4/5 ★ – TheLastWord's review of Hollow Knight.

About 23 hours Finally. This game has been haunting me for so long. I got this game in 2018, didn’t play much and it pretty much sat on my Switch for 5 years until I tried to play again in December of 2023. After that I took another extended break, came back, took another break, came back, and now I’ve finally beaten it. I like to go as blind as possible, so if I make it to the boss early, I make it to the boss early. I was expecting to leave and have to get more abilities and come back, but I beat the final boss second try. I ended this game with just 50% completion rate which is reaaaaally low I assume, but I’d be happy to go back and finish much more stuff, that’s definitely something I’m interested in. When it comes to Metroidvania games, I’ve loved Metroid Prime and Metroid Dread and always wondered why this game alluded me. I never disliked it, I love the style, theming, music, and atmosphere. It’s a brilliant world that Team Cherry created. However, I just think the combat didn’t quite speak to me. I wasn’t a massive fan of the constant back and forth. Hit and walk away, hit and walk away, hit and walk away. Gaining abilities over time made it better, but not by a whole lot. Another issue I had is I thought the map only updating when you reached a bench was kind of annoying. I feel like the purpose of a map is to discover areas as I go, not after I’ve gotten back to a bench. It’s not the worst thing ever but was pet peeve of mine with exploration. Overall, it was a great game and I’m very interested in getting Silksong when it finally comes out one day.