I’ve been pretty excited for Hollow Knight. Taunting me ever since its release last year, I’ve been unable to play it until its recent release on the Nintendo Switch. I’m very fond of Metroidvanias and anything that takes even the smallest hints of inspiration from titles such as Dark Souls, and the artstyle and overall gameplay immediately appealed to me.
I knew I wanted to write about the game from the moment I picked it up. The game’s controls feels great in your hands, the artstyle and pacing of the level design keep you constantly immersed in the game’s world, and the challenge is just right. Hollow Knight is a game I could recommend to just about anyone who loves video games, especially at the pricepoint. As a plus, all of the game’s DLC is completely free and comes with the Switch version completely free. I didn’t know that the game even had DLC. But when I actually finished the game, having completed basically all of the content and having had my fill of the game, I found myself struggling to write about it when I actually sat down to start typing. I could write out a consumer review just fine. I could tell you exactly what to expect from the game, all of the various gameplay systems, the story, everything that’s good about the game and all of the minor flaws in what is otherwise an excellent product. But what I was writing felt no different to what anyone else on the internet could tell you about the game, and certainly not better than some excellent videos on youtube such as all the lore videos, comedy videos, and the excellent hour long breakdown of the original PC release of the game Joseph Anderson uploaded. That left me stumped for a while, so I gave up on this article for about a week or two, deciding not to publish the near-finished article I had already written. As always, I want my reviews to be able to say something that I feel no one else is saying right now. You could google literally any other review of Hollow Knight and they can meticulously break down every aspect of the game and its appeal without spoiling key parts such as boss fights and story beats. A review from me of that kind would be less than worthless, my text dump would be a waste of space, like a wikipedia article reworded while conveying the exact same information and intent. So, I thought, I might as well not do anything.
And then it kind of hit me.
Isn’t the fact that I don’t have a unique take on the game quite telling? Maybe it’s indicative of a lack of imagination on my part, maybe I just didn’t have a strong emotional reaction towards the game. That’s fine, I’m willing to accept that I’m the problem. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised I had a point to make.
For all the many achievements Hollow Knight makes as a game, the truth is is that I don’t feel like it really pushes the envelope. The artstyle is certainly unique and very appealing, and the whole design of the game being designed around a world inhabited by insects definitely gives the game its own identity. And considering how strongly those visuals add to the atmosphere and overall aesthetic, I’m not going to tell you those are minor qualities just so that I can make my point. However, when I really think about it, there’s not a lot Hollow Knight does in terms of gameplay or story that really does anything new. The story of a nameless, silent character visiting a ruined Kingdom and learning about its lore and how it reached its downfall is something we’ve seen in both Dark Souls as well as a few of the games that were inspired by that game, such as Salt and Sanctuary. And the combat is a mix of platforming challenges and twitch combat that asks you to memorise enemy behaviour while playing carefully yet confidently that we’ve seen in all the best action games since the 8 bit era.
It hasn’t really been until recently when games like this have really returned to the mainstream. For a long time gamers suffered endless waves of cookie cutter shooters, and button mashing action games, and Indie Devs have only recently started to see some major successes in a time just barely before the current decade. I’d rather play a game like Hollow Knight every year than return to those dark times once more. But I really have to ask myself if Hollow Knight is something I’ll still care about in a year from now, or whenever I’ve completed the last bit of DLC Team Cherry will ever release for the game.
Hollow Knight released on Switch at the exact same time From Software’s new title Seikiro: Shadows Die Twice was properly announced. The trailer and much of the information we’ve learned since then suggest that From Software may be going for more of an open world design than a level based design, and it’s even possible the death system will work in such a way where you’ll be able to get up and continue fighting right where you die, potentially removing the need for checkpoints. The combat looks like it’s focusing more on parrying than dodging or blocking, as well as utilising various different tools. All these things could make Seikiro feel like it’s own beast, something more separated from the Dark Souls series than even Bloodborne was. Point is, while we don’t know enough to say for sure yet, it looks like From Software is looking like it’s ready to innovate with its gameplay and settings (even if it is unfortunate that Koei Tecmo had the same idea for a Samurai themed Souls game in Nioh) whilst everyone else, fans and developers alike, are still attached to the Dark Souls formula.
It just makes me wonder if, as artists, we’re not taking enough risks. Talented artists especially. Was Dark Souls really so inspiring that everyone has to compare themselves to that game? Were developers so jealous of Dark Souls’ design philosophy that they just had to try and replicate its success ASAP? Or perhaps we’re just not imaginative enough. Trends will be trends, but it doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.
Trendsetters such as From Software will always earn a great deal of respect from me, that much is obvious, but despite my frustrations expressed in this article, that doesn’t mean those who follow the trend don’t deserve any respect, or that they aren’t talented, or that they don’t have their own forms of originality. Every game on the planet share some base components, after all. That’s why we’re able to categorise art in the first place. But unlike with Modern War shooters, or Ubisoft Sandboxes, or Overwatch rip offs, or the most recent Battle Royale craze, there’s nothing to really criticise about Dark Souls clones, because the souls series itself as well as all the high profile games in this category are all actually good. There’s negatives to all of these games of course, nothing is perfect. The original Dark Souls itself, the trendsetter (sorry Demon’s Souls), may even be the most imperfect of all the games, the Lost Izalith level remaining a permanent blight on the title for example. But they are all good on a more fundamental level than that. Regarding their gameplay loop, controls, level design, atmosphere, music, story, and overall developer philosophy, they’re about as close to perfect as it gets. The fundamental flaws in other games become much more apparent, which is why many of them feel like they’re fads that eventually die out in popularity.
But that fundamental goodness associated with Dark Souls, with Hollow Knight, Bloodborne, Salt and Sanctuary, and many others may in and of itself be a flaw. Because if there’s nothing to criticise, we don’t really know how to improve. We don’t know how to ask for better. If the unbroken wheel doesn’t need to be fixed or improved upon, then why try anything different? To me, Hollow Knight is exactly the kind of title that represents that sort of complacency. It’s an Indie title that can legitimately be one of top 5 best games of both 2017 and 2018 by copy pasting a formula that they didn’t even create. A perfect, delicious formula that I would happily consume again and again. The type of formula that gets addictive, the type that makes me download Hollow Knight the moment I see it simply because I had been starved of a From Software title this year. And I’d never ask for better because I can’t even conceive of this type of game becoming better in any fundamental, non nitpicky sense. In the end, one of the biggest issues with Hollow Knight is that there’s not enough of it.
All I can take solace in is the fact that, at the very least, this formula is something that takes considerable talent and admirable effort.