Exploring Dirtmouth With My Trusty Rusty Nail

Ed. Note: I am talking about the game, Hollow Knight, in this post. There will be spoilers, but no boss names. Be forewarned. 

As I wander through Dirtmouth, tattered cape flapping in the wind, and my nail strapped to my back, I marvel at the lush but bleak environments surrounding me. I don’t say a word as I jump about, hitting bugs with my nail as I do. When I hit them, I get more bug juice to fill my orb, which is the stuff life is made of, and it’s also what later fuels my spells. Hey, I’m a caster at heart, so anything that shoots from a distance and takes mana to use it is magic, even if it’s not called that in the game itself. Game? Did I not mention I was playing Hollow Knight, the game I bought for myself as my birthday present? I wrote in a prior post that I was considering three games for my birthday and that this is the one that least fits what I prefer to play. To put it bluntly, I don’t like platformers. I’m old with slower reflexes and bad eyesight. Platformers are about finesse and precision and quick reactions. It’s an understatement to say that we don’t get along. However, Hollow Knight caught my eye while it was in development because of the graphics and because it’s a Souls-inspired game. I put it on my wishlist and forgot about it, until I was thinking of what game I wanted to buy myself for my birthday.

Side note: One of the reasons I might have a bad impression of me and platformers is because the ones I’ve tried are notorious for their difficulty. Let me hasten to add that despite my affinity for Souls games, I’m not the type to get all macho and seek out the hardest games to conquer. That’s not my jam at all, and the first hardcore game I played and loved was Torchlight, which has a special place in my heart. I still have it installed on my computer, and I will probably never uninstall it, even though I could use the space. Anyway, I mention it as a way to show that I’m not a games snob, only seeking out the hardest games to play. That being said, the games I’ve been drawn to and obsessed over have been more difficult than not. Cook, Serve, Delicious is a surprisingly hard cooking sim, and I played it until I 100%’ed it. I cannot WAIT for the sequel, btw. It should be coming out later this year.

Another game I obsessed over, surprisingly so, was Nuclear Throne–a colorful, charming rogue-like game in which there are several different characters you can take through the wasteland dungeons. Each has a different ability, such as Fish can roll. Crystal (the most player-friendly player) hulks out into a bigger crystal during which she is invulnerable. Perhaps my favorite character is Robot, who can munch weapons for health or ammo. It’s interesting to have different skills like this for the characters because after playing one character, such as Crystal, I found myself needlessly munching weapons as Robot, thinking I’d be hulking out. I stopped playing once I realized that I had hit a hard wall and would never be able to access the newest content because it was for looping the game, which was something I rarely could do. I have no hard feelings, but I realized it just wasn’t for me any longer.

Then, Binding of Isaac Rebirth/Afterbirth. I really didn’t think I’d like this game because I didn’t like the original Binding of Isaac, but after watching Ian play it, I decided to give it a try. To my surprise. I fell in love with it fairly early and poured countless hours into it. It’s another rogue-like which is loosely based on the story of Abraham and Isaac, but much more macabre and twisted. You play as Isaac (and other characters) and become increasingly grotesque as you make your way down the basement to kill–*spoilers*–your mother. I hit a wall with this game, too, but the devs made that wall a little softer, and I kept playing until I got Real Platinum God. It’s considered a hard game as well, though maybe not as hard as Nuclear Throne.

Then, we have the Souls series. My favorite series ever, the current DLC for DS III notwithstanding*. Yes, the games are hard as balls, but that’s never been the main point, at least not for me. I’ve never had a gaming moment as thrilling and intense as when I finally beat Ornstein and Smough (Biggie & Small), and most of my gaming has been trying to duplicate that experience. In addition, the original Souls game was something mind-blowing for me at the time. I’d never seen anything like it, and I wanted to spend my time in its bleak, unforgiving realms. It ground me down the first time I played it, and I was done with Souls until II brought me back to I, and I’ve fallen in love with it all over again. I have to remind myself, though, that the satisfaction for me was never simply in, “I’m playing a very hard game” and not to get bogged down in trying to play the last DLC in the ‘proper’ Souls way, but I digress.

My point is, the platformers I tried prior to Hollow Knight were renowned for their brutality. That’s not why I tried them–it’s because they’re also really excellent games. Super Meatboy and Spelunky. Starting with them is like entering a marathon before I’ve even run a single mile, and I hated playing both of these games. It led me to conclude that I hated platformers in general, or, more to the point, that I sucked at them and shouldn’t play them.

Then, Hollow Knight came along. It’s clearly Souls-inspired in its looks and some of the ethos, and I put it on my Wishlist.  The fact that it was a platformer, however, put it way down on my mental wishlist. Fast-forward to my birthday when I was contemplating buying myself a game. I watched some Let’s Plays of Hollow Knight and immediately fell in love with it. It’s lush and gorgeous, and the music is fantastic. My little player character is adorable, yet slightly menacing, and she looks like a sad bunny to me. Ian thinks she looks like a beetle, which I can also see. She has no mouth, so she cannot talk, but she talks big with her nail when smacking down menacing bugs. I feel fiercely protective of her, and I hate when she dies. An interesting twist, when you die, you have to go get your souls, er, body essence or whatever, but your shadow fights you, so you have to ‘kill’ it before you can get back your souls, er, geos. That’s the money system in the game, but I call them souls. This is confusing because the stuff I call bug juice that gives you life is called soul juice. I *will* use Souls terms as I play, even though the buttons are different–by the way, the buttons are very intuitive. I thought I’d have a hard time getting used to them, but I didn’t. The only thing I don’t like is that the button (B) you hold down to heal is the same button you tap in order to unleash my first magic spell. Fortunately, you can also use RB for the spell, but still.

It’s interesting that your mana and your health draw from the same bug juice. You have to decide do you want health or do you want magicks. I like that you regain bug juice by attacking/killing the enemies, plus, there are pools of it in which you can bathe. The game is also generous in giving you reservoirs of bug juice before a boss, which is very nice of them.

What about the jumping, though, my nemesis in other platformers? It’s taken me some time to get used to jumping and attacking at the same time, and I’m still not great in at it, but it’s becoming more natural. The platforming itself isn’t terribly hard or finicky, which is terrific for me. I feel as if the jumping in this game is the background to exploring this haunting world filled with quirky and interesting characters. I’m still not great at judging when to jump, when to attack, and when to jump and attack, but I don’t find myself getting too frustrated when I have to start over. There’s a map problem because I have spatial awareness difficulties and I don’t start with a map, but I can buy them and a a compass (which I hope and assume will be permanent), and Souls games don’t have maps at all, anyway. I will admit to getting frustrated now and again because I kept getting lost, but I just accept that’s part of the experience, and now I know the first area fairly well.

The game is not difficult in the sense that Souls is (so far). The first real boss freaked me out when I ran into it, but it didn’t give me the ‘oh, shit, I’ll never beat it’ feeling. I did think it would take a few hours, but he turned out to be big and slow, and I was able to read his attacks fairly well. It only took me four or five times to beat him, which is nothing in Souls terms. I felt elated when I beat him and opened up new paths.

I’ve only played a few hours, and I’ve only seen one area (BIG area), but I’m already all-in with this game. I love the aesthetics and the music–which is usually something I just ignore–and I adore my player character. It’s strange because I normally like to create my player character to look like me as much as possible, but I love this little gal, even though I had no hand in creating her.** I am willing to go on this journey with her and see where it takes me. I quit yesterday right after opening a new area, but not because I feared what was coming up, though I did a bit, but because I knew I would need to dedicate a good chunk of time to exploring it.

That’s the strength of this game to me–the world I’m moving in and my desire to seek out every nook and cranny. That’s a similar feeling I have when playing Souls–I eagerly seek out the bonfires, er, benches so I can rest and update my map (in Hollow Knight) and the shortcuts I can open by hitting a lever. I like the way fast travel is handled in this game, and I love the NPCs I run into. The gameplay itself is almost incidental to me, and that’s a compliment to the developers, Team Cherry.

I love this game wholeheartedly. I can’t wait to sink more hours into it.

 

 

 

*I haven’t finished it yet, but I have not enjoyed it so far. That’s not saying it’s bad, but that I’m personally not into it. I will do a post on this later.

**I’m sure the protagonist is supposed to be male, but since she doesn’t have a name and doesn’t talk, she’s a she to me.