How hard is this game?

[Lycon]

I just bought ori the blind forest and that games art and music is AMAZING but its mechanics are SO frustrating. Move a micro millimeter to far and poof dead, its just so frustrating. Yeah not my game. I also like the art of this game so how hard are its mechanics? I dont mean bossfights or smth just the stuff like ori, the spikes and the millimeter precision jumps and stuff.

[Utopian101]

You don't die in one hit to environmental hazards in Hollow Knight like you do in Ori, but you still take damage and spawn on the last flat ground you walked on. There is one notable platforming gauntlet in the end-game that is required if you want the "true" ending and another that is an offshoot of the previous and that is entirely optional. I would say that the gauntlet does require you to be pretty precise with your platforming, but with the right equipment it's almost impossible to die during the sequence, so whether or not you can deal with it is up to you.

[PalmTree]

That's the major difference between HK and Ori- while both place emphasis on exploring, Ori is much more focused on challenging platforming while HK is focused on challenging combat. Expect HK to be much more forgiving in platforming than Ori as you get more and more upgrades, but expect the combat to be much more brutal than Ori.

Even still, after you get experienced with the movement and combat of both games they become a lot easier. Ori is an absolute blast once you unlock and master all the major movement abilities because you're just so damn agile, and Hollow Knight is similar when it comes to combat and boss fights. I can promise you that both games get easier as you play them and get more skilled.

[Syndiciate]

Originally posted by PalmTree:

That's the major difference between HK and Ori- while both place emphasis on exploring, Ori is much more focused on challenging platforming while HK is focused on challenging combat. Expect HK to be much more forgiving in platforming than Ori as you get more and more upgrades, but expect the combat to be much more brutal than Ori.

This.

[Brown_Town86]

It's honestly not that difficult. Downward sword strikes help A LOT with most platforming sections and like stated above you wont get one-shot. I just got the King's Mark and I STILL have not lost my Geo. Not once. That being said, about 1/3 of my playtime is going through older areas I've already 100% explored because I need to get to another area. This game needs like 2-3 more Stag Stations and it would cut the backtracking in half. Instead the devs chose to waste our time in an already massive game. If there was a lack of content I'd understand but that most certainly is not the case here. This game doesn't need filler yet it has it. It's still an excellent game but not perfect like so many people like to think.

*Incoming butthurt fanboys who can't handle other's opinions*

[Boksha]

I feel Ori made the mistake of adding a 'save everywhere' ability, leaving the only way to make the game even somewhat challenging to add tons of instant deaths, which coupled with the floppy controls didn't make the game particularly enjoyable for me. In Hollow Knight, the penalty for dying is more severe, but you have much more ability to actually avoid death because there's no way to die instantly and the controls are very tight.

I never felt particularly challenged in Ori,but I did die a ton. Conversely, I'd say HK is pretty hard on a first run, but I can do a deathless run in it with fairly little trouble now. I can't see myself doing a deathless run in Ori even if I sunk a hundred hours in.

[4D]

PalmTree summed it up perfectly.

That being said, if you found Ori and the Blind Forest tough, then you probably would find a real challenge in Hollow Knight. Me, I'm a fan of those tough as nails games and other than a few achievements, did not find this game to be that frustrating. But if you're not familiar with the hardcore/"difficult" genre, it might not be for you.

Edit: You don't have to play towards all the higher end challenges though, so the base game could be more accessible for you. The game-story-world is definitely worth experiencing.

[Scooter]

Contrary to what some have said, if you normally don't play difficult/"hardcore" games, I think Hollow Knight would be an excellent start. I've found it to be pretty fair.

[クズハモン]

I personally find Hollow Knight to be vastly better than Ori in everyway tbh. Hollow Knight sticks true to the metroidvania genre and has actual interesting areas and no insta death terrain(looking at you ori and your escape sequences and mega man 2 quick man lasers) but that's not what you're asking so i'll answer you
Hollow knight to me is a perfectly fair game, I went in completely blind and I died several times though it was either on bosses, my own stupid mistakes exploring, or something I wasn't prepared for and expecting though I never died twice. Only penalty for dying is having to go back to where you last died to collect your shade and if you die again you lose all your geo(Money) but even then that's not a big deal as later on you stack up on Geo like a joke.

Platforming is fine along with the controls and there's nothing that kills you in one hit so you'll always have a fair chance again.
No boss too hard(at least ones required to beat the game and even those ones can be cheesed with certain charms) and if that doesn't work out for you then you install mods and preferably the boss and enemy health bar one

[Dragon]

Hollow Knight is extremely hardcore and not really meant for average/typical gamers.

It doesn't even have a manual save feature, and nor does it have a quicksave & quickload feature, all of which they could easily add with virtually no effort on their parts at all, in order to let the player save the game and also to reload the game at any point in the world. I.e. if these features were present, then if you die, you could just press the quickload button to reload instantly at exactly the same spot where you died, and then try again...but none of that is in this Hollow Knight game even though quicksave/quickload has been a standard feature of PC games for the last 30+ years.

Instead, Hollow Knight uses a dire "checkpoint" system circa 1985; in other words, it's a vastly obsolete, outmoded, and very bad mechanic that really shouldn't have any place in a modern game like Hollow Knight. But it does have that dire checkpoint system anyway because they wanted to cater to the hardcore eSports-type gamer.

And with this dire checkpoint system, every time you die, then you have to backtrack greatly and re-fight your way across huge swathes of the game world that you've already had to painstakingly fight through before you died in the first place.

[Rens Agatha ⁧【レンス】]

More hard than call of duty :)))

[(Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr]

It’s basically like Zelda 2’s 2D segments and Dark Souls had a baby, and that baby was a metroidvania.

And bugs.

[54x]

On the OP:

I would absolutely recommend looking elsewhere if a hardcore title is categorically going to put you off. *shrug* It's hard enough that I've taken long breaks with it and haven't yet gotten that far, to be honest, but I have still enjoyed it and keep coming back every once in a while, even when I'm dead stuck on a particular boss.

HK is very hardcore in its combat, you can easily die to trash if you're not paying attention or don't dodge attacks and/or manage your health/soul well, but it does tend to do a very good job of telegraphing things that will kill you, so it's absolutely possible to "git gud" enough to kill them, and the game is gourgeosly produced, will let you explore without holding your hand but rarely throws up roadblocks that are unfairly obscure, and I can guarantee that even the "mini-bosses" are incredibly satisfying to kill.

As others have said, it's forgiving in its platforming, because well, it's a Metroidvania first with platforming elements, unlike Ori which was closer to a platformer with Metroidvania elements.

But expect to die often if you require training to move in a very particular way to second- or split-second cues. Just make sure you kill your spirit if you die and it's not really a problem.

Originally posted by Dragon:

Hollow Knight is extremely hardcore and not really meant for average/typical gamers.

It doesn't even have a manual save feature, and nor does it have a quicksave & quickload feature, all of which they could easily add with virtually no effort on their parts at all, in order to let the player save the game and also to reload the game at any point in the world. I.e. if these features were present, then if you die, you could just press the quickload button to reload instantly at exactly the same spot where you died, and then try again...but none of that is in this Hollow Knight game even though quicksave/quickload has been a standard feature of PC games for the last 30+ years.

Instead, Hollow Knight uses a dire "checkpoint" system circa 1985; in other words, it's a vastly obsolete, outmoded, and very bad mechanic that really shouldn't have any place in a modern game like Hollow Knight. But it does have that dire checkpoint system anyway because they wanted to cater to the hardcore eSports-type gamer.

And with this dire checkpoint system, every time you die, then you have to backtrack greatly and re-fight your way across huge swathes of the game world that you've already had to painstakingly fight through before you died in the first place.

This is actually pretty standard in the subgenre to give you stakes if you fail, ("I have to make my way from the save area back to the boss") although in non-hardcore Metroidvanias, that's usually only likely on bosses or if you're sequence-breaking. Hollow Knight provides *less* places to save than comparable games.

As Boksha alludes to above, Ori is literally the only one I've ever played in this subgenre that doesn't demand you be in a certain location to save. Not every feature that *can* be added to a game is good to add for gameplay reasons. HK uses checkpoint saves not to avoid quicksave hotkeys or menu save programming, but simply because it's better game design to give consequences to death in a game where it's supposed to be a learning experience but one with consequences- if you die far from a checkpoint, or god forbid in an area you haven't mapped yet, you are going to have some trouble getting back to kill your phantom and not losing all your currency.

Think of it like a midway point between games that do as you suggest, and games that force you to play ironman, deleting your save entirely if you fail. It's not a technical limitation at all, it is a design choice to hint to the player that you're really not supposed to take many hits at all, and that the game *intends* to punish you a bit if you don't manage to catch or learn from its cues.

[クズハモン]

Originally posted by Dragon:

Hollow Knight is extremely hardcore and not really meant for average/typical gamers.

It doesn't even have a manual save feature, and nor does it have a quicksave & quickload feature, all of which they could easily add with virtually no effort on their parts at all, in order to let the player save the game and also to reload the game at any point in the world. I.e. if these features were present, then if you die, you could just press the quickload button to reload instantly at exactly the same spot where you died, and then try again...but none of that is in this Hollow Knight game even though quicksave/quickload has been a standard feature of PC games for the last 30+ years.

Instead, Hollow Knight uses a dire "checkpoint" system circa 1985; in other words, it's a vastly obsolete, outmoded, and very bad mechanic that really shouldn't have any place in a modern game like Hollow Knight. But it does have that dire checkpoint system anyway because they wanted to cater to the hardcore eSports-type gamer.

And with this dire checkpoint system, every time you die, then you have to backtrack greatly and re-fight your way across huge swathes of the game world that you've already had to painstakingly fight through before you died in the first place.

Go back to your braindead quicksave/quick load hitscan artificial difficulty easter egg hunt key shooters or candy crush lmao
please stop spreading BS, once again everything you said is the exact purpose of a metroidvania title, there is no save anywhere because that defeats the purpose of the genre and the punishment for dying isn't even that big of a deal anyway you can get your shade back in 2 ways, the rancid eggs which you get a lot of by late game(had 16) or just going back to the room where you died and killing it plus you only lose geo which you get a lot of by late game anyway.

[Mallix]

Not sure if troll or not but here goes nothing.

Originally posted by Dragon:

Hollow Knight is extremely hardcore and not really meant for average/typical gamers.
if these features were present, then if you die, you could just press the quickload button to reload instantly at exactly the same spot where you died, and then try again

What you're literally implying is an immortality feature, so no this wouldn't work without ruining the game completely. This game is ridiculously easy without handing you a win. I'm sorry to break it to you but you're probably just bad at games, but don't worry we'll all eventually get bad at games once we reach old age.

Originally posted by Dragon:

Instead, Hollow Knight uses a dire "checkpoint" system circa 1985; in other words, it's a vastly obsolete, outmoded, and very bad mechanic that really shouldn't have any place in a modern game like Hollow Knight. But it does have that dire checkpoint system anyway because they wanted to cater to the hardcore eSports-type gamer.

Are we talking about the same game? Cause this is in no way catering to the eSports-type of gamer.
In fact this game is easy enough as it is except for maybe, MAYBE the Godmaster DLC but that's only because of the bindings which is an optional difficulty enhancer.

[noxteryn]

If you could allow me to toot my own horn, I have created a mod[www.nexusmods.com] that makes the game much easier. Maybe this will help you like the game more.