PixlBit

Hello internet. My name is Blake, and for a little while, I had a crippling addiction to the Souls series. This addiction often manifested itself in strange ways. I'd have dreams where my roommate was one of those skeleton wheeled fuckers and I just had to make peace with the fact that making my morning coffee was now 90% about rolling. I once actually got scared to cross a busy street because if I got ran over and died it would be fucking hell to get all my money back from that spot. I also now have a crippling fear of punching my friends, because they might resent me forever and secretly be much better at punching people than I am.

That last one was maybe always there.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Dark Souls is my favourite game of all time, with Demon's Souls and Bloodborne trailing not very far behind. However, I must say that Dark Souls 2 and 3 left me feeling a bit cold. Sure, 2 improved the combat mechanics a bit, but it also had the kind of geographical structure that would make Lewis Carroll go "hang on, that's a bit bullshit." Dark Souls 3 fixed that by being 90% boring in its world design, and it had the best combat in the series up to that point. I mean, unless you wanted to be a caster, then FUCK YOU because they weren't about to let you lock onto anything that wasn't so close you could conceivably exchange fluids with.

But I digress. The main thing that made me a Souls fanatic wasn't the combat, or the difficulty that Bandai Namco's marketing division's raging erection won't let you forget anytime soon. No, it was the atmosphere. It was the wonder. It was the sense that this was a world where anything could happen. Dark Souls and Demon's Souls felt dangerous and new. They looked at the modern video game rulebook, lit it on fire, and beat a homeless person to death with it.

I mean, for fuck's sake, Demon's Souls had a boss that could level you down! It also had a "2 part" boss fight where if you killed one the other would just fucking kill herself because she didn't want to live in world without the one she loved. The very last bossfight, the one you'd pumped yourself up for thinking "oh man, how can they possibly top everything that preceded it" was just an old dude who could barely swing a sword and who you felt immeasurably sad about killing.

That's the kind of shit I fell in love with the series for. The Souls series cared equally as much about the experience their world and bosses created as they did the mechanical challenge - if not more. And that's kind of why I've been loving Hollow Knight. It's clearly influenced by the Souls series, but not simply mechanically or in terms of difficulty. Oh, don't get me wrong, some of these bosses will kick your ass, and the game definitely steals the bonfire and soul recovery systems wholesale.

No, what it takes away from From Software's lusciously alluring legacy is the sense of wonder, the atmosphere, and the stuff that actually sets that series apart from its pale(blood) imitators. The game is purposefully oblique, obscuring some of its central mechanics. For instance, Hollow Knight starts you off without a map. It tasks you to explore a dauntingly big first by feel. Eventually you will meet someone who can sell you a map. However, you can't fill in the map and can only see what he has filled out until you buy a quill. Even then you have to sit at a bench (this game's version of a bonfire) to fill the map out, and you can't even see where you are on the map until you find a compass!

That kind of mechanical vagueness might be frustrating to some, but as a Souls fan, I adored it. It helps make you feel like you're actually exploring the uncharted, that you're venturing into some vast unknown expanse of cavernous networks. Kinda like I did when I first played Dark Souls.

Like Dark Souls, the story is purposefully oblique. You have a vague goal that you're uncertain about and don't even know if it's morally the right thing to do but you kind of just have to do it. You find little lore snippets and learn info on the world just as you do in Lordran. And like Lordran, you get this feeling that the world is just kind of fucked, and nothing you can do will be of any real significance. Only this time everything is bugs..

Also, like in Dark Souls, there are times where you feel uncomprehendably lost, and because you can only fast travel from certain areas, you end up wondering if you'll ever make it back to the surface and see light again. It's fucking Blighttown all over again... but like, in a good way.

Moreover, unlike a lot of metroidvania style games, the world isn't static. NPC's move through the world and you'll encounter them in different places carrying out their own quest. Even areas morph and become twisted versions of themselves, emenating the hostility of a living world that gives zero fucks about your existence.

 There are secrets everywhere, and just like in the Soulsbourne series, often the best and most affecting stuff is the best hidden. This team does not care in the slightest if you miss some of their hard work, because they know how much it will endear the game to those who really care. They'd rather make a game that a few people love, than a game that a million people like

There are two moments that really nailed home the similarities. One was a boss fight about halfway through the game, and one was an npc encounter that left me utterly heartbroken. I don't want to spoil the second one, but um... it kind of reminded me more than a bit of Solaire's arc. The boss fight I will spoil though. It's not a hard fight at all. It's just a girl's spirit who just wants to be left alone and explicitly asks you not to hurt her. Of course, you kind of have to collect her soul so you can open a door/upgrade your weapon/some other really selfish reason you soulless fuck.

So you fight her. And while you're fighting her, she starts humming a song that you may or may not recognise as a song that another npc used to sing to keep from feeling afraid. So this song not only makes the fight seriously atmospheric and somewhat haunting, but also makes you feel like a terrible person.

Oh, and there's a boss that after you kill, you have to enter their dreams and kill again. I won't say more than that, it's fucking awesome.

It's examples like this - and many others I won't spoil - that remind me of the first time I fell in love with the Souls series. Like the Dark Souls and Demon's Souls, Hollow Knight takes a little while to unveil itself to you. For the first two areas, you might simply think "oh, this is a somewhat good Metroidvania, but it's no Ori and the Blind Forest." It's not until you hit a certain area that perpetually rains that you begin to understand that you have to have something special on your hands.

If you've played the early game and think there's nothing more than a somewhat polished but otherwise generic metroidvania game, I implore you to give it more of a chance. This game is special. It reminds me of the qualities that make me adore my favourite game of all time. If you're on the fence or wonder how this game works as a value proposition: I'm about 23 hours in and I don't think this game is stopping anytime soon. So yeah, another way it's like Dark Souls – it's freaking huge.

Give this game a chance. It's a slowburn that takes a little while to divulge its secret, but once it does you'll be glad you let this little bug and his nail wriggle his way into your heart. Too saccharine? Blow me. I love this game.