I’m not OP, but Hollow Knight is a master-class of world design imo. The world is absolutely massive and seamlessly connected, it feels like it never ends until you finally reach the end game. Seeing it loop back on itself 10+ hours later is something I almost never see anywhere else.
The combat is also fairly simple but very tight. There’s a crazy amount of enemy variety and it has some of the most exciting bosses in the genre - especially if you’re going for the true ending. I played so much of the genre but nothing gave me the feeling HK did. I finished it 3 times.
It was, imo, the founder of the Vania part of Metroidvanias, so they didn’t have the benefit of standing upon many shoulders. Hollow Knight is a great spiritual successor to that endeavor, and I agree that they took much of what made SotN great and improved upon it.
It’s interesting watching people get so excited by HK, I have to wonder if that’s what it was like when SotN and successive games came out.
Symphony of the Night is, in fact, the origin of the term Metroidvania but not in the way you might think. Castlevania pre SotN was a very different series with none of the elements associated with “metroidvania”, so people started calling SOTN a “metroid-vania” derogatorily, as a Castlevania that was trying to ape Metroid. The term had staying power for the genre because what the fuck else are you gonna call them, it was before slapping -like on everything was popular but after calling stuff “clones” had fallen out of favor. No, “search action” will never be a thing. And you’re not just gonna call them Metroids because that’s one specific series. So after future Castlevanias had Metroidy stuff in them, it became a genre name.
I’m not OP, but Hollow Knight is a master-class of world design imo. The world is absolutely massive and seamlessly connected, it feels like it never ends until you finally reach the end game. Seeing it loop back on itself 10+ hours later is something I almost never see anywhere else.
The combat is also fairly simple but very tight. There’s a crazy amount of enemy variety and it has some of the most exciting bosses in the genre - especially if you’re going for the true ending. I played so much of the genre but nothing gave me the feeling HK did. I finished it 3 times.
Do give Symphony of the Night a try sometime! You’d probably enjoy it.
I have! and it’s a great game but still not quite the level of HK
It was, imo, the founder of the Vania part of Metroidvanias, so they didn’t have the benefit of standing upon many shoulders. Hollow Knight is a great spiritual successor to that endeavor, and I agree that they took much of what made SotN great and improved upon it.
It’s interesting watching people get so excited by HK, I have to wonder if that’s what it was like when SotN and successive games came out.
Symphony of the Night is, in fact, the origin of the term Metroidvania but not in the way you might think. Castlevania pre SotN was a very different series with none of the elements associated with “metroidvania”, so people started calling SOTN a “metroid-vania” derogatorily, as a Castlevania that was trying to ape Metroid. The term had staying power for the genre because what the fuck else are you gonna call them, it was before slapping -like on everything was popular but after calling stuff “clones” had fallen out of favor. No, “search action” will never be a thing. And you’re not just gonna call them Metroids because that’s one specific series. So after future Castlevanias had Metroidy stuff in them, it became a genre name.
Neat!