#ILL JUST POP IN AND SEE WHAT THE HOLLOW KNIGHT FIGHT IS LIKE

[lunarleosreblogs]

HEY OP? I'M STARING AT YOU AFTER SEEING THAT HOLLOW KNIGHT AND SONIC CROSSOVER POST. STARING INTENTLY

I would LOVE to hear you talk about it

MY MY MY DEAR ANON, HOW I LOVE YOU FOR THIS QUESTION!!!!

This is an rp with my partner that we called "Ghost is an Evil Henchman" as a placeholder name, before it stuck. (Henchman in a gender neutral type of way, all the vessels are genderless)

The RP mainly follows Quirrel and Hornet after they crashland on the beach. The rp is set in strictly the Sonic Boom universe, since thats the only one i watched and i think at the time the one my partner liked the most. This rp is based around a LOT of my fanon so if you want an explanation on that, you know where to ask ^_^ !

Sonic and Sticks finds the two of them. Quirrel and Tails IMMEDIATELY become bffs and make silly inventions together i love them. Meanwhile Hornet is having a lot of anger issues, especially directed at Quirrel. Shes pissed because shes crazily worried about her only living siblings (which will be Ghost, the mc of the game, Hollow, and Lost, whos been reanimated by lifeblood). But her anger at Quirrel also runs way deeper, from a LOONg time ago

(Hornet and Quirrel had an argument about the Dreamers. Quirrel told her that the sacrifices are for nothing, that even Monomon agreed, and Hornet has been furious about it ever since. She doesnt want to think that her mothers death was for nothing.)

Eggman attacks and they have to stop Hornet from literally beheading him which i think its rlly funny

Anyways, wheres Ghost??

Freaking the fuck out. Because they are in a cage. Instead of appearing with their sister and Quirrel, they instead popped into Eggmans lair

Now. I dont think me or mel ever talked about HOW they got there. Quirrel and Tails tried to question it, but never got rlly far and were just focused on how to get back.

So anyways. Ghost has a lot of issues that they cover up because they are "the Savior of Hallownest" and their sister needs help as the new queen with the survivors of the infection to build from the ground up again

Eggman, unintentionally, pushes on Ghosts insecurities that their sister doesnt truly like them. So they work for Eggman. And that almost spells out Sonics fate because its nearly canon that there is no enemy too powerful for Ghost. They are literally a God.

From what I remember, a bit happens after that. Quirrel finally breaks after Hornet yells at him again, calling her out because "You're not the only one who lost everything. You're not the only one who has had to kill your family. You are not the only survivor of the infection." My Quirrel fanon (aka, singed!quirrel) is one of my favorite side stories of mine. It has to do with his antennas, getting burned, almost assassinated.. yeah theres a lot

We kind of faded out of this rp, the last response to it was a hell of a while ago. We had plans such as meeting Hollow and Lost, and even having a fight between Shadow and Ghost where Shadow gets his ass handed to him and is like "okay, this is a problem." We had a scene planned where Ghost actually managed to stab Sonic, which finally made him realize Ghost was a genuine threat. I even secretly had an idea where Quirrel and Tails get kidnapped and Quirrel is trying to convince Ghost that Hornet still does love them and will not, in fact, murder them on sight (he is not successful)

In a new rp called Reflecting the Light, where both Hollow Knight and Sonic characters are present, we do occasionally get a conversation between Shadow and some of the vessels. Im pretty sure Shadow and The Hollow Knight talked at one point, but im not entirely sure.

All in all, Hollow Knight is a beautiful yet heartbreaking game. It's really hard, I still havent done the Path of Pain vecause i spent 5 hours on the White Palace and i am not emotionally ready to suffer through PoP. I havent even beaten NKG. But i hope this helps ^_^ if you like hollow knight and/or sonic PLEASE let me know and ill talk about them in reflecting the light!!! I love that rp from the bottom of my heart

Anyways. Its 11pm, I have school tomorrow. Leo, out (⁠ ⁠˘⁠ ⁠³⁠˘⁠)💛🌙

#lucky speaks #hollow knight #sonic

[gothamdad]

THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS PART ONE: CINEMATIC WRONGS AND ANALYSIS COMMENTARY

DO NOT REBLOG.

This is going to be a bullet point list of incidents that occur in the movie, and will either have my general commentary or an analysis of what makes the scene terrible (or in some rare cases, good). TRIGGERS FOR SUICIDE, MENTAL HEALTH, AND DYSMORPHIA 

-bruce trying to kill himself in the beginning of the movie. 

Hes reckless, and willing to risk his life, but not suicidal. But he just purposefully gets into a wreck at 2 minutes into the movie?? for no reason??? theres literally no reason for it other than it being angsty bc they COULDVE started the movie with the mutants doing crime, as the next scene cuts right into it and the following news reports 

-"This reporter hopes that wherever he is, hes enjoying a toast with good friends" said when its the anniversary of batman’s disappearance 

this is stupid I hate this movie. You're telling me Gotham forgives Batman for just disappearing on them? DID THAT NOT HAPPEN IN NML AND EVERYONE GOT PISSED??? Like everyone in this movie seems to have forgot he abandoned the city. Not to mention, and I'm gonna go off on a tangent here, bruce will be batman for as long as he lives. He calls himself batman in his mind even when hes retired. He believes that Bruce wayne is the mask. His whole identity is batman. Saying that hed quit because of jason is not only stupid because it implies Jason's death isnt just as important as his parents, but shows that any tragedy is enough to permanently knock him down. And as if the league, or the family, would have let him give up. Anyway the whole reason the retirement in batman beyond works is because it shows bruce was going to fight until he literally died on the spot, but instead he pointed a gun, didn't even use it, just pointed it, and he realized he wasnt fit to HONOR batman anymore. He broke the rule. And he doesnt deserve to wear the mantle. This is so good because 1) bruce still wants to be batman and 2) it doesnt imply that he gave up at all, and at this point with his decreasing wellness his family WOULD be telling him to stop

-Gordon toasts with Bruce on the anniversary

FBKSBSOANSISSB OH MY GOD IT JUST SHOWED HIM SHARING A TOAST WITH GORDON. this is the anniversary of the last time batman is sighted and gordon. JIM FUCKING GORDON. Is celebrating. When they were literally partners and hed shine the batsignal each night TELL ME WHERE THE LOGIC IS!!! I CANT FIND THE LOGIC!!!!! I'm literally 3 minutes into this movie..... and already this is how its going...

-Gordon and Bruce talk

"You're not worried about me, are you?" Asked when hes in clear danger of being attacked by mutants "noT MorE tHAn i aM tHe ReST oF tHis CItY" ah yes. I forgot that Bruce hated gotham and jim Gordon. My mistake. Common misconception.

-the mutants are introduced

Ugh and it's the worst kind of villains too, jim just described the mutants as "the worst kind of criminals. They are only after violence, with no humanity at all" GIVE! VILLAINS! REASONING! I hate these joker wannabes Joker was already enough we dont need a million more "lol I'm just evil deal with it" villains

"Talk to Dick lately?"asks Gordon "You know I havent" Bruce responds

THIS CONVERSATION IS GETTING W O R S E BC I KNOW HOW THIS MOVIE GOES AND HE JUST INSTANTLY HAS CARRIE BE THE NEW ROBIN- WHICH, IS N O T BRUCE'S TO GIVE. ITS ALWAYS BEEN DICK'S MANTLE TO PASS DOWN- WHEN HE HASNT BEEN SPEAKING TO DICK????

-tangent on how it’s overlooked that Dick Grayson was the one to make Robin, not Batman

This is a sin that not just the movie, but the batman franchise in general seems to always make. Robin was made as a tribute to the flying graysons, and is meant to be colorful and aerodynamic for acrobatic tricks. it should always be dick’s to pass down, or the next robin after. 

-Bruce begins having trouble with holding back his urge to be Batman

His whole wanting to be batman again thing started because of a newspaper with a family's death and pearls being sold. On the same front cover. I'm. THATS WHEN HE REMEMBERS HIS PARENTS? NOT EVERY FUCKING TIME HE HEARS A GUNSHOT? OR CLOSES HIS EYES? OR SEES BLOOD? HE READS A NEWSPAPER THATS FLOATING IN THE WIND??????NOT EVERY TIME HE LOOKS AT JASONS COSTUME? OR THE OTHER CRIMES COMMITTED??????LOGIC!!!!!!!!!! I NEED !!!! TO KNOW!!!!! WHERE IT IS!!!!!!!! ARE U KIDDING ME NOW THE MARK OF ZORRO, WHICH IS WHO THE FUCK KNOWS HOW OLD NOW, IS ON TV??????????? AND HE JUST HAPPENS TO FLIP TO THE CHANNEL.. Batman telling bruce "you've tried to hold me back. But you're weak. Ypu know it in your soul. You're nothing but a hollow shell." Is so STUPID!! WHY HAS HE BEEN FIGHTING BEING BATMAN!!!!!!!!!! BRUCE SHOULD WANT TO BE BATMAN!!!! AND HATE HAVING TO NOT BE!!!! AND A BAT FLYING INTO HIS WINDOW AGAIN???? STOP THE FUCKING CLICHES IM SICK OF THIS . UR NOT BEING NEXT LEVEL, MOVIE. ITS JUST DUMB. ITS DUMB!!!

-Carrie Kelly

her first ??? Appearance??? Is her going into KNOWN MUTANT GANG TERRITORY instead of going through the rain. And scolding her friend for not having backbone WHEN THEY COULD LITERALLY DIE and saying, and I quote, "its better than out there." then when interviewed about the incident her friend says  "It was a flying monster! With wings and fangs!" and she replies with "Reality check, Michelle, it was definitely a man, but he had to be like 12 feet tall" OH YEAH THATS VERY REALISTIC CARRIE. Shes an asshole to her friend and we're supposed to like her.  Oh and Carrie's reason for wanting to be robin? She saw the bat signal while her parents were talking about public marches. That's it. That's her reason. Not because she was attacked by mutants and almost died.

-Giving the movie credit

Okay but if theres another thing I'll give credit for, and I'm sure its unintentional, is that Harvey is the first criminal he wants to take down. Because Harvey is always going to be Bruce's priority. He didnt go after the mutants, but Two-Face. And the way that confrontation goes when it’s revealed harvey thinks both sides of his face are scarred. the Arkham staff fixed his scars before he was ready for treatment, and his mental health wasn’t priority. he was going to have dysmorphia either way, but not treating mental illness worsened it.  kinda? good writing? But I think it was unintentional to have the idea that Arkham didnt know what they were doing and the belief that scars are important before trauma, and how trauma has to be helped first. I dont believe for an instant that's what's meant. 

-Carrie Kelly part two

She gets a Robin costume and goes out onto the roof and is like.... almost dies. THEN THE NEXT SCENE WE SEE HER SHES LIKE COMPLETELY ACROBATIC? WHY IS SHE SO ACROBATIC NOW!!! THIS TAKES PRACTICE!!!

-Batman confronting the man who supplied the mutant gang with guns

Oh, this scene...He hands a guy a gun, knowing full well that he was depressed because his wife was dying and he had to make more money to save her by supplying the mutants with weapons, and just walks away as he kills himself. (input from a friend which i like:  think about everything bruce did to help mr freeze and his wife now think about this scene )

Batman vs Mutants 

oh, and the "batmobile". Aka his tank. Rubber bullets. Ok fine, whatever, but RUNNING THEM OVER AND SHOOTING MISSCLES ISNT LETHAL? AND HOW IS CARRIE KELLY GOOD AT FIGHTING ALL OF THEM WHEN SHE COULDNT HANDLE HERSELF WITH ONE LIKE A WEEK AGO.  hate that the mutant leader is just a ripoff of bane with long pointed nipples I hate this. I hate that batman cant take him down, but carrie kelly can. AND THE MUTANT LEADRER TOTALLY DIED WHEN BRUCE THREW ADHESIVE ON HIS FACE AND HE WAS SUFFOCATED BUT LATER ON IT SHOWS HE LIVES ??

Bruce talks to Carrie 

"What is this thing?" -carrie "Dick called it the batmobile" -bruce "SIR!!" -alfred over the radio There are no words. Then she pops his arm into place and creates a makeshift cast And he says "where'd you learn to do that?” and because she’s a mary sue she says nothing, because miller doesnt know why she should, so he cuts to "what's your name?" and she says "Carrie. Carrie Kelly. robin" and HE FUCKING GOES "MINES BRUCE." and then immediately tells Alfred hes bringing "robin" to the cave. I hate it here I hate that he forgets what happened to Jason aFTER ITS HIS LITERAL REASON FOR QUITTING. WHAT IS THE POINT IF HE’S GOING TO ACCEPT THIS GIRL HE DOESNT EVEN KNOW AS ROBIN?

-Bruce talks about Jason

OH BRUCE'S FUCKING LINE. HIS LINE. IM FURIOUS Alfred asks "have you forgotten what happened to Jason?" And he says "I'll never forget. he was a good soldier. He honored me" I AM !!!! SHAKING!!!! WITH HOW MAD !!!! I AM!!! Bruce would NOT say that shit. Implying that jason wasnt his son, or that jason was only a casualty in a war, or that HE FUCKING HONORED HIM AND NOT THE CITY, OR THE TITLE OF ROBIN "He honored me" shut the fuck up I hate this and dont even get me started on the misconceptions of Robin in the first place. i dont want to go into the debate on whether or not they’re soldiers, which I personally don’t believe. but its just stupid because Jason considered being Robin the best thing that’s ever happened to him, and he was THE BEST. it wasnt his fault he was killed, either. 

-The ending

So the mutant escapes his cell by going through a VENT. A . V E N T. AND ENDS UP IN THE SEWER. I hate that these mutants are just an army of evil people and have no motivation and the leader is just a brute I fucking hate Bruce calling him "son" And the mutants become the sons of batman who fight crime......??? because their leader is gone?? werent they supposed to be evil criminals with no humanity in them?

-Joker

Okay but Joker being absent the entire first part , only to show up in the end hearing news reports about batman, and then smiling as he stands up and just fucking creepily says "darling" holy shit that gave me goosebumps. another credit i have to give. 

#long post / #theres still a part two but i am TIRED #i cannot today...... mayhaps if yall like this ill do the second part #ᴜɴᴍᴀsᴋᴇᴅ : OUT OF CHARACTER

[hershelchocolate]

HEY TEAM CHERRY I JUST WANNA TALK

#AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #hollow knight #hollow knight liveblog #GUESS WHO GOT THE FIRST ENDINGGGGGGGG #AAAAAAAAAAA #ive officially given up on the trial of the fool i cant do it ive tried it for like 12 hours i cant do it #rip to the hunters mark and rip to godhome but im tiref #AND I DECIDED OH YOU KNOW WHAT #IF I CANT GET THE HUNTERS MARK!!!!! GUESS WHAT THERES NOTHING ELSE TO DO #ILL JUST POP IN AND SEE WHAT THE HOLLOW KNIGHT FIGHT IS LIKE #AND THEN I BEAT THEM IN TWO TRIES AND I WAS VERY DISTRESSED THE ENTIRE TIME #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #GUYS WHAT THE FUCK!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!!! #THE HOLLOW KNIGHT AND THE REGULAR KNIGHT ARE JUS LIL GUYS THEYRE JUST VIBIN!!!!! #LEAVE THEM ALONE!!!!! #GOD the switch from battle music to sad music FUCKED ME UP #OH MY GOD #i wanna listen to that song so bad now but i dont know what parts of tje ost i still can and cant listen to #so im waiting until i beat the game to listen to the full ost #hornet queens gardens city of tears and broken vessel my beloved #AND GETTING THE VOIDHEART WAS #OH BOY #THAT WAS SO COOL #im so sorry for all the #caps tw #im just SO EXCITED #my brother said i should probably find another game to play #but This was my Other Game #i have. no other games #i dont want this one to be over

[bonerhitler]

So I Finished Hollow Knight

With Hollow Knight done I have a great excuse to not have to think of a more interesting subject to write about! I have some very self important opinions to talk about regarding this game. I also plan to go over my first impression of it and see what held up and where I was wrong. Spoilers; I was pretty wrong about some stuff. Also, spoilers. I'm going to be talking about the end of this game and other plot bits.

So lets start with the things I was way off base and straight up incorrect about from last week;

“there’s no dodge skill.“

Turns out there is a dash! So I was presumptuous on that one. You get it after the second real boss. However it only launches you forward, not backwards. So it's not especially great for avoiding enemy attacks. You also only get one air dodge before you have to touch ground and traversing the map before you get it is a pain in the ass, you're slow and your mobility is crippled.

Personally speaking, I think you should have been given a limited form of the dash before beating that boss. Start the player off with the ground dash at least, give it a longer cooldown even. Let the upgrade obtained after the boss fight unlock the air dash and reduce the overall dash cooldown or something because the simple act of getting the dash upgrade made the game go from frustrating and miserable to play, to enjoyable and fun at once. I also wouldn't say no to making the dash do a backwards dodge if you're not holding forwards.

“Breakable walls are in no way indicated until you hit them “ I was just straight up wrong! Turns out this game is just like Symphony of the Night, Metroid and basically every other game ever in this regards. The walls I was annoyed with are just regular secret passages. You didn't have to attack them. Walking through them would reveal them, enemies could reveal them. Basically anything would. Breakable walls, on the other hand, were clearly marked with cracks and reacted when hit. I don't have any issue with this now.

Also I didn't explicitly say it in the post as far as quick glance tells me, but I was wrong about quick travel too. You don't have to pay every time you want to use the quick travel spots. You just have to pay once to unlock a few of them. Not even all of them, just a few of them. I presumed and made a presumption out of pres and ume again. Or however that saying goes.

However I do take issue with the quick travel options offered in the game. For one thing, we're not given any kind of simple teleport back to the main town. That would have been a life saver, even if it cost you all of your money or something dark souls style. Instead if you want to warp you have to find the nearest Stag Station and ride a giant stag beetle around. Except those are usually in the far back corner of whatever zone you're in, assuming the zone even has one. There are several zones that don't have one, and they're usually zones you're going to spend a lot of time traveling to and from. So every time I wanted to go to one location, such as The Abyss, I would have to warp from the nearest Stag Station to King's Station in the City of Tears, walk several screens and then jump down a spike filled chasm and fall into the Ancient Basin then climb down another spike filled pit and reach The Abyss. Getting back out took twice as long and the only other alternate routes required me to go to the Deepnest, a place which is dark, maze-like and full of annoying enemies, or the Edge of the Kingdom which doesn't have a Stag Station so I would have to hoof it across like three zones to get there anyway. And boy howdy do you have to go to The Abyss a lot.

What I'm trying to say is that this game desperately needs either some kind of Library Card equivalent that warps you to a specific place, or an ability that returns you somewhere useful because navigating the map blows, and the stag stations ultimately don't help as much as they should unless you need to straight up get across the entire map. There aren't many shortcuts to unlock, and the ones you do unlock are usually so out of the way there's never any reason to bother using them because they are, more or less, just shoved in there at the end of puzzle rooms that leave you with no alternative way out than to just smash a wall down which just reeks of awful level and puzzle design.

Most of your abilities are also just glorified keys. To bust out the tired old Symphony comparison; when you got the super jump you could reach places you couldn't before. You could reach travel upwards faster, but you had no control over it. You couldn't really move left or right so it was ill suited for proper exploration. As the game progressed you unlocked the Double Jump, which let you reach new heights and control your jumps better and eventually fully developed the Bat Form which allowed you to freely fly and explore as you saw fit. Using these abilities you could go anywhere. You could speedily climb, change form and explore the greatest heights. Fall, use a double jump to catch yourself and hunt out any secret there was.

In Hollow Knight, however, the closest to this kind of thing you get is a single air dash and a rather flimsy double jump. Your double jump takes a while to pop off so you lose some height on it. There have been times I've fallen onto spikes mid-jump animation because you continue to move downwards until mid-way through the animation. So it's not really great for catching yourself. As mentioned before you get a single air dash which while useful for platforming, doesn't really help in the mobility department. It's really only useful for making longer jumps the likes of which the game will toss in your path specifically so you can't progress without unlocking the air dash and double jump yet. Then there's the third “jump” type upgrade. Called the Crystal Heart you charge up and just rocket across the screen until you hit something. It sounds really cool. In fact I was really excited the first time I used it and blasted across like three screens. But here's the big flaw with this item. You can only travel horizontally with it, you can't move while flying and literally any obstacle will stop you dead. Even enemies. You would think it would kill enemies, or knock them out of the way. But no. You just hit them and fall down, usually into spikes. It's not even a great item to use to quickly get past screens you've walked through a million times because there are very, very few screens that don't have enemies buzzing around everywhere, platforms randomly decorating the scenery or just walls sticking up in the middle of the air.

In fact the only upgrade I can honestly say was genuinely useful through the entire game since getting it and didn't really feel wasted at all was the Mantis Claw. Because all it was, was an upgrade that let you wall climb and wall jump. Grabbing this thing made the game amazing. Dodging became easier because now I could bounce off a wall and get behind enemies, avoid their attacks and actually be aggressive freely. Climbing wasn't a miserable experience of hopping onto tiny platforms, then getting knocked off because I didn't see an enemy flitting on the edge of the screen. I could actually grab ledges and recover for once. There were even tricky segments I could approach in more than one way thanks to the wall climbing letting me maneuver around obstacles more freely.

The non-mobility upgrades honestly aren't anything to write home about either. You can upgrade your sword to do more damage. I guess that's why every enemy feels like it has way too much health? Because they balanced the whole game around having the ultimate weapon upgrade? Because by the end, after I scoured most of the map and got it there were relatively few enemies I wasn't one-shotting. But until I got it, the game was miserable. Bosses felt immortal until I just hit them enough and they stopped being. Even basic enemies that respawned every screen took two-three hits and something just feels off when enemies have that much health. The combat in this game didn't feel fun at all, and not in any kind of moral way either. Just in kind of a lame “I'm not having fun playing this video game” kind of way. You do learn special techniques for your sword, but you have to charge your sword's attack for that and it takes so long there's no particular reason to ever use them. In fact the only way I found to make the melee combat in this game tolerable at all was to exploit the AI. You see, if you jump over an enemy and use the downward slash you just bounce off of the enemy's head. Most enemies in the game don't have an upwards attack. The ones that do usually can't hit you because the attack won't track you while you're bouncing back upwards through the air. Even the last boss in the game succumbed embarrassingly easy to the tactic of “bouncing off of his dang old head for a few minutes.”

You could just use magic though. Magic does more damage than your sword attacks, but eats up a lot of your energy. Hitting enemies with your sword gives you energy back. Magic is also the only way to heal outside of sitting at a save bench. There are things you can do to augment it all though. You see, you have this entire equip system of charms. They're basically just badges you equip that have a value of one to like, four. You start with three slots, gain up to ten or so by the end of the game. Being able to see your icon on the map is a charm that costs one slot to equip. As is a charm that lets you gain a lot of energy by taking damage. It costs three points to increase your distressingly narrow melee attack range and there's only one charm in the game that straight up increases your melee attack or damage. In fact the whole system reeks of wasted potential because a lot of charms do gimmicky things, and a few do cool things. But there's almost no reason to use any of them other than the ones that just make you do more damage and recover more energy, or the ones that give you more health. Turning into a snail while I heal is cool I guess, game, but why would I do that when I could just kill everything faster and never need to heal. Like with so many other gameplay elements of this game, it's a cool idea that just feels kind  of wasted because it doesn't feel like the most was made of it.

Speaking of wasted potential, enemies and hazards! This game has some spectacular enemy variation and I love that most areas have a unique cast of creatures to fight. However there are some frustrating things that go along with this. Like the exploding, screeching bat things. Why are they in almost every area of the game? Why do all of the environmental obstacles make the most obnoxious noises possible? And was it really necessary to make so many things in general explode, and give them such massive blast radii at that? The bosses are all pretty great though – seeming immortality aside – they all definitely feel unique and I would much rather have had more of them in the game over a smaller map. Personally, the Mantis Lords are still my absolute favorite fight, it keeps you on the move constantly but never really throws too much at you at once so you can always react and play aggressively without the game just slapping your hand for having fun with it. The Broken Vessel is easily my second favorite, but it does a bit too much with the balloons spawning in and then just occasionally stands there spitting poison goo while you smash it to death making it way too easy. I really wish more of the combat and enemies in general had taken after the bosses than just been annoying slogs against flying enemies always floating out of range spitting poison, or against big guys with shields. Because most of the bosses are fast, aggressive whereas the enemies are always just kind of there. In your way, annoying. Even with all their health, the bosses are fun. The enemies aren't. All the regular enemies have going for them are their cool visual variation from zone to zone.

Okay that's getting to be a bit of a downer. Let me take a moment to talk about things I liked instead. Hollow Knight's visuals from beginning to end are still spectacular. Each area is well defined visually. Even when two areas are similar, like Queen's Garden and Greenpath, they're still distinct enough that you always know where you are at a glance. As down as I am on the actual physical map design, I think their atmospheric world design was spot on. The Fog Canyon is a fantastic area with almost unearthly purple tones and filled with weird jellyfish. All the sounds are given a filter that makes the whole zone sound like it's underwater and it messes with you because it, clearly, isn't. The Fungal Wastes are just a mushroom infested cave and I love me some mushroom designs. Deepnest, on the other hand, is a genuinely creepy and almost stressful area. The whole zone is filled with an undercurrent of gross crawling sounds, and all the spikes in this are are living, writhing centipedes. Most rooms have this aggravating rushing noise of gigantic horrible bugs crawling across the screen, you can't hurt them either. They're just obstacles. Half of the zone is a giant spider nest filled with eggs and parasites that crawl out of corpses. The other half is just a dark centipede filled hell hole. I love the Deepnest. My favorite area, however, is The Abyss. Dark and silently menacing the only bugs there are just passive crawling things. The more plot relevant enemies at the bottom of the pit are fantastic though and I loved every moment of the game's story.

In fact, let me take a moment to praise the story. This game, it's developers really, manged to very clearly tell their story while still being delightfully ambiguous about it. Even going for the “true” ending you only find out what you absolutely have to, unless you look for it. There are a ton of little secret rooms hidden around the game that contain information. Very little of it bluntly handed to you on a text dump or item description. But most of it told through visuals. You also get an item fairly early on called the Dream Nail. It lets you read thoughts and enter dreams. Almost every enemy in the game will have their own thoughts. You can use it on corpses too, presumably to read their last thoughts, fears or desires. You can piece together what happened in an area, what happened to the world before ever reaching the point where the game its self tells you. Even after the game spills its guts you're still left with several big unanswered questions. Nothing quite so frustrating as “who are these people” such as Dark Souls tends to leave its audience with, but rather questions as vague as “But why?” And I love it. So kudos to the writer for managing to make a game fascinating enough that even though I was not a fan of the gameplay, I still stuck through because I was enthralled. And to the artists too because the visual design is spectacular. I just really hope the next game, if there is one, is a bit fuller. Not necessarily bigger or anything. Just more fleshed out in the gameplay department.

So, in the end would I recommend this to anyone now? Reluctantly, honestly. If it's someone who is really into story and design but doesn't care so much about gameplay then certainly. If it's someone who cares more about gameplay over any other aspect then probably not. I'd still try to get both people to buy Aquaria first, however. Seriously; go play Aquaria.

#nerdshit #Hollow Knight #I finished with 98% #That flower quest broke me #I refuse to do garbage like that #Also the music was okay but kind of forgettable