The genre never exactly went away, but there's been a definite renaissance over recent years, with fledgling indie developers finding the concept well suited to small-scale game production, and mechanics from the genre filtering into more modern titles, with Dark Souls especially transposing the sense of isolation and the journey into the unknown into the shell of a 3D combat RPG.
In fact, of late it's like metroidvanias have become the pulled pork of videogames. Or, no. The Belgian saisons of videogames: a cult style thrust into the spotlight as the current in vogue choice for buyers who want to seem more discerning than the mainstream. Not quite the dry-hopped fruit-bomb IPA of the gaming world, but only a few rungs below.
Do you know what I'm saying? Not the spiced pumpkin latte, but perhaps the flat white.
So Hollow Knight, a Kickstarter-funded metroidvania from indie devs Team Cherry, is nothing if not obvious. Add in elements popularised by Dark Souls (borrowing from the thing that borrowed, thereby closing the circle) - such as the exact same death mechanic, the slow process of channelling your healing ability, a succession of punishing boss encounters, an overall sense of haunting loneliness and melancholy, and neutral characters met amidst the desolation who offer enigmatic, poetic, forlorn words in your ear - and you've got precisely the videogame that a 2017 videogame concept generator on the internet would spill out as a maximum amalgamation of cliches.
Except who the hell cares, when it's done this damn well? Yes, on paper it sounds laughably generic, but in reality it steps so confidently, speaks in its own assured voice, gets the basics so right, that it comes fiercely alive.
Hollow Knight is a microbrewed hipster saison so classy that it gives Saison Dupont a run for its money. It is pulled pork that you actually want to eat. It is a metroidvania almost as good as Super Metroid on the SNES, and in some regards it is better.
The wistful, elegiac soundtrack is wonderful, always of-a-piece, yet with each area completely distinct. Ambient noises are beautiful, scuttling limbs, buzzing wings, sounds muffled through walls of dirt, the plop of water droplets, the hiss of toxic lakes. And the visual design is just sumptuous. There’s the sense of regret and isolation and lamentation of Dark Souls, but none of the dirge. The drained and deathly blues and greys of the first few areas are perfect, but soon give out to lush and verdant caves, glittering crystal caverns, decaying fungi patches. The world of Hallownest is beautifully realised, and not half as isolating as it first appears. There’s a vibrancy and sense of life beneath the surface, uncovered as if turning stones in a forgotten shed to reveal a teeming insectoid realm.
The game feel is great. Your nail, your character's little sword, has a vicious, snappy swipe to it. Movement is precise, jumping has the right amount of float. There’s a dash that you can perform in mid-air, and a wall-climb that’s as satisfying as anything in Mario, not least because you have to wait a number of hours before you find it, going the long way round, then when you’ve got it those previous obstacles turn into an open playground. The sense of progression is well managed, with lots of backtracking through older areas, and what starts as a ghost town on the surface slowly comes to life as you meet or rescue denizens in the depths who begin to populate the abandoned buildings up top. This parallels your own journey of development, upgrading your strengths and abilities, coming back to once-feared enemies and now dispatching them with ease. But pushing forwards you always feel strained, your nerves taut, facing an unknown constantly more difficult and stressful than you want it to be. Which is exactly right.
I’m maybe a third, halfway, through the game currently, so I can’t say for certain, but so far Hollow Knight has been one of the better gaming experiences I’ve had of recent years. It’s good enough that I’m playing it right now in preference to Breath of the Wild, and I’ve yet to finish that on Switch.
Man, that’s a hell of a game though. Bravo Breath of the Wild. Bravo Hollow Knight.
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