Hollow Knight Voidheart Edition - our review

Small budgets give rise to great titles ...

The Metroidvania that has raised over 56.000 Australian dollars (corresponding to approximately € 34.868) on Kickstarter has arrived on all platforms! The title was initially released on Steam only for the PC players. Given the success of critics and audiences, it was decided to convert Hollow Knight for MacOS and Linux, and later the development team decided to bring this indie platformer to Nintendo Switch.

On September 25th it finally landed on the most important consoles of this generation, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

An unnamed knight and a fantastic adventure

Hollow Knight takes place entirely in the ancient and abandoned kingdom of Hallownest. The player controls a knight with the typical features of an insect and wields a sword which in all respects resembles a nail.

During the game, you will face insects or other types of unfriendly enemies. And this is precisely where the nail comes into play: to eliminate the various enemies you can use this bizarre sword for short range attacks. As for long range attacks, our silent knight will be able to use different spells.

The combat system of Hollow Knight is the only drawback of the whole title, as the variety of moves is quite limited, all seasoned with lack of a combo system, does not help the game to close with a perfect score. Not that the fights to be faced are boring or easy, far from it. Hollow Knight manages to offer a great variety in encounters, despite the simplicity of the combat. Simple but effective.

Hybrid genus

Once defeated the enemies will release to the ground i Geo, the currency of Hollow Knight. If, on the other hand, you get the worst of it, you will lose all the Geo and you will leave a shadow in the place of crime. Nothing is lost, however, to recover everything, just go back to the same point and defeat the Shadow Broker who took all your Geo.

Hollow Knight clearly belongs to the genre Metroidvania, but some mechanics are evident Soulslike. Whatever the genre in which it fits, this title will have fun with all its (many) fights and a constant sense of growth accompanying our mysterious knight.

THEtensive atmosphere will accompany you during every single step and the same enemies will help make the progress dangerous. There variety of enemies available is quite wide, there are as many as 100 different enemies, each with unique characteristics and behavior.

The importance of bosses

Each boss is strategically placed, each with a deep one lore, not always easy to discover. You will soon discover that each of them is completely unique and offers a challenge level that will satisfy even the most demanding players. Don't think it's over here: in fact there are many secondary bosses, hidden in the dark corners of the game world. Some of these can be faced only after reaching a certain point of the adventure.

If you explore enough to find these particular enemies you can take the pulse of the difficulty of this title. You will find that thehigh challenge rate some of these will put you to the test, but at the same time will make you feel like real heroes, giving you great satisfaction.

Level Design

Hollow Knight is a Metroidvania of great quality, in fact it is nothing short of praiseworthy the positioning of shortcuts and fast travels, also and above all in the light of labyrinthine structure of the game map.

We can safely say that the level design of Hollow Knight touches some peaks of excellence such that some titles of the same genre would blush with envy.

And the plot?

You wanna know everything huh? Hollow Knight has an anomalous, hidden storyline that requires the player that extra effort to fully empathize with it.

The story doesn't tell players directly what happened, but it forces them to explore the different environments, talk to the various NPCs wandering Hallownest or discovering murky secrets. The narrative, although broken into various fragments, is in itself masterly and the discovery of the traditions of the people is nothing short of fascinating.

In Hollow Knight you will happen to feel not only a knight-errant, but at times also a cartographer and a historian, with the task of connect the pieces of the kingdom epic. A web of plots that connect peoples and buildings to be explored, told through texts, conversations and level design.

How far to go ...

The player, after having wandered for a long time, will find himself in front of the entire game world, with everything that goes with it, in certain points you will reach more than 20 paths to be faced. Fortunately, the inclusion of the markers it will be very helpful, as it will allow you to understand where to start.

Initially you will even be without the map, so as you can imagine it will not be easy to extricate yourself within such a convoluted environment. To acquire this valuable tool you will need to first find the cartographer, which will gradually sell you the maps depicting the various areas.

However, our Knight will be able to acquire the ability to update the map yourself after which he will have a pen and inkwell with him. But be careful: you can only complete the maps already purchased!

Game mechanics

The game may seem similar at first glance to other proven titles, but Hollow Knight is at its best when delving deep into the game mechanics: Don't let yourself be betrayed by a fairly basic combat system.

The moves that you can unleash against the various enemies that the game puts in front of you can be combined with amulets and magic attacks, which will bring significant improvements to your equipment. The balancing of these enhancements is exemplary as each is studied to the end so as not to make the experience unbalanced.

This system will also allow you to beat the toughest bosses. In fact, by periodically changing the amulets according to the enemies, you will have a better chance of success. In fact, the game allows you to build real builds combining the effects of these objects, with a good dose of customization.

A heart full of content ...

To the already overwhelming Hollow Knight offering, the developers of Team Cherry have added in the span of a single year well four new expansions, rewarding fans.

These very welcome additions bring the title to greater longevity. Just think that the standard game provides about 50 hours of entertainment if fully explored. The Void Heart Edition includes the introduction of new bosses, enemies and challenges. The latest expansion (Godmaster) offers both new challenges and brand new endings; the former can be defined as arenas that involve clashing with old and new bosses, including bindings boss-rush.

The expansion The Grimm Troupe then offers, in addition to enemies that are anything but nice, a boss fight with a villain looking nothing short of scenic and of extreme difficulty, Grimm in fact.

Finally, if you find yourself in difficulty along the way through Halosacro, here you can find ours complete guide to the game and lore!