game and its absolutely worth listening to outside of the game.

There is so much detail in this world, and the amount of love and care given to the designs are apparent on every level. This game is obviously a labor of love by its creators and it shines through.

^{Image source: Hollow Knight Press Kit}

For a 2D platformer, it took me a staggering 40 hours to reach the end of the game (hence why I’ve not done many other reviews lately). My save file is now nearing 50 hours after spending time working on some of the post-game content.

Hollow Knight is an absolute masterpiece of 2D gaming. The gameplay is tight, nuanced, rewarding and will wring every bit of skill you can muster. Its punishing, but never cheap or unfair. Hollownest is an amazing, beautiful yet sad world to explore and there’s so much to do and see. And on top of all this, the game was primarily developed by just three people!

If you’re up for the challenge, Hollow Knight gets my highest recommendation. The game is a modern classic and on par with Breath of the Wild as my favorite game on the Nintendo Switch. I may have bought it on sale from the eShop, but I’ll be buying a physical copy for my collection when Team Cherry releases it next year. I have to have a copy of this amazing game sitting on my game shelves. While I played it on the Switch, its also available on Steam, PS4 and XBox One.

Well done, Team Cherry. I’m amazed at the game you created, I loved my time with it and I’ll be returning to it often for years to come. It's as close to perfect as I can expect a game to be.

Thanks for reading. As always, upvotes, resteems and comments are appreciated!

^{Cover image source: Hollow Knight Press Kit}