Hollow Knight also felt like it was in dialogue with the Souls series, because the Souls series iterated on a ton of Metroid’s mechanics in a new space. So it took Souls’ “what if Metroid mapping, lonely mysterious vibes, backtracking and key/locks, but slower paced 3d combat and the keys aren’t weapons” and went “Ok but what if we used the lessons we learned from you to improve the Super Metroid formula that inspired you?”