Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight is one of those games that takes inspiration from other games and produces something amazing. The game is tough and only gets slightly easier through a player’s continued exploration of the areas within the game. This becomes apparent when trying to get any ending that isn't the base one. Like with any other Metroidvania, just keep exploring if you get lost or if you need more tools to take down the tougher bosses. The game’s story is more contextual and layered in the background, rather than spelled out through the plot. Your silent character, called the Knight, finds itself in the kingdom of Hallownest where it is compelled to uncover what happened to the denizens of this previously thriving bug civilization. The Knight meets an old fellow named Elderbug, who briefly discusses Hallownest’s past, and warns the Knight that only the strong should go down to the deeper parts of the kingdom. Naturally your character does just that and the rest of the game is like any other Metroidvania: explore areas, avoid and/or kill enemies, and obtain new items and abilities. You will meet some characters that don’t want to murder you (at least not the second time), and through their dialogue you’ll learn what exactly happened to Hallownest and what still needs to be done. The game's combat is simple. There are melee attacks, charged melee attacks, and spells. Charged attacks and spells are unlocked by finding them in the game, while your melee attacks remain the same from beginning to end. One of the more common melee attacks is the nail bounce, which involves hitting enemies below you to keep yourself afloat. Nail bounces reset all of your actions and keep you in the air, so get ready to use them constantly to bounce enemies to death. Touching enemies or being hit by their attacks takes out one mask (HP). Masks can be recovered with soul (your MP). Soul is gained by attacking enemies, and spells will also cost soul. These mechanics lead to a very offense based system, causing you to attack enemies to gain enough soul to heal yourself, and using your jumps and dashes to dodge attacks and finding a prime time to heal, for some enemies attack very frequently. That being said, once you’ve mastered the mechanics, you shouldn't be getting hit anyway. Death unfortunately takes a page from Dark Souls here; when you die, you lose Geo (currency in Hallownest), and your maximum soul pool is decreased. This can be resolved by going back to where you died and attacking your lingering shroud. Dying before that makes you lose your Geo and lowers your soul pool further. You can fully restore your soul pool by finding rancid eggs and giving them to an NPC, but that doesn’t really matter. The devs made the perfect choice to have your shroud always spawn away from other enemies or outside of a boss room. There are two areas where it spawns in a boss room, but those are the exception. While dying does reduce your soul pool, your HP doesn't get punished like in Dark Souls (which is good). I don't understand why there even is a Dark Souls mechanic like this except for lore and tone reasons. They could easily not have a shroud at all. Charms you find throughout the game will change up your abilities. Only a set amount can be equipped at a time, and none are truly mandatory for the basic ending, but be sure to equip some when you get them. In particular, the first one you get, the compass (which shouldn't be a charm in my opinion since it’s integral to exploration and wouldn’t be exchanged until several playthroughs). The exploration is what you would expect from a Metroidvania game. You platform around rooms, gain abilities, and back track when you gain new abilities to get to new areas. In a playthrough for the basic ending there are whole areas you don't even have to go through. The game does have a love for breakable platforms and hidden rooms that can be accessed by attacking walls, so get ready for a lot of swinging for those sweet secrets. While you don't need to search for everything to complete the game, many of the hidden items and upgrades make finishing the game easier. I wish they did a bit better scaling between the harder areas and your overall damage output towards the end, but that is just me. The game’s base ending is morbid, but makes sense for the tone, and is a fine ending to obtain if you want to stop playing. The ending after that is a lot harder to reach, and one main gripe of the game. I won't spoil it, but you may want to wiki how to complete it after getting the first ending simply because there isn't a clear indication of how to unlock it. Due to a free DLC called Godmaster, there are another two endings that are even harder to unlock since they are behind boss rush modes, with the final one requiring the defeat of all of the bosses in the game in a row. I haven't completed all of the boss rush modes, but I am enjoying the challenge. Hollow Knight was one of my better gameplay experiences of 2018. There seems to be an upsurge of Metroidvania games in the past couple of years, and if they can keep up their quality to the level of Hallowknight, I am all for it.