So I've been playing two games recently, and those games are in the title of the blog. Don't think much more needs to be said.
Hollow Knight.
Time for some hyperbole, but after finishing Hollow Knight for the third time, I honestly think it might be the best 2d metroidvania game I've played - and metroidvania is one of my favourite genres. It might have even surpassed the likes of super metroid and aria of sorrow for me. This is for a few reasons.
1: Expansive World: Hollow Knight is huge. Like mind bogglingly so. This is a 30 hour plus game if you want to explore everything. In other games of the genre, this would be a negative for me, as I generally feel like 8-12 hours is perfect for most games in the genre. However, in Hollow Knight, when I was done I still wanted more. I wanted to explore outside of hallow nest, I wanted to see what else was in the world.
Seriously, every time you think there couldn't possibly be more content, the game surprises you with more areas, more bosses, and more secrets than you could shake a stick at.
It gets even more involved with charms. They work as a load out system of sorts that you can change at any bench. Some of these change combat fairly drastically: there are some that double your spell damage, some that extend the range of your melee attacks, some that make your attacks faster etc. there are some crazier ones, like constantly spawning allies that will attack your enemies for you, though they constantly drain your soul. There are some that put a shield around you while you heal, and even one that gives you potentially over double health but you can't heal at all while they're equipped. You have a limited amount of notches for these charms, so you have to work out the perfect loadout for any given situation. This makes some of the more difficult bosses less frustrating, because rather than rage quitting, you're thinking "I wonder if I could take him if I make this change to my loadout."
Oh, and like the early Souls games, you can't trust every npc. And there are quite a few heartbreaking moments if you're truly paying attention.
Honestly, I could go on and on about hollow knight, but if you have a switch or pc and you like the genre, this is a must buy. Oh and fuck ign comments for getting annoyed that the reviewer gave an indie game such a high score. It's simply amazing what a 3 man team from fucking Adelaide can accomplish, especially seeeing as game development in Australia is mostly for mobile games.
God of War.
Man, I knew the Internet made jokes about how many times Kratos said boy, but I wasn't quite expecting it to be this ludicrous. He has a fucking name you cunt!
Anyway, God of War is pretty darn good. I definitely have my complaints, but I'm about halfway through and mostly enjoying it. I say mostly, because some of the side content I feel compelled to do is a bit repetitive. The main stuff is phenomenal though.
As a god of war fan, I was a little worried going in. Firstly, because they were trying to humanise Kratos, who had such a raging murder. Boner by the third game that John Wayne Gacey would have told him to tone it the fuck down. This wasn't helped when the director of the tomb raider reboots were attached to to this project.
However, they fucking nailed it. Kratos is still the same old Kratos we know and love, he's just trying to act responsibly now. I love that the old games are still canon, and he's still a monster, but he's trying to forget that and find his humanity to look after his son. Makes me want to see more insane characters get a kid. Like Jason Voorhes, or Mike Pence.
The story is actually pretty good, though I'd argue the overarching storyline of the first two God of wars and the psp games were pretty good, they just had some shitty execution given some mediocre ps2 era writing. 3 was kinda shit in terms of story because it literally only exists because God of War 2 chose not to end.
The other concern I had was that the series would tone down its spectacle and violent insanity. The first hour was extremely slow paced and acting like it wanted to be an Arthouse project, but then blam some trailer trash methhead goes super saiyen and you throw a fucking cliff on top of him after punching him through half a forest worth of trees. Now that's art.
There's weirdly more emphasis on exploration and puzzles, which is great for me because they were some of my favourite parts of the original series. I wish there was jump button and actual platforming, but the exploration and puzzles are decent enough without it I guess. Weirdly enough this feels more like a tomb raider game than the tomb raider reboots did.
A lot of people complain about the combat, but I like it. I think if they moved the camera out a bit and didn't focus so much on swarms it would be a pretty solid combat system. It's like a weird in between of old school God of War and dark souls combat, but there's a decent amount of depth to it. There are combos, a stun metre that when filled up allows you to do devastating moves, ranged attacks, juggling, stance changes, three different weapon types with different move sets, runes that you can change out for different attacks and runes and so on and so fourth. Combat is where I really miss the jump button though. I wish it were like old games where I could juggle enemies in the air. That and zooming the camera out would honestly make this one of the better combat systems I've tinkered with.
The only other real problem I have with it is that I wish the rpg systems were either less or more involved. It's in a weird middle state at the moment and I wish it would either go full blown rpg or lighten it up and let me focus on the action.
All in all, pretty solid game. I went in with lowered expectations because of all the hype and have been pleasantly surprised thus far.
Hollow Knight definitely sounds amazing. And I love that it's on Switch. Seems like a handheld perfection.
The only downside is it's a bit slow to start, but it's $15 on switch, and they're constantly updating it for free and adding bosses, quests, and apparently some new areas in the last free update before they do a paid dlc. They've brought done three major free updates that actually add a lot to the game!
You make Hollow Knight sound a little more interesting.
It was my game of the year last year, and it's only getting better with free content patches tha add bosses, npcs, and hidden areas. Plus it's only $15 on switch!
I really need to write a review on God of War to finally get it off my chest...
I'd love to read it. What are your basicthoughts though?
I think it's a very good game. Not great, not 5 stars, GOTY contender. Good. I have serious issues with that battle camera, the leveling system, and especially the brat, who made me want to quit the game multiple times.
The camera didn't bother me at first, but during some of the tougher battles with swarms of enemies it seriously pissed me off. Especially the Valkyrie that spawns multiple enemies and during the kill 100 enemies challenge. I mean, I should maybe have levelled up and gotten better gear, but I feel like if the camera was pulled out I could reasonably taken them.
The boy hasn't annoyed me yet, I only just finished Tyrs vault though. He has some weird Ai moments when I want to shoot something in the terrain but he won't come to where I am so he can't get the angle right. Those were rare though. I like his character arc so far personally.
I had no problems with him in game play. I think he's poorly written, poorly acted, and generally awful, especially the way he talks like it's 2018 and not the age of vikings.
I think his arc is pretty strong, but I do agree on the acting and him feeling like a 2018 kid. I feel that's supposed to make him more relatable and differentiate him from kratos, but they could have handled his dialogue a bit better.
I want to give Hollow Knight a shot eventually, just working on my backlog for now. God of War didn't do much for me. Loved the story and new take on Kratos, but combat was not fun at all to me. Camera was too close and upgrades/loot felt like they made too little an impact on harder settings while the game was just dull on easy. Didn't have fun with it.
Fair. I don't mind the combat. Its fine enough for me that I want to do optional challenges and stuff I found upgrades helped out a lot and I'm playing on hard. You just have to know when to use combos and when to go for a quick hit or two. And I had the opposite problem with loot: it makes too much of a difference since if you're 3 levels below an enemy they one shot you. Upgrading luck if you have decent perks can make you op as well.
In the end though it's subjective. I liked the approach they took and mainly just wish the camera could zoom the fuck out. This is God of War not resident evil 4. Actually, this game reminds me a lot of resident evil 4 for some reason. It's also maybe more tomb raider than the reboot tomb raider series.
Well I meant loot made too little of a difference on Kratos. Because I had the same issue with enemies and perks felt pointless. Upgrades that don't feel substantial are an immediate turn off for me.
I think the reason it reminds you of RE4 is because it took so much from The Last of Us which took a ton from RE4.
True. I found loot either makes a drastic difference or no difference at all, and it's a whole lot of time between drastic difference loot. The good stuff is the talismans and the weapon runes, as they actually change gameplay. The rest is a bit meh.
Youre right, I feel like this is a weird mix or The Last of Us, Zelda, and Dark Souls in terms of gameplay.
I haven't played video games much lately, so I think I'll work on being able to fellatio myself for a while. Or, I guess "yoga" is the polite term.
Pics or it didn't happen.
I'm on Metacritic right now: God of War 95, Hollow Knight 90.
I watched a trailer of Hollow Knight and I think I might give it a try if it's on Game Pass or something. I like a large world to explore and the special powers look really cool.
It's only on switch and pc at the moment. The dev team said they'd think about releasing on PS4 and but it won't be for a while unfortunately.
Yeah I'll get Hollow Knight when it's on sale. It sounds a lot deeper and more ambitious. than other similar games.
Here's the area where metroidvanias and Metroid-likes (Axiom Verge. This game has no Castlevania in it, at all, people!) have failed to equal or surpass SM: level construction. Specifically, the number of hidden alternage passages that you can find through bombing and shooting certain blocks. Most of these games don't ha ve any hidden passages at all, let alone as many as SM. The level layouts ofShadow Complex, the IGAvanias on DS, Guacemelee (no to mention this games horrendously lazy use of colored blocks as "gates") Ori, Strider, etc are all disappointingly straightforward in comparison. Even other Metroid games fall short.
That's my mini rant about so called Metroid inspired games. Super is still the king. Maybe HK can prove a worthy contender to the throne.
So I'm not alone in thinking Gaucamelee is actually a terrible metroidvania. Good to know.
Id actually argue that zero mission comes pretty damned close to Super Metroids level construction. It's just a touch on the short side so the Alternate routes don't have
I actually didn't think about that until now though. Most indie games of this type are terrible about secrets. I was wonderiNg why a lot of titles don't quite the same quality as metroid but couldn't quite put my finger on it.
Hollow Knight has a hell of a lot of secrets. A lot of them do boil down to noticing a wall is a slightly different and hitting it or finding key items and figuring out what to do with them (it definitely takes a lot of inspirations from dark souls), but there are a lot of secrets involving the games abilities too. In fact to get the true ending you have to go to a secret area to find another secret area to find more secrets that unlock more secrets. I was a pretty dedicated explorer first run but was surprised that even though I got the true ending I still missed two entire areas and like 5 bosses.
And I mean it's a 30 hour game that can be finished in less than 5 hours fairly easily just by knowing where everything is and the alternate routes to finish them without any speedrunning shenanigans. Once you realise you can do certain things without the developer intended abilities, it opens up a huge array of options. One in particular feels akin to the Super Metroid "oh shit you can wall jump from the start?!" moment.
I think you hit the nail on the head as to why so many of these games don't quite match up to the classics: Those games were designed for speedrunning. Kind of an old school philosophy, where everyone had a few games to play so they needed to make them last and Super Metroid wasn't too long, so having Samus take off her suit by beating it in X amount of time was the way to keep gamers replaying it. Meaning the game needed super tight, replayable level design and twenty-four years later people are still coming back to it.
