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.