You won't be able read the title the same way ever again after you play the game.
Team Cherry's Hollow Knight first released in February of 2017, around the time when I had just become a teenager. My first memory of the game itself came from what I overheard from other people, and although I don't remember anything specific, the general idea was that Hollow Knight was apparently a good game. At the time, it was a little more than an afterthought for me, and I never really inquired about the game itself. After all, I was busy; busy playing other titles like Battlefront and Titanfall 2, and later that year, I added the Destiny franchise to my list of franchises I was invested in.
Truth be told, I don't think I heard anything else about Hollow Knight for another 5 years, until about a month ago, when my real experience with the game began. And it began solely thanks to a paid subscription on PlayStation allowing me to play quite literally any game I wanted, from the famous titles to the old-school fighting games that were made before I was ever born.
With such a long list of games available for me to try, I eventually settled on the conclusion that instead of trying the ones that I might buy anyway, I should take advantage of the subscription by playing something I would never otherwise play. You know, the kind of game you only give a shot because you think you might be wrong in the pre-conceived notion that you won't really care about or enjoy the game that much. I admittedly already had (often negative) opinions on games I had never touched before, and didn't touch for that reason.
Lo and behold, I came to settle on Hollow Knight. In my scope of game genres I like, Hollow Knight was certainly out there. There was nothing appealing about it at first glance. My appreciation for big-time studios and the professionalism of their highly funded projects had over time led me to hold the general view that indie games were lesser-thans, combined with my lack of taste for indies because of how plain weird many of them came across. Hollow Knight felt a little like that generic dark-fantasy spinoff made for the edgy goth gamers out there. Yet, in came the memory from years past that many people seemed to enjoy it, so all things considered, it was worth at least a try.
The result? I'll let Shaq say it:
Part 1 - Overview
Hollow Knight at its core is a 2d, sidescrolling platformer that sees you primarily battling enemies and doing parkour off of walls and "floating" patches of land like a Sonic or Mario Bros. game. In these ways, it's about as old-school as you can get. The game itself is advertised as such, taking pride in its "traditional" art-focused animation and graphics, and your playable character is but a tiny midget compared to the big baddies you face throughout the game.
That's about as far as the similarities go, however, and once you get used to the sidescroller format and character movement, the old-school feeling goes away almost entirely. I don't think this was intentional on the developer part, but it's not bad by any means. As you get familiar with the world of Hollow Knight and immersed in the environment of this singular game, everything from that point on feels more unique to it rather than "oh, this is just like such and such game." I realized this after I had been playing for a while and was starting to get more and more mentally invested in the way I had to fight enemies, explore new areas, and interact with the NPCs who only got increasingly interesting as the game progressed. Before I consciously recognized it, I was into it. And that only put me in a prime position to get completely snatched by the hook. On the surface, it's your dad's childhood game, but dive deeper at all, and it's anything but.
I would describe Hollow Knight as a complete hybrid function-wise: its got the new, the flashy, the 2010s' kind of modernity, just packaged in a 1980s' format. Ironically, the integral sidescroller part was the part that least came to mind when making a mental list of all that Hollow Knight is. I easily got so consumed with playing and experiencing, I practically forgot it was a sidescroller/platformer.
What came to the front of my mind instead is more in line with the storytelling and purpose, and it's that Hollow Knight is the exclamation point of the word "masterpiece". It's intense, it's storytelling pool of ideas and emotion is deep, and full of an all-encompassing melancholy that's unlike any fantasy I've experienced thus far. I very quickly started to realize that what people had said about this game was absolutely true, along with knowing that I had been totally in the dark all this time, missing out on what Hollow Knight had offered gamers and storytelling lovers like myself.
Looking at some of the numbers during source research revealed to what extent people actually liked the game, and Hollow Knight continued to surprise me. It holds a 9.4 out of 10 rating by IGN, and on the popular PC game marketplace, Steam, 96% of all players liked the game, and has fewer than 8,000 negative feedback in its lifetime, compared to the 265 thousand+ that spoke of it positively. By most gamers' unbiased standards, this all qualifies Hollow Knight as an indie gem, but I would prefer to call it an adventure. Not life-changing or anything wild like that, but something memorable, the kind of thing you can recall years later with detail because of the impact it had on you. For me at least, that's what Hollow Knight really is at its inner level.
Part 2 - Story
There's a few ways Hollow Knight accomplishes this feat of being memorable and vivid, and that's its worldbuilding and lore. For starters, it masterfully balances being both classical and unique fantasy. If you view the storytelling like building blocks, most of the concepts and themes are familiar, very familiar, in fact. King and kingdom, his brave knights that defend it, evil monsters that seek to thwart all that is good... it's all here, and there's much more like it, too. Part of it is a throwback to the centuries-old fairytale tropes, but I think more critically, it's a throwback to childhood and many people's earliest foundational memories of the fantasy genre. At some point, almost every fantasy fan has watched cartoons or read books with heroes and caves, dragons and princesses, magic wands and spellcasting wizards.
That explains why Hollow Knight feels so resonant with me, and based on what I've heard many people say about the vibes and the characters, I think many other fans agree to some extent. But it's not all basic, in fact, it feels quite the opposite, due to how it's presented. The tropes are tried and true, but the message conveyed and the method of telling it are unique to Hollow Knight and constructed in just that perfect way that combines childhood simplicity and nostalgia with a new adventure, all brought together by moral and emotion we can all relate to and feel. You quite frankly cannot come up with a better recipe for a story.
It's very slow and methodical, the way the lore and story is revealed to the player, but not impossible to string together, and naturally, it comes to the forefront more towards the end. As the picture comes together, you more and more experience the impact.
I'll leave a spoiler warning here in case you'd like to learn it for yourself in game, but otherwise, onto the well-crafted lore and plot itself. Move on to the (end spoiler) section if you want to go in blind.
Video games often seem to tell better stories than movies and tv does, this also came to mind while I was playing Hollow Knight. I'd love to know why, but I certainly won't complain at any rate. Because in video games, I get to be a part of it myself. What's greater than that?
Hollow Knight takes place in a fantasy world and kingdom known as Hallownest, a world where, lo, every creature is a bug or insect. Fear not, for it won't often trigger entomophobia if at all. Most everyone has arms and legs and in general looks like a cartoon humanoid pillbug, (however, arachnophobic people are strongly advised to stay the heck away from the Deepnest area). Hallownest, a massive, multi-biomed kingdom, was established and ruled by a being known as the Pale King, who granted sentience to the inhabitants of Hallownest and possessed powers of foresight. The Pale King is a king in every sense of the word, held in high regard and reverence by the people. He promised his people that Hallownest would last eternal, a line that appears repeatedly enough in game to classify as one of its famous quotes.
The tragedy begins, however, when the Pale King is nearing his goal of unifying all tribes of bugs in Hallownest. The moth tribe, once worshippers of a being known as The Radiance, serve the Pale King instead, allowing the memory of the Radiance to all but be forgotten. In a seething rage and desperate fear of being wiped out once totally forgotten, wanting all creatures to worship it, the Radiance begins to appear in people's dreams uninvited and hostilely, demanding acceptance or else. When people tried to reject it by pushing it out of their minds, the tension between them and the Radiance eventually came to a breaking point, breaking the minds of the bugs and allowing the Radiance to gain a controlling foothold in their bodies through their minds. As a result of this breaking and the product of the Radiance's rage, a curse known simply as the Infection began to spread across Hallownest like a full-blown pandemic. No matter what anyone tried, there was no way to save an Infected person or stop the spread. One controlled being could telepathically transmit it to another person, who would become mentally cursed and consumed by the Radiance, and the cycle would continue until the bugs bodies' succumbed to the incurable Infection and died.
Eventually, the problem came to the Pale King, who reacted in a way that literally determines everything you experience and go through in the game itself as the playable character. In an attempt to stop the Infection, the Pale King came up with a far-fetched and infamous idea. Taking all of the children that he and his wife, the White Lady, produced, he sacrificed them to a force located in the deepest, darkest pits of Hallownest: the Void. With his power and connection to the Void, the Pale King re-birthed the spirits of his sacrificed children as Shades, or Void Beings; beings without solid form, hearts, minds, or wills... just empty, hollow shells, completely submissive to only one built-in nature: save the kingdom of Hallownest. An almost unlimited number were birthed and sacrificed to the Void, in a place called the Abyss, and one after another, the Pale King tested each Void being, no longer truly his children, to find the perfect, suitable Vessel for his master plan: if the Radiance infects through the mind, then to save the kingdom, one had to trap the entire memory of the Radiance within themselves, but he had to a being uncorruptable, and thus have no true faculties like a heart or mind.
The Pale King, at this point desperate and obsessive, continued to sacrifice by the thousands, leaving all Vessels useless to him in the now living garbage-dump Abyss, until he found one Vessel that was perfect to him. This Vessel was officially named the Pure Vessel, but was publicly dubbed the Hollow Knight and praised as the soon-to-be savior of all of Hallownest. For a time, he trained and studied with the Pale King, who ironically treated this empty being, devoid of everything, like a son. This relationship proved to be fatal and the undoing of everything the Pale King worked for. Unbeknownst to him, the Hollow Knight had developed a care for the kindgom and the Pale King. The Pale King imposed special sacrifices on three of some Hallownest's most powerful beings (they complied under their own desire to save the kingdom) and the three became living seals on a chamber that the Hollow Knight would be forever locked inside, with the Radiance's memory inside of him. The plan was seen through, but in the end, the Hollow Knight was corrupted by the Radiance through the emergence of his heart, and the Infection once again spread through Hallownest. The Pale King fled in defeat, died in his palace of dreams he locked himself inside, and subsequently, the entire kingdom of Hallownest was wiped out in the devastating apocalypse, leaving very few survivors who hadn't yet been Infected.
An unknown time later, however, a second Void being manages to escape the Abyss, his built-in nature directing and driving him on: save the kingdom. Save the kingdom. Save the kingdom. You, the player, are this Void being, and your mission? By golly, save the darn kingdom! Though your heartless, mindless, soulless character cannot process any of the information the game gives you throughout the progression of its post-apocalyptic, tragic storyline, you the player get to learn who your character really is, what they were created for, and most importantly and sadly, what they were made to die for.
Team Cherry, the developer group, does a fantastic job at setting the mood for the entire storyline and world. All throughout, there's a strong sense of melancholy and sorrow, both when reflective on the past and during present events. Everywhere you turn, the fallen state of Hallownest is clearly shown and what remains is the vibe of "what once was" all turned to ruin, especially when it comes to the lore of the playable character, known as "the Knight". He speaks nothing, he thinks nothing throughout the entire game, but it's easy to become invested in his journey, as you progressively come to know more and more about the purpose of his creation and his identity. With a little bit of player imagination, you can turn this attachment into fuel for the boss fights and challenges that stand in the way of you completing your honorable mission of saving what remains of fallen, desolate kingdom, because you want to see him win.
There's multiple moments where heartbreak is the intended effect, and while not everyone will shed a tear or anything dramatic like that, Hollow Knight still does a great job at executing these moments by making them play out perfectly. People will respond differently, but no fault can be found with the game for how it makes the vital emotional/moral connection important. It does everything it can, in the right kind of way. I couldn't help the feeling of "Yeah! Come on, let's take this guy down!" as the Knight's journey reaches its epic climax, nor the silent thoughtfulness that came once the end arrived, along the resulting aftermath.
(END spoilers)
In the end, Hollow Knight is not too much unlike a Shakespearean tragedy, and the concept of loss, forgottenness, and even death is often present. Yet it's far from being solely a depressing tale. As much as the sorrow of the fall of Hallownest is seen in some of the characters and locations, there is also often that sense of hope, that not all is lost just yet. The memories of the former kingdom and its people remain in the fallen world, and there is motivation to be had there, both for player and in-game characters. It's summed up quite well in recurring dialogue such as "Through its sacrifice... Hallownest lasts eternal." Many explorable areas of the game are lifeless, but not lacking in natural beauty, conveyed through a very good art style and environment drawings. This all creates a sleepy, dreamy sort of vibe. The world has fallen, it's full of monsters and death... but not all is lost. There is still peace in the land, still reason to carry on.
Music serves Hollow Knight so well here, to a degree that's plain superb, even down to the track names themselves. Themes like "City of Tears" are both appropriately named and sounding, and the epitome of the melancholic atmosphere of Hollow Knight. With a soft female lead voice, background choir, and smooth piano that mimics the sound of raindrops, such tracks are hard to forget. Christopher Larkin, the composer, creates simple melodies with mostly one instrument leading at a time, and it all adds to the immersion of the world of Hollow Knight in a great way. High-pitched violin solos, soft drum beats that sound like the theme of a once-mighty marching band or army now fallen... you got it.
Hollow Knight's characters aren't like the movie or tv kind. They're anything but talkative, and most of their stories and personality are told through written dialogue (and gibberish mumble sounds that are conveniently excused as being "bug language"). So apart from the main protagonist who influences all the main events, everyone else is a little more supplementary, a sort of enhancement to the existing plot and setting that they are put in.
Does that make them... weak? Absolutely not. In fact, the small cast of characters adds a lot to the depth of Hollow Knight, even if they aren't the Marvel definition of significant. This is achieved first and foremost by perfect dialogue, a shortcoming many other games and films suffer from. By designing well written text, you can actually get a pretty large glimpse into the character's motivations, thoughts, and personality type. Don't be surprised the supporting cast feels more real than the MC of a big-time movie: remember, video game text dialogue for otherwise silent characters is only one step away from what you'd find a book, and books can have amazingly vibrant characters. Just combine the appealing art style of the game's world with that and boom, you've got characters that feel as real as anything else.
Characters often pop up in several locations throughout Hallownest and feature new thoughts and dialogue, so there is a sense of familiarity you build with them and a sort of comradery as you witness them go on their journeys alongside your own. Their archetypes aren't rocket science either; most are little more than mapmakers, shopkeepers, and wandering ronin types, but these little intricacies are pleasant balances to the often dark world you find yourself traveling in.
I can appreciate how Hollow Knight is at every level dark fantasy, yet never overwhelmingly so. A constant gripe of mine is that dark fantasy tales plunge way too far into oppressive violence, darkness, gore, and cruelty, but Hollow Knight in contrast always has an uplifting melody or peaceful face for every other moment it decides to be dark or melancholic (However I'll kindly make an exception for Deepnest, that stuff is terrifying). It doesn't use that as an excuse to push the boundaries of what players can handle before being repulsive of the content. In my opinion, dark fantasy should merely replace some of the bright, epic and dramatic qualities of high fantasy with a more gloomy mood and setting, and that's the route Hollow Knight goes, although again, there's plenty of musical melodies and characters that keep it from being anything majorly depressing.
Equal to that is the appreciation for how the game treats the concept of light and darkness, even completely reversing their usual roles, but doesn't confuse that with any change in the idea of good and evil. In other words, I like how the enemy takes on the form of "light" and the protagonist is a part of "darkness" but it's crystal clear who the good and bad guy is. In fact, Team Cherry turns it into one of Hollow Knight's plot strengths. You're not supposed to question the morality of your actions and your character does not go through being tempted by the dark or doubting the goodness of the light. You're a being born of the dark, but that fact is only supposed to make you feel bad for the character. His entire existence is ugly on the outside, no one would normally put faith in him, yet he's the hope of them all. Appears insignificant, but truly is the greatest of them all. It all fits perfectly into the "tragic" setting and full picture of Hollow Knight.
Part 3 - Gameplay
Story, while important to a lot of people, isn't the only reason they enjoy Hollow Knight. The gameplay is just as vital, and just as good, as the plot behind it. Most of the time spent playing the game is spent doing one of two things: fighting, and parkour jumping. This is where the old-school side of the game takes hold; many important sequences of game progression are locked behind boss fights and patience-testing "the floor is lava" areas.
Still, it's the way that Hollow Knight constructed its combat and movement system that makes it feel unique and more up-to-date. To quote Wikipedia's article on Hollow Knight: "...They gave the character no acceleration when moving horizontally, as well as a large amount of aerial control and the ability to interrupt one's jump with a dash. This was meant to make the player feel that any hit they took could have been avoided right up until the last second."
True? Absolutely. It's the whole bread and butter of the combat system. As much the game tests your ability to think ahead and learn movesets of enemies and bosses, The pacing of almost all the fights is so incredibly fast, you also have to possess uncanny reflexes and remain cool under pressure. Saving the kingdom is anything but a walk in the park, but it certainly adds to the signature atmosphere. The music accompanying many of the major boss fights adds even more. All in all, it's easy to get fully immersed and mentally locked into the fights, no matter how difficult they are. You'll sweat a little, you'll mess up, you'll even die repeatedly to a particular boss over and over, but Team Cherry still makes the fighting so fun. The blending of the "sad" story with the intense, adrenaline-pumping action, makes for a heck of a great time. Remember that movie with the pulse-pounding final fight that kept you on the edge of your seat until it was over? That's many of Hollow Knight's fights and boss fights.
The combat is truly merciless, but never to the point of where I wish it were different. When approaching one boss for the first time, unfamiliarity with its design often leads to a quick death, within seconds, even. But yet, as you try again and again, it slowly starts to come to you, until suddenly, hours (or even several days later) you finally find yourself able to play the game's system, matching its absurdly fast pace with the background music in full swing. From there, the fights challenge you to be incredibly patient at high speed and consistent, whacking the enemy with your sword one hit at a time. Any miscalculation can be fatal, and greediness in trying to get extra hits in is punishing.
So yes, Hollow Knight is incredibly difficult, 10/10 in terms of how hard it is. But this has actually drawn professional gamers and speedrunning specialists to it to try their hand at mastering not only the game's default challenges, but also the bosses that game coders (not the original developer) have literally altered to make more difficult. Case in point is the "Any Radiance" modification, originally designed to be an unbeatable boss. A whopping ten months after its release, one player became the first in the world to beat it, a feat that stunned a lot of the fanbase. To this day, only a select few have ever beaten it, after dedicating dozens or hundreds of hours of time to practice, not to mention the time spent writing multi-page spreadsheets of strategies devised and tips for how to beat it. This is practically the epitome of gaming obsession, but the point is that Hollow Knight is appealing to players who are looking for a game to test their skills. Yet, most of these absurdly difficult bosses are optional and not necessary to beat in order to complete the game's storyline.
Half of the excitement and intrigue that comes from the gameplay and fights are the upgrade and loadout systems that each player can customize to their own playstyle and liking. Tied into the story are fights or sequences that result in the player gaining a new attack or special ability. This part of Hollow Knight was also done exceptionally well, striking a good balance between repetitive and adding something new to the mix. It gives you enough time to get used to what you have in your arsenal at any given point in the story before granting a new ability that adds to the complexion of your character. When it's all said and done, nothing about it gets boring after a while. Hollow Knight does good work how it designed the overall gameplay to be cool no matter how long you play it, and because of this, it has great replayability value. Even if you know what's going to happen, it's still fun to come back to later and start the journey all over again. And if that's not enough, beating the game the first time unlocks "Steel soul" mode: can you beat the entire game again without dying once, lest the save file delete itself upon defeat?
Conclusion
I didn't expect Hollow Knight to be anything like it wound up being, but it's a reminder to never judge a book by its cover. My subscription was worth it just in finding this game alone and enjoying the experience it provided. All in all, there's just not much wrong with the game, if anything. The rest just comes down to personal taste. As for me, I am tremendously thrilled by the excellent quality in all areas, perfectly blended together into one fun game. I will for sure be buying it on a physical disk so I can play it even after my digital subscription ends, and in fact, the collectors' edition looks quite appealing. Fans love the $100 package featuring posters, fold out map, guide book, pins, and more, and I am most certainly a Hollow Knight fan as well. A highly anticipated sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong, is set to release later this year after being delayed for almost 3 due to the pandemic, and I will be looking forward to picking up a copy of that as well. We can skip the formal rating and just give Hollow Knight a perfect score, recommended to virtually anyone looking for a video game adventure. However, a warning is worth being attached to the rating that Hollow Knight must not be considered casual and easy in the slightest.
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