Hollow Knight had been described to me as 2D Dark Souls with a unique artstyle. In the end I don't quite agree with the description. I'd describe it more as a platformer and exploring game with combat elements. Combat is very common, close to every room has some form of enemy but the combat system itself is not very complex, it largely consists of timing your basic swordswing and then dodging away or jumping over your target, there's some additional skills you find / learn throughout the game but I hardly used them. Having been described as similar to Dark Souls I expected the game to be difficult and that I'd die a lot, that was not the case. It was somewhere between easy and medium difficulty I'd say. I barely died which I guess is a good thing as retrieving your Geo - the game's equivalent of souls - could be quite a chore. So far I've been fairly critical so I'll mention the game's virtues - which there are quite a few of. The world is unique and interesting, a large part of this could be attributed to the game's beautiful artstyle which is simplistic but visually interesting and varied. The story is ambigious and quite subtle allowing for extensive speculation throughout and even after the game. Character progression is handled well in my opinion, you don't level up - instead you find new artifacts or upgrade your weapon through a smith to get more powerful. The games biggest strength in my opinion however is it's simplicity, I already briefly mentioned this talking about the combat and artstyle but there's more to it. Basically what we start the game with is the ability to swing our sword, heal and jump and with just those three mechanics the game just works. A lot of games are overdesigned and have overwhelming systems and combat but Hollow Knight keeps it basic and I find it admirable. Hopefully this review can be somewhat helpful, it's my first game writing this extensively. To finish, even though I may have gone on about the what I thought some of the consequences were I want you to know that the positives far outweigh the negatives and that this is a truly great game.

It says I played for 9,5 hours but in reality I beat the last boss in about 20 hours and I still had only completed about 70% of all the exploration so I'd imagine maybe 25 hours is what you'd get out of this game in one thorough playthrough.

Hollow Knight had been described to me as 2D Dark Souls with a unique artstyle. In the end I don't quite agree with the description. I'd describe it more as a platformer and exploring game with combat elements. Combat is very common, close to every room has some form of enemy but the combat system itself is not very complex, it largely consists of timing your basic swordswing and then dodging away or jumping over your target, there's some additional skills you find / learn throughout the game but I hardly used them. Having been described as similar to Dark Souls I expected the game to be difficult and that I'd die a lot, that was not the case. It was somewhere between easy and medium difficulty I'd say. I barely died which I guess is a good thing as retrieving your Geo - the game's equivalent of souls - could be quite a chore. So far I've been fairly critical so I'll mention the game's virtues - which there are quite a few of. The world is unique and interesting, a large part of this could be attributed to the game's beautiful artstyle which is simplistic but visually interesting and varied. The story is ambigious and quite subtle allowing for extensive speculation throughout and even after the game. Character progression is handled well in my opinion, you don't level up - instead you find new artifacts or upgrade your weapon through a smith to get more powerful. The games biggest strength in my opinion however is it's simplicity, I already briefly mentioned this talking about the combat and artstyle but there's more to it. Basically what we start the game with is the ability to swing our sword, heal and jump and with just those three mechanics the game just works. A lot of games are overdesigned and have overwhelming systems and combat but Hollow Knight keeps it basic and I find it admirable. Hopefully this review can be somewhat helpful, it's my first game writing this extensively. To finish, even though I may have gone on about the what I thought some of the consequences were I want you to know that the positives far outweigh the negatives and that this is a truly great game. It says I played for 9,5 hours but in reality I beat the last boss in about 20 hours and I still had only completed about 70% of all the exploration so I'd imagine maybe 25 hours is what you'd get out of this game in one thorough playthrough.