“Metroidvania” is a bit of a misguided portmanteau. Distill the essence, and you fundamentally have “Super Metroid, but (fill in the blank).”

-Symphony of the Night is “Super Metroid, but in Dracula’s castle.”
-Cave Story is “Super Metroid, but in a floating island.”
-Shadow Complex is “Super Metroid, but as a bad 90s action movie.”
-Muramasa is “Super Metroid, but feudal Japan.”

Hollow Knight is “Super Metroid, but Tim Burton.” You will also hear Dark Souls and impossible platformers tossed in as co-equal partners in this alliance. To an extent, that’s also true, but there’s no mistaking the blueprint this game is built from. It’s the latest in a long line of games trying to build from the bones of R&D1’s classic.

How successful is it in doing so? After 35 hours, collecting 56% of items, and dying dozens of times to the game’s many bosses, I’m not sure. When Hollow Knight is good, it’s as good as any game of its type that has ever been made. Some people will immediately put this game in their all-time top 10; there will be people who place this alongside Super and Symphony, and I understand why. But there are enough flaws to keep this game behind such lofty company.

It’s worth separating this game out in its three sections.

The Beginning – Promising, but grindy, and needlessly so.

“Oh, you want a map?” Of course, I’ll buy it.
“Oh, you want a compass to see where you actually are on the map?” Well yeah, I’ll buy it.
“Oh, you want the icons to see where shops are?” Fiiiiiine, I’ll buy it.
“Oh you want pins to mark your map for areas of interest?” F*ck off, man.

For each of these upgrades, prepare to haul your ass back up to the starting village to pay for standard map features. Geo (the game’s money) isn’t hard to come by, but you will likely need a few trips back topside to buy enough essentials to make adventuring seamless. That’s the beginning of the game: grind for money, schlep back and forth to the town, and like it, friend. The great visuals and music aren’t enough to make it feel like you’re doing anything but prep work. Fortunately, your prep is worth the time.

The Middle – Game of the Year-quality.

Everyone you’ve heard raving about Hollow Knight is talking about the section between getting to Greenpath, and the endgame. It really is that good. The world unfurls in a near-magic reveal. The art really is as good as you think it is from that trailer. Better, in fact, when you see it in motion for yourself. Two dudes drew this by hand. The density of the art doesn’t quite rival Vanillaware, but the finished product is enough to make me wonder why it takes 70 people in Austin to make a pure platformer when Team Cherry did a more ambitious game design, and made arguably the better looking game (‘dat parallax). Caveat? The lighting system. For most of the game, you get spotlight/lantern lighting. Sometimes it’s a wonderful effect that adds a greater sense of movement to a simple 2D game. Sometimes it’s an excuse to hide an enemy in a dark part of the screen. Most of the time it will make you wish you could see the whole screen lit up to appreciate the full scope of Team Cherry’s drawing chops. The mid-to-late game environments are a scene, man.

And speaking of those locales, everytime you think “yeah, I’ve probably seen most of the game,” you’ll find a new area. The land of Hallownest is gargantuan. The beats of “find new area, find new map, find quick travel” set into a rhythm, and it’s like you’re a kid again playing an SNES game, wondering what’s beyond that door that you can’t quite reach yet. Thankfully, it’s all fairly logically put together, too. It’s easy to get lost, but with the transit system as a fast-travel shortcut, it’s easy to get in the general vicinity of where you’d like to go.

You may be using those shortcuts often, because unless you’re a seasoned pro, you’re gonna die. Perhaps many times. Which means you’re going to have to track down your shade/shadow, who will be carrying all of the money you had. If you die before then? Goodbye cash. Play conservatively to get to your shadow, and whenever you have any opportunity to spend money, do it. Buy every charm you possibly can. The only thing more important than the map expanding to let you explore is getting the right charms. If you find a vendor, buy them the eff out. My two biggest complaints early in the game were my attack range, and also that every attack generates a knock-back for you (which really screws with your platforming). You can charm those problems away.

Gameplay-wise? Mechanically, it’s mostly solid. There are a few times where I tried to do a down-slash, but the game would steadfastly refuse to read that input. (After a little research, this might be an issue endemic to Unity.) But you’ve mostly got stability that keeps up with the moveset – a moveset that will grow by the end of the game to challenge you with “impossible platformer” sections. Some you can ignore, but some are gonna make you swear loudly enough that your upstairs neighbor will come check on you. Sorry, Pam.

Then there are the bosses. Some early ones are pretty tough, but once you get your pattern recognition translated into a little twitchier input, you’ll be fine. I suck at hard games, so if I could beat this, you can. Sometimes the answer is obvious (stand and wait for the boss to make a move), sometimes it’s just a matter of not getting too greedy and accepting that one hit is all you’re going to land. And a good portion of bosses can be ignored altogether.

Characters you’ve met throughout the game slowly shift, ever so slightly, to give them some narrative closure. There is one moment concerning an ally that I won’t spoil here, but the payoff is so subtle, so understated, that it might go by without most people even noticing it.

The End – Take all of that good will, and threaten to throw it in a garbage can.

I’m betting most people who reviewed this game either didn’t finish it, watched the ending(s) on youtube, or were too afraid of “git gud” comments to offer any substantive criticism. There are two unskippable end-bosses that are, as the kids say, pure RNG garbage. I even tried watching a few youtube vids myself to get attack patterns down, but…because that “R” is for random, you ain’t necessarily gonna find the same patterns or order of attacks. I figured out a way to cheese through one by spamming some charm abilities; the other required repetition until the boss finally didn’t string together so many horse-excrement attacks. Random can be fun – Monster Hunter is plenty random with its algorithm for monster attacks. But it’s far less fun when you’re in a small room with no time or space to heal. When I finally “beat” these bosses, I didn’t feel accomplishment or relief. It was wholly unfulfilling. I didn’t beat anything. The RNG algorithm merely hiccups and there’s your win.

And then there’s the upgrades needed to even get to the end-boss. This is a game thick with lore, but unless you’re keeping notes, you’re likely to miss hints for what you need to go find. Oh, there’s one clue in particular, but it’s buried in dialog, which could easily have occurred 20-30 hours prior, depending on your playing habits. Unless you’ve googled a speedrun, you flat-out can’t beat the game without one of two specific upgrades. And unless you’ve had the good luck to stumble into them on this gigantic map, you won’t find them, because they’re located in far-flung locations. It’s a bit nuts. Think of Super for a moment. That game throws the shaft of no return at you in Brinstar, where you are led to explore a small area of Norfair to get the high-jump boots, which then lead you to the only spot you haven’t explored – Kraid’s lair. Beating Kraid gives you the Varia suit, and voila, you can explore the rest of Norfair to find the ice beam, then go up the shaft and get the power bomb. You can ignore the Spazer, the Plasma Beam, the Screw Ball, but Super leads you to the power-ups you absolutely need. Hollow Knight mostly can’t be bothered. I happened upon a particular required power-up because I decided to fight a particular boss…which I easily could have skipped, like I skipped so many other bosses.

Were you to play without an eye toward lore or story, the end of Hollow Knight could be the modern equivalent of kneeling with a ruby and waiting for a tornado in Simon’s Quest.

But you should still play it.

You should play it because of the exquisite art, the haunting music, the thrill of exploring. You should play it because of the Super Metroid callbacks, and for the Prime callback. You should play it because it’s proof that the era of 700-member game development teams now seems comical when two people and some helpers do this, and sell it for $15.

You ever been in a relationship with someone who’s a little, y’know, out there? Oh, you like the same music, and quote the same movies, and enjoy the same restaurants, and the sex is pretty great. But eventually, the relationship ends because you drive each other crazy due to some fundamental differences.

We’ll never be married, Hollow Knight. But I’ll always remember you.