Recent reviews by GoodGuyMalachai

I think this is the first rouge-like (rouge-lite??) that I actually stuck with until the end, as in finishing the story and unlocking about 90% of the upgrades and having a ton of fun doing it..
If you're into games like this then the genre beats will be familiar: Procedurally generated levels, gameplay altering perks, death being permanent for your character but retaining previously unlocked upgrades, etc...
There's enough variety in the maps, enemies, and levels to encourage you to develop strategies and plan out your route through said levels. The storytelling and overall plot is simple but is as complicated as it needs to be and the humor lands most every time. The difficulty curve in early game can be a bit steep (though I think that's just how games in this genre are), so don't get frustrated if you die ~3-5 times before you hit your stride (not a bad idea to just suicide a character on low health in early game instead of wasting precious healing resources). On normal difficulty I was able to keep my 3rd character all the way to the end of the story. The upgrades are made such that they're actually worth the effort to unlock them, which is always a plus.
Overall I'd highly recommend the game. I got about 18 hours out of it before I unlocked everything I felt motivated to. This is a game I'll probably come back to every now and then to burn through a couple levels.

Firstly to get it out of the way: <obligatory "if you like Dark Souls...."> comparrison. Secondly, this is coming from a 40h 89% completion regular run (no friggin' way I"m masochistic enough to do a Steel Soul run. I don't have the patience to git that gud). Thirdly, tl;dr: Higly recommended. Not to tell you what you want, but seriously, you want this game.

Now, to the meat. This game does damn near everything right: art, ambience, music, gameplay, difficulty, map (both diversity of style and density of content), story, and storytelling. That last part I will indeed make a Dark Souls comparrison to in that it follows the idea of the main part of the story not being about you, but the world around you. Also that it's not told outright in walls of text or pre-animated cutscenes, but in little touches of symbolism, snippets of dialogue, and the environment itself. Hollow Knight tells its story by largely not telling it.

Combat is both challenging and rewarding. Though that reward, in terms of currency, can seem quite scarce in the early game given the price of things (Also, basically having to purchase the legend of your map, the bits that show NPCs, save areas, etc..., was kinda ridiculous). Some of the boss fights, especially some of the higher level ones (like the last one, those who have beaten it know which one I mean), can seem like you're fighting RNG at times, but mostly it's about skill: judging distance and timing of both you and the boss and capitalizing on opportunities. A healthy reaction time will of course help. By the end, if you've explored the enviroment fully and discovered the upgrades hidden within, you'll feel that the time spent has paid off as you dash around the map feeling like a badass (while still not being overpowered if you get careless). There's no real leveling aside from collecting items to boost your HP, but there are a lot of items you can equip for passive buffs that can change how you play and how the game responds in interesting ways (not being relegated to "+1 HP/s regen", "+2% Attack power" etc...bullcrap that you barely notice )

Speaking of exploring the enviroment, true to the "metroidvania" genre the maps are, as aforementioned, both dense and oozing style. There's hidden walls everywhere and plenty of incentive to re-visit areas after you've acquired new abilities to discover secrets and even completely new areas to explore. The system of having to find a map vendor in every new area and then filling out the rest of the map was rather strange though, as you can't even see and record where you've explored in a new area until you purchase the half-assed map each time.

While the world tells a big part of the story in itself, there's also a good quantity of quirky and unique NPCs you're both introduced to and hidden in the world. While the vast majority don't have side quests for you (in fact there's only a handfull of those), I never encountered one that I didn't want to exhaust the dialogue for.

All in all a fantastic game by a developer I've never heard of and one I highly recommend. Team Cherry's definitely a dev I'll be following in future.

A far better successor to Looking Glass Studio's masterwork Thief franchise than Thi4f (though given how horrible the latter was, I guess that's not saying much).

Maps are huge and offer multiple different pathways to move around without being seen and give vantage points for you to stake out a plan of attack. The stealth mechanics from the first game have been polished such that mostly things just work, and in a way that makes sense. Add to that a crafting system that lets you make things that matter (acid mines, so useful) and a progression system with usefull upgrades and it can be hard to find something they didn't improve. Cons would be the dialogue is on the cringy side of cheesy most of the time as well as the voice acting and animations in cutscenes are sub-par. I wasn't expecting it to live up to the high bar set by the first two Thief games, but I sure like where Cyanide are going with this series.

All in all I'd say if you enjoy stealth games, this is one to pick up.

This game has all the fundamentals down for an overall awesome game: Enjoyable, visceral combat gameplay and an original, engaging storyline with memorable a-typical characters. The upgrade system keeps combat from getting stale and gives you something to aim for when collecting materials for doing so. The dialogue and animations (during dialogue) feels natural and the interplay between characters is well presented. Just wish it could have been longer, though I don't have any complaint with the pacing. I certainly wouldn't have had any complaint with some additional thrown in levels along the journey. Anyway, strongly recommended.