On this blessed day I want to sit and talk to you all about a video game. Not just any video game, mind- but a Video game that I love. A spectacular video game. A game called Hollow Knight. Why such a topic comes to mind? Honestly I don't know. Maybe I just want to get things off my chest. Maybe I just want to expel some pent up air that has been stuck behind my heart for the past few years in a throbbing sense of expectation that, at last, I'm giving up on. Maybe I'm just trying to remind myself why it is any of us wanted to see this thing expand into a universe in the first place- and maybe in the exploration of that past I might touch on some nugget of why that can never be. Like a pool gazing at the majesty of the stars through the murky gleam of the gutter- maybe through the murk of defeat some deeper truth can be gleaned.
Hollow Knight was one of those games that I heard about in the same breath as other Indie Platformers that just never seemed to gel with me. Celeste and Child of Light and all those other high fantasy titles that expand some small metaphor out into a grand, and sometimes a little bit overindulgent, tale. (Not to denigrate Celeste by lumping it up with those others, mind- I just didn't like Celeste because precision platforming is not in itself a satisfying game mechanic to me.) It would earn the praise and love of many but I filed the game away as more of the same. I'd try games like that and fell off- which is in itself very unusual for me. I completed the bloody RPG Assassin's Creed games- I stick with trash! But, of course, at some point I was to learn how off base I was.
I couldn't say what drew me to buying Hollow Knight- probably a Steam Sale of some sort- but I know exactly what made me play it. I had tried the game out some little bit and gotten as far as the resting place of The Hollow Knight before kind of drifting away. (Yeah, I really wasn't giving it the time of day.) But if there's one thing you should all know about me, it's that I'm stubborn. And ill mannered. So when I saw someone else playing Hollow Knight on a Youtube steam, and they were clearing in a different area to where I was when I last played, (the background was green instead of blue) the petty in my awoke. "Who the hell does this guy think he is- making me look bad? Why, now I've got to reach this green area so I know what's going on! I didn't stop because the game was hard, I can do this!" Which is what sparked my attention, soon-to-become obsession.
Those familiar with the Metroidvania style of gameplay know well the appeal of exploration that opens up in a manner that feels organic. There's a maze of exploration opened up to you not limited by different coloured doors but rather the movement abilities you unlock throughout the game. It required an impressive amount of forethought on the level designer's end to not only intelligently design these roadblocks but to have them comprehensive and foreshadow-able in the early game so players can file away the complication and remember their way back the moment they earn the solution ability. But not every Metroidvania out there goes the extra step that Hollow Knight goes- to combine their movement abilities with honest to goodness battle powerups!
There's another thing unique about Hollow Knight- platforming is not the key most focus of the game. It's actually the platforming combat that steals the show, showcased in eye-poppingly tight and cut-throat boss fights against some of the most impressive grand, dignified and grotesque creates possible to conceived in the nearly monochromatic, simply cutesy whilst emotionally vacant art style. Style, is the word I'd use to describe the game the best. Across it's bug kingdom you'll find so many layers of horror, faded grandeur and primordial blasphemy it's hard not to envision the insectile world of the game as the stage for some sort of grand epic. And in fact- it pretty much is.
Personally I'd always considered one of the highest pieces of gaming artistry to be the Dark Souls franchise for the way it captures fantastic gameplay, memorable set pieces and unique sensation of reward within a deeply woven world narrative that simply could not be told nearly as completely in any other medium. Which is why it is with the utmost reverence that I consider Hollow Knight, a game which derived clear inspiration from Dark Souls along with other properties, as it's equal. Praise I offer nearly no other non-FromSoftware Souls-Like. The story of the Hollow Knight created to hold back the Radiance is weaved so beautifully into the canvass of the world I just want to jump in an experience it all over again everytime I think about it.
Whatsmore, Hollow Knight is complete. So fully realised. It is a story with a conclusion and wrap up that solves every loose end to such a perfect degree that future additions to the story both added a totally new plot thread to play through- largely disconnected to the happenings of the Hallownest- and added another conclusion to the story that ended in pretty much the exact same way. Just cooler. (I think the original true ending is still canon though. For what it symbolically represents.) That freeing aspect made it so that any follow-up could do literally whatever it wanted. Go anywhere. Star anyone. There was no need for the last surviving member of the Hallownest Royal Family to be seen ever again- and yet still we celebrated when we saw our main girl Hornet take centre stage for the doomed 'Hollow Knight: Silksong.'
It's hard to put into words how ravenous fans have been for this follow up- many champion Hollow Knight as one of the greatest games of all time and I don't exactly disagree with that sentiment at all. I think it's a remarkable game with so much to offer I would be a selfish fool not to recommend it. And perhaps that very hunger- the height to which Hollow Knight was foisted upon it's pedestal, is what is standing between us and our game. We know Silksong started life as DLC, but expanding that out to a full game seemed to have required a total reworking that has utterly floored the team- atop with the ever increasing expectation from a people who expect Team Cherry to match a game they literally consider perfection.
I'm not going to be one of those terminal pseudo-psyche coded naysayers who will insist it simply isn't possible. Expectations have been built so high that Team Cherry are doomed to disappoint. There are so many examples of the buck being successfully risen to in recent years alone. Across the Spider-Verse, Endgame and I hear preliminary reports declare Shadow of the Erdtree is a legendary DLC- the best FromSoftware have ever put out. But those are examples of sheer excellence, and 'sheer excellence' is a heavy spectre to be sitting on anyone's shoulders, let alone that of an indie team. I can't pretend to know what a group of Australians get up to when totally cut off from the Internet, but I know if I were in their position I'd be doing my best Yoshikage Kira- biting my nails until I draw blood, wondering how far I need to stick a that golden arrow up my neck before the problem goes away. Here's hoping that Team Cherry release the game sometime before turning into time travelling serial killer bombers.
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