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Hollow Knight follows the player/the Knight, as they explore the ruined kingdom of Hallownest. 0ne of the first things that will grab your attention is the art direction and style. The characters and environments of Hallownest have this beautiful, hand drawn look to them almost cell shaded.

To begin this off, this is 2D dark souls. The entire game is built upon the dark souls formula.

• Challenging Combat that has depth
  
• Interconnected levels
  
• Re-spawning enemies
  
• Vague characters with odd questlines
  
• Benches that replace bonfires
  
• Losing your currency on death, and needing to retrieve it or you lose it all.
  
• Unconventiual narrative told through character dialogue and world building.

If you do not like dark souls at all and prefer the more conventional style of game, then you might not enjoy this. The best way to describe this is take everything dark souls, all the best elements and build a 2D world around it. The game heavily utilizes the dark souls formula. But, it takes this formula and crafts the best possible game you can from it.

Enviroment

There are many unique environments to discover in Hallowsnest. Each feeling very distinct and unique. You also start to realize that each of these environments serve a very specific purpose and have a reason for being there. For example, early on in the game, you discover the city of Tears after venturing through the fungal wastes to arrive there. The fungal wastes environment being right next to the city on the map. This is by design. The disgusting and putrid/acidic area of the map. It then becomes apparent that the wastes from the city have seeped into the ground and caused the environment to become like that because the wastes of the city are being dumped there. This is just one of many examples of extreme attention to detail. The world is designed like a painting. The level design is intricate. Hidden walls and shortcuts connecting each place. It is a master class in level design.

The game wants you to feel lost, at no point in time did it feel like I had a clue where I needed to go. I just progressed each section as I went and went somewhere else once a wall was hit. Another amazing aspect of the world and level design is how much it opens up as you receive new mechanics. New mechanics open up new areas and allow for faster traversal of the environments and make revisiting old areas a must. (Minor Spoiler: Skip to Combat) Another brilliant example of great world design is once you have reached the city, you will notice it is raining all the time. This may be odd at first since most of the game takes place underground in a bug's world. But, later you discover a large blue lake underground. Once you inspect the map you realise the lake is directly above the city. Hence, all the rain coming through the soil causing it to rain in the city. Master class in world building. That is one of many examples.

Combat

Each boss prepares you for the next in a sense. You can easily hit a wall if you have not accrued the correct skills for each encounter. The game teaches you how to improve on it the more you progress. Once you hit a wall, the game gives you the option on simply exploring another section of the game world till you have improved to then return and face the challenge.

The combat also has depth. You have a charm system which adds unique variety to the gameplay. Increasing your attack speed or reducing the cost to use special abilities. You can build your character around range or being aggressive depending on your preferred play-style.

Audio

Christopher Larkin composed the music for Hollow Knight, and did an incredible job of it. The music really adds so much emotion to the experience. Each environment you venture through has a unique sound to it. When your in the Deeper Hallownest filled with creepy crawlers and spiders, the music turns ominous and terror filled and when venturing through City of tears it becomes relaxing and the sound of rain to add to the atmosphere. The boss encounters then turn into fast intense swelling music that add tension to each moment. The sound of Hollow Knight is truly outstanding.

The dialogue is not voiced in English, but the characters makes awkward but very charming and cute noises. The Audio in all aspects just oozes personality. If you were blindfolded and somebody played audio from the game, you would know that only 1 game on the planet would have this and that's Hollow Knight.

Story

Mentioning anything story related here can be a spoiler, so I prefer to leave that up to you to discover. All I can say is that you are a knight venturing from lands far away to come and seek the riches of Hallownest. But the world is darker now and something has gone wrong in the Kingdom of Hallownest. The once lively world is now dead and your journey will lead you to figuring this out.

Final Thoughts

I was never much a fan of 2D platformers. But once I was made aware that it is 2D dark souls, I had to give it a try and I do not regret doing so. The game is amazing TOP 10 material. But, it is very difficult and not for a casual player. You will need to invest time in this world to understand it's combat and themes.

Nearing the end it also becomes quite difficult. Spending long periods of time trying to defeat bosses where a wall is hit. But, this adds so much to the experience if you are willing to put in the work needed to beat it. The game will live on as one of the greats in Platformers. If you do not like platformers at all, but you like dark souls, then I recommend you give this a try. Outstanding Game

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A once in a lifetime experience that may have a few small issues here and then with some iffy combat sometimes, but does not reduce the experience in the slightest.

• Gameplay/Combat 9/10 (Hollow Knight: Prepare to Die Edition)
  
• Story 10/10 (No idea what the hell is going on)
  
• Audio 10/10 (Emotional and Charming)
  
• Environment/World 10/10 (Would get lost again)