Hollow Knight PC Review | NoobFeed

Sprinkling souls-like elements over its Metroidvania core, Hollow Knight is a challenging, atmospheric journey one must undertake.

[quent]

I really wish indie gems like this that deserves to get noticed would get more coverage

[Woozeh]

We do what we can :) I was also surprised to see it go under the radar. Regardless, it's a great title.

[Cobra951]

Thanks for the earnest, detailed review. I would have placed my earlier reply here, had I realized then you were its author.

Edit: You touch on another irritating issue, which is uneven performance. While this team may not have the same resources behind Ori and the Blind Forest, there is no excuse for stutters in a 2D sidescroller on a system that runs Rise of the Tomb Raider at an unflinching 60 fps. That's incomplete development, in my view.

[Cobra951]

"Regarding the stutters, they don't seem to be too widespread . . ."

Sadly, I've now put this title away until a fix arrives. I'm in the ancestral mound, right after getting that spirit ranged attack. I'm trapped here, and the stuttering is so bad while trying to defeat this boss character who throws little rolling bugs at me, that the result is pure impotent frustration. It is imperative for the controls to respond precisely when I use them here, and that simply isn't happening. A lot of button presses are unresponsive when the game engine basically freezes up. This is pure anathema to the kind of game HK is. The only word that fits my evaluation of it right now is "unacceptable".

Supposedly this will be fixed, but it certainly isn't yet. I will hold off playing it until then.

[Cobra951]

I'm struggling with it, but I admit I haven't given it my full attention. There is no direction at all, and just finding where to go and what to do is more challenging than the combat. I imagine that is supposed to be part of its appeal. I enjoy good puzzles as well as anyone, but I haven't played a Metroidvania game before that seems to all be a puzzle (even navigation).

These are just impressions of an incomplete experience. I must get further into it to get the full picture.

[Woozeh]

Struggling with it is normal, especially in the beginning. Writing down vendor locations and inventory would probably be a neat idea too, now that I think of it. It does seem that the devs put big emphasis on not telling you where to go. What worked for me is approaching it with an attidute focused on exploration, rather than defeating boss x.The latter worked with other titles, but not here.

Regarding the stutters, they don't seem to be too widespread, although I haven't checked in a while. It could be a case of it not popping up during testing due to it occuring only on certain configurations. But in the wake of certain bosses, the occasional stutter-induced death isn't that much of a big deal. I'm hoping they'll be active with patches, though.

Take your time with it and you won't regret it :)